Without question this Château de Lourdat ranks as one of the most spectacular of all the Pyrenean châteaux. Its rank in history, too, is quite in keeping with its extraordinary situation, though nothing very startling ever happened within its walls. It dates from the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, and outside that of the capital of Foix was the most efficient stronghold the counts possessed. Louis XIII demolished the edifice, in part, fearing its powers of resistance, and as a base from which some new project might be launched against him. Accordingly, it is a ruin to-day, but in spite of this there are still left four pronounced lines of fortifications before one comes to the inner precincts of the château. For this reason alone it ranks as one of the most strongly defended of all contemporary feudal works. Even the old _Cité de Carcassonne_ has but two encircling walls. The square donjon rising in the middle is in the best style of that magnificent royal builder, Gaston Phoebus, and is reminiscent of the works of Foulques Nerra in mid-France. There is also a great ogive-arched portal, or gateway, which made still another defence to be scaled before one finally entered within. In situation and general spectacular effect the Château de Lourdat takes a very near rank to that rock-perched château at Le Puy--"the most picturesque spot in the world." [Illustration: _Château de Lourdat_] CHAPTER XIII ST. LIZIER AND THE COUSERANS Le Pays de Couserans lies in the valley of the Salat, in the mid-Pyrenees, hemmed in by Foix, Comminges and Spain. Its name is derived from the Euskarans, an Iberian tribe who were here on the spot in the dark ages. The history of the Couserans is not known to anything like the extent of its neighbouring states, and is, accordingly, very little travelled by strangers from afar, save long-bearded antiquarians who come to study St. Lizier, and regret that they were not obliged to come on donkey-back as of old, instead of by rail or automobile. The trouble with antiquarianism, as a profession, or a passion, is that it leads one to fall into a sleepy unprogressiveness which comports little with the modern means at hand for doing things. A photographic plate of a curious Roman inscription is far more truthful and convincing than the most painstaking Ruskinese pencil drawing ever limned, and a good "process-cut" of the broad strokes of some facile modern artist's brush is more typical of the characteristics of a landscape than the finest wood or steel engraving our grandfathers ever knew.