In the valley of the Aspe, with snow-capped mountains in full view, there is a surprising softness of climate all through the year. In this valley was the last refuge of Protestantism in the days of the religious wars, and the little village of Bedous still possesses a "temple" and a "pastor." Above Bedous, towards the crest of the Pyrenees, is Accous, and as one progresses things become more and more Spanish, until the sign "_Posada_" is as frequent as "_Auberge_." Accous offers no curiosities to visitors, but it was here that Victor Hugo gave the last glimpses of Jean Valjean when the police were close upon his trail; "at the place called the _Grange de Doumec_, near the hamlet of Chavilles," ran the romance. From this point the valley of the Aspe opens almost perpendicularly into the heart of the rock wall of the Pyrenees; it is a veritable chasm in its upper reaches; and in this rocky defile was once a tiny feudality, absorbed and later wiped into oblivion by the Revolution. Beyond Sarrance are Urdos and Somport and the fortress of Portalet. The route was known to the ancients as that through which the Saracens came from Spain to over-run southern Gaul. Somport was the _Summus Pyreneus_ of the old-time historians of the Romans. CHAPTER XXIII ORTHEZ AND THE GAVE D'OLORON Orthez is another of those cities of the Pyrenees which does not live up to its possibilities, at least not in a commercial sense. Nevertheless, some of us find it all the more delightful for that. It is a city where the relics of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance are curiously intermingled, and if one within its walls so chose he could imagine himself as living in the past as well as in the present, and this in spite of the fact that the city has been remodelled and restored in certain quarters out of all semblance to its former self. There is little or nothing remaining of that time which Froissart described with such minuteness when writing of the court at Orthez' château. All that remains of this great pile is the Tour de Moncade, but from its grandeur and commanding site one realizes well enough that in its time it was hardly overshadowed by the better preserved edifices at Pau and Foix. At the northeast of Orthez, on a hill overlooking the city is an ancient, rectangular tower, its sides mellowed by ages, and its crest in ruins. "_Savez-vous ce que sont ces ruines?_" you ask of any one, and they will tell you that it is all that remains of the fine chateau of Gaston Phoebus. Fêtes and crimes were curiously intermingled within its walls, for always little rivulets of blood flowed in mediæval times as the accompaniment of the laughter of the feast. Gaston de Foix, after the burning of his château, came to Orthez in the thirteenth century, and began the citadel of Orthez--the "_château-noble_" of the chronicles of Froissart. The edifice played an important rôle in the history of Béarn.