Not only his particular knowledge of this (to me but little known) tract of country, but also his evident love for the treasures of nature and art, not to mention for flowers, and the interest he professed in the political vicissitudes of the country, gave his conversation an especial charm in my eyes.

More swiftly than the well-bred cattle bore us over the smooth ground of this highly cultivated land, flew the hours of our journey, and before we could believe it possible we found ourselves in the centre of Tarbes, where the horses of the diligence which travels between that place and Bagneres de Bigorre, only awaited the advent of Professor L- to start off with their usual brio (spirit).

The mention of a rencontre so fleeting as this may be deemed trivial and superfluous, but in the hope that these lines may chance to meet the Professor's eye, I wish to show him that the remembrance in which I hold him has bloomed longer than the flowers which he left with me as a memento of Trie.

"Gentille Reine Bigourdane, splendidement assise au milieu de la plaine la plus fraîche, la plus fertile, et la plus variée !" exclaims the French poet, Tasmin, as his greeting to Tarbes, now the principal town of the Department of the Upper Pyrenees. But when the traveller walks through the modern characterless streets of the little place, he looks in vain for any vestiges of its former royal and classical renown.

The cathedral, a Gothic building of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, occupies the site of a former fortress, called "Bigorra," which bequeathed its name to the place; and the Castle of Margaretha de Béarn, only one tower of which is now habitable, is turned into a prison.

The origin of Tarbes is lost in the darkness of mythic times. The Lordship of Bigorre belonged to the old Gauls and shared their changeful fate. In the neighbourhood are still shown many traces of the progress of Cæsar, in whose time the town existed under the name of Bigorra, and it is stated by some writers that it was so called because the inhabitants worshipped the god "Bigorry." It was captured by Crassus, and afterwards took the appellations of Turvia, Turba, and Tarba. After the fall of the Roman empire, it suffered from the incursions of the Goths, Vandals, and Saracens. The Normans laid it waste in the beginning of the ninth century, and its inhabitants fled into the surrounding woods and "landes," where they long lived a nomadic

life.

About the middle of the tenth century, Raymund I.. entirely rebuilt the town and established the "Countship" of Bigorre. Subsequently, notwithstanding the protests of the citizens, the land fell, by the Treaty of Brittany, to the English Crown.

In the year 1360, Edward the Black Prince made his entry into Tarbes, accompanied by his princess and the Count Gaston de Foix, who, as heir of the house of Béarn, soon recommenced hostilities against England. This war ended in the overthrow of the foreign rule; and the French government did not delay to re-establish the princes of Béarn in their possessions.

Until the time when Johanna, Queen of Navarre, kindled the religious wars, nothing remarkable occurs in the annals of Tarbes; but in the sixteenth century began the war between Béarn, where Protestantism was flourishing, and Bigorre, where the people continued true to the Catholic faith. Plunder and conflagration, murder and cruelty of every sort, characterised this lamentable epoch, and the town of Tarbes remained for three years so desolated and uninhabited, that the grass grew in the streets as thick as in the fields.

When the peace of St. Germain, in 1570, restored the scattered inhabitants to the city, it became the scene of a bloody party-contest, and the neighbouring country suffered such devastation, that the peasants were unable to cultivate the soil for want of cattle, and emigrated in troops to Spain.

When Henry IV. incorporated these states with the French Crown, he confirmed the privileges of Bigorre, but after all, revolution transferred the domain, together with four bordering vallies and a part of Nebouzin, to the department of the Upper Pyrenees,

Neither lapse of time nor warlike changes, however, could deprive Tarbes of its local and climatric advantages. Placed on the left bank of the Adour, whose limpid stream is divided into several channels, the town is abundantly supplied with water and commands an extensive view over a delightful and well-inhabited plain, bounded on the south by the Pyrenees. The mountains of Louchan are visible, among which the "Pic du midi de Bigorre" rises triumphantly above all this beautiful chain, whose outline mingles in summer with the deep blue heavens, and in winter, clothed in a snowy mantle, gleams and glitters like a silver breastplate in the sun.

