A Book of the Pyrenees. Baring-Gould Sabine

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СКАЧАТЬ what has been supposed to be an Euscaldunic, i.e. Basque camp. I planned this and sent plan and description to the Archæologia, in 1852. But with greater experience of ancient camps than I had then, I have come to doubt whether it is what has been supposed. It consists of a platform on a hillock with a network of trenches about it, and ridges between them sharp as the back of a knife. It may have been used as a camp of refuge, but it could not contain a large force, and the dykes around appear to have been formed by currents of water.

      Itxasson is an eminently Basque village. The church contains rich ornaments of silver gilt for the altar, given in the eighteenth century by an emigrant, Pedro d’Echegaray, on his return from America, where he had realized a fortune. The Basques, it may be noticed, do not give their names to houses and farms, but assume as surnames those place names from which they came.

      From Itxasson the Pas de Roland is reached in half an hour on foot. It is an archway bored in the crag beside the river. Road and railway have so maltreated the rock that the Pas is now hardly worth a special visit. It was through this arch that the Roman road passed, and through it Roland the Paladin went to his death at Roncevaux. According to local legend Roland set his foot against the rock and burst a way through it by pressure. Road and rail now enter the mountains following the river.

      At Bidarray, on the mountain-side, is a grotto, about thirty feet deep. In one corner a ladder conducts to a cavity, at the back of which is a stalagmitic incrustation three feet high, of a livid hue, rudely representing a human torso. This is held in high veneration by the peasantry, and is called “the Saint of Bidarry,” though who the saint was whom it is supposed to represent nobody can say. A very similar incrustation occupies a niche in the Gorge of the Ardèche, and is there held to be a lively presentation of Charlemagne. Sick people seek this cave and soak rags in the water that dribbles from the figure, and which has in fact built it up. They apply the rags to the suffering parts of their bodies, and depart believing themselves to be healed, but the rags are left behind as ex votos.

      S. Jean-Pied-de-Port was the key to the port or pass into Spain, and especially to the communication between Upper and Lower Navarre. It occupies a point where three streams fall into the Nive. There had been a Gallo-Roman town three miles distant at S. Jean-le-Vieux, but it had been destroyed by the Saracens. The present town was founded by the Garcias, kings of Navarre, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. S. Jean, from the Treaty of the Pyrenees to the Revolution, during three reigns, was the capital of French Navarre. There are several old houses in the town, some of the Renaissance Period, and owing to their being built of red sandstone have a warm and pleasant aspect. The citadel was constructed by Deville in 1668, but was remodelled by Vauban, as were also the ramparts of the town.

      The first book in Basque that was printed and published was by Bernard d’Echepare, curé of S. Jean-Pied-de-Port, in 1545. It consists of two parts. The first contains Christian doctrine, moral sentences, and passages from Scripture, good for edification. But strangely united with this, under the same cover and with continuous numeration of pages, is a collection of the priest’s erotic poems.

      Si … turpiter atrum

      Desinat in piscem mulier fermosa superne,

      Spectatum admissi risum teneatis, amici?

      He frankly admits that he had had his love adventures. “I would not go to heaven, not I,” he tells us, “unless I were sure of meeting women there.”

      He gives us a picture of female charms too highly coloured to bear reproduction. He throws in episodes from his own experience. In one of his escapades he got into such a scrape that he was incarcerated by order of the king of Navarre. “Il est à regretter,” says Michel, “qu’il se soit borné à nous parler de sa détention, sans en indiquer ni la cause, ni le lieu, ni l’époque.”

      S. Jean-Pied-de-Port should be visited at the time of its patronal fête, 15 to 18 August, where day and night are given up to concerts, games, masquerades, and allegorical dances performed by the peasants of la Haute Soule.

      But should a visitor be there at midsummer he should make an effort to push on to Pampeluna for the fête of 7 July, when for over a week the city keeps holiday —les gigantes parade the streets, monstrous figures, representing Moors; and the Alcalde and Corporation dance in front of the cathedral in honour of S. Firmin, the patron saint. He will, moreover, have an opportunity of seeing the pretty Navarrese girls, who have come out of the country for the great annual merry-making.

      But the place of highest historic and romantic interest to be visited from S. Jean-Pied-de-Port is Roncevaux. Here, on 15 August, 778, the army of Charlemagne met with a crushing defeat, in which Roland and the twelve peers of the emperor were overwhelmed by rocks hurled down on them by the Basques.

      The contemporary Eginhard tells us that the king invaded Spain at the head of a huge army, pushed on as far as Saragossa, and there received hostages from the Saracen chiefs. On his return, whilst entangled in the Pyrenean pass, the Basques attacked his rearguard, which perished to a man. Most of the officers of the palace, to whom Charlemagne had confided the command of the troops, were among the slain, and with them “Roland, prefect of the Marches of Brittany.”

      No revenge could be taken for this disaster, as the light-footed mountaineers dispersed, and could not be reached. This is all we know for certain, but even in this account the existence of Roland among the captains slain is doubtful, as the passage referring to him is an interpolation, and is not found in the best MSS. copies.

      In 810 Louis “le Debonaire,” at that time King of Aquitaine, on his return from an expedition into Spain, took the precaution of securing the wives and children of the Basques and retaining them as hostages till he was safely through the pass. But in 824 the Frank army descended to Pampeluna, under two counts, and on its way back was surprised at Roncevaux by the Basques; the troops were slaughtered and the counts taken. These two disasters in popular tradition were run into one, and gave occasion to the composition of the “Song of Roland,” one of the finest pieces of medieval poetry that we possess.

      “‘The Song of Roland,’” says Mr. Ludlow, “apart from any question of literary merit, has a peculiar interest for our country, not only as forming one of the treasures of the Bodleian, but from its connexion with one of the half dozen greatest events in our history – the Battle of Hastings. For there, as we are told by Wace, William of Normandy’s minstrel ‘Taillefer who full well sang, on a horse that was swift, went before them singing Of Charlemagne and of Roland, and of Oliver and of the vassals who died at Roncevaux.’”5

      The very earliest text extant of this poem is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. All other songs of Roland are amplifications of later date.

      Thus it appears that to the chanting of this ballad by a minstrel William went forward to the conquest of England.

      One of the most popular books of the Middle Ages was the History of the Life of Charlemagne and of his Nephew Roland, which passed as the composition of Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, a man who died about 800. It was a historical romance based on old ballads, composed in the twelfth century, and of no historic value whatsoever. Pope Callixtus II formally decided, however, in 1122, that it was veracious history.

      In this book we have the fully-developed story of the defeat at Roncevaux. In it, declared by an infallible Pope to be authentic and trustworthy, we are informed that Charlemagne was eight feet high, measured by his own feet, “which were of the largest size,” that at a meal he would consume a quarter of a sheep, and if that were not at hand, then he would appease his appetite with two fowls, or a duck, a peacock, a crane, or a hare.

      The army had marched into Spain, and Roland and Ganilon the Traitor had been sent forward to Saragossa on an embassage to the Soudan, who, according to the counsel of Ganilon, spake fair and consented to all Charlemagne’s СКАЧАТЬ