Tarbes possesses several squares, pleasure grounds, and tastefully laid out gardens, the most celebrated of which is that of M. Massey, formerly Director-general of the gardens of Versailles. It is opened, on all appropriate occasions, to the public, and a Moorish tower, in the middle of the grounds, adds greatly to the interest of the place, as from it is obtained an extensive panoramic view of the surrounding country.

The horse-races of Tarbes, which take place every August at the hippodrome, are among the most celebrated and best attended in the South of France. But what is, according to my own opinion, the prettiest sight there, and one worthy of the attention of even the most

travelled stranger, is the fine stud-house, which is situated about a kilometer from the town, on the road to Lourdes.

Horse-breeding is one of the chief sources of the industrial wealth of this department, and the pasture-lands on the Adour have long been celebrated for producing a breed of horses peculiarly suited to light cavalry. More than one officer present at the battle of Solferino, has assured me that their success there was mainly attributable to the spirit and endurance of the little horses of Tarbes.

The establishment, containing at present about two hundred of these beautiful animals, has lately been greatly improved and almost rebuilt, and is now one of the five chief depôts in France. The superintendents are extremely obliging and eager to show the whole of the building and its arrangements to strangers.

Tarbes contains about 15,000 inhabitants, and its topographic importance arises from its being the key of communication with the Pyrenees, and the centre of the roads radiating thence to all the baths and to the remotest places of resort amid the wide spreading Franco-Spanish mountain-chain.

All these roads meet in the Place du Moubourquet, where arrivals and departures, with the inevitable and peculiar noises attending them, are going on almost incessantly. Here are all the (so called) best hotels, but none of them equal the Hotel du Commerce in the Rue Massey, of which the landlady, Madame Dupont, is an excellent person, and not being distracted by the influx of bustling strangers, she can receive her guests with proper attention, and afford them better entertainment and larger rooms than are to be found in the crowded hotels of the Place du Moubourquet.

At the present time Tarbes plays no inconsiderable part in the itinerary of the tourist. Here many travelling acquaintanceships are closed, and many new ones formed; for here it is that the well-laden rattling diligences, bound to all points, change their victims for the last time; and the men whom fate here brings together are not, as usual, travelling companions who are to part again at some particular point, but fellow exiles for the entire duration of a "Bade Kur!"

As I could hardly expect that this change would bless me with a second Professor L, I contented myself with anticipating the charming opportunity the coupé would afford me, of luxuriating in the views of the varied country that borders the road.

Although we had not more than forty-six kilometres to pass over between Tarbes and Cauterets, the weight of the diligence and the nature of the road made it a journey of six or eight hours. Not long after leaving Tarbes, we passed a road on the left which leads to Bagnerés de Bigorre, and crossed a fruitful plain, where the ancient castle of Odos, at which died Margaret, Queen of Navarre, first attracted my attention. The traveller

now finds himself not only in a pleasant well-cultivated country, but in one full of classical recollections. That little place is Juillen (the Julianus of the Romans) and said to be one of Cæsar's positions. Not far from it he sees the old fortress of Ossun, and a little farther from the road are the undeniable remains of another Roman station, apparently equal to the wants of nearly 5,000 soldiers.

After frequent crossings of the Echez, and its sister stream La Geune, which are now on the right, and now on the left of the road, we reached a kind of upper plain, called "Lanne Mourine" (Landes des Maures), the little field where the remnant of the Saracens was entirely destroyed by the Bigordians.

At the end of this plain lies the village of Ade, and here commences a rising and interesting country-acclivities covered with ferns and underwood, rise on both hands. To the left, in the distance, is seen the curved summit of the chalk hill " Pène de Lhiers," while in its immediate neighbourhood the ancient "Lupar da Bigorronum," the present Lourides, displays its white houses. This old historical town lies on the right bank of the Gave de Pau,* and is hemmed in by two pyramidical hills, whose marble and slate quarries are still worked. On an isolated rock stands the square tower of the ancient Arx, overlooking a mass of wretched grey houses. This tower was once the key of the valley of Lavedan, and commanded the four roads which cross one another here, to Tarbes, Bagneres, Argeles, and Pau; and for this reason, it then played a part of some consequence, but of later years it has been used as a state prison, and it was within its walls that Napoleon kept Lord Elgin in captivity in 1804, when he was taken prisoner on his return from Constantinople to England.

The blue waters of the Gave flow beneath a Roman bridge, and afterwards meander between the emerald meadows which border its

course.

As the diligence does not make any stay here, I was obliged to be contented with one hurried glance at the old castle, which has seen the Roman host under Julius Caesar, the Arabs under Abderrhaman, and the English on their march under the Black Prince, but which now stands desolate and confounded, like a sentinel who remains forgotten. at his post, long after the enemy has disappeared.

Lourdes has not long been passed when the country becomes sterner and grander, the hills assume a more mountain-like character, and their cleft ravines tell of the power of the winter streams. On rocky foundations rise here and there the ruins of feudal fortresses, relics of a time when every Pyrenean vale was the theatre of some sanguinary struggle. On one isolated height, the keep of the ruined castle of Vidolos, the

The word "Gave," is of Basque origin, and the generic name of all mountain streams in Bigorre and in Béarn.

key of the so-called "Paradise of Argeles," now meets the eye of the traveller, and indeed this valley may well be reckoned among the most beautiful in France. Waving fields of maize and wheat alternating with verdant meadows and fruit-laden orchards, where figs, nuts, and peaches grow side by side, adorn the lower grounds; the cultivation extends half way up the mountains till it meets the old woodlands which cover their highest points. Elegant mansions, romantically placed chapels, and fallen castles vary the colour of the picture, in whose midst is Argeles. But before reaching that town, we passed Vienzac, where was born one of the most cruel leaders of the French Revolution, Bertrand Barrère, and where he also died in 1841, in his eighty-seventh year.

The little town of Argeles lies on the left bank of the Gave d'Ozun, not far from the spot where its waters meet those of the Gave de Pau ; its chief charm is its delightful situation, to which more than one day might be advantageously devoted, in order adequately to enjoy all its beauties, and to become acquainted with the many ancient monuments (the more beautiful perhaps for being in ruins), which are scattered about the neighbourhood. At St. Savin, not far off, there is also an old chapel (all that is left of its formerly large abbey), that is well worth inspection. This ruin lies upon slightly elevated ground, to the left of the highroad, and is said to have been built on the site of the Roman "Pallatium Emilianum," an armed fortress, intended to keep the inhabitants of the valley in awe; but it shared the fate of so many like structures, and was finally destroyed by the army of Caliph Abderrhaman. When the Roman rule ended, Savin, son of the Count Hentilius, left his birthplace, Barcelona, and came to these mountains in search of a place for prayer and repentance; and, according to a Spanish legend, a heavenly light and an invisible hand led him to the vale of Lavedan. On the plateau "Poeq d'Aspe," there were, not many years ago, traces of his cell and of the spring whence he drew water, when, in the heat of summer, the neighbouring brook was dry. In his honour, Charles the Great is said to have founded the Abbey of St. Savin, which after being destroyed by fire in 843, was restored in the tenth century by Raymond, Count of Bigorre. During the middle ages its monks were celebrated for their learning, and for the copying of manuscripts. They also opened their doors to the sick, whom the virtues of the neighbouring springs attracted thither; and in the sixteenth century they offered their hospitality to the Queen of Navarre, notwithstanding her zeal for the doctrines of Calvin. With the same tolerance did their successors entertain the poet Bertin, who mentions them rather lightly in some verses of which these words form a part"Le long diner, la courte messe

Du bon Abbé de Saint Savin," &c., &c.