The first chapter of "Our Lady of Lourdes" describes the town of Lourdes, nestled in the Hautes-Pyrenees of France. The town's landscape is vividly painted, with its formidable castle perched atop an isolated rock, and the Gave river flowing swiftly through the region. The chapter also recounts the legendary tale of the Saracen chef Mirat, whose miraculous conversion to Christianity led to the castle's integration into Christendom.. The town's history is marked by its strategic importance and its transformation over centuries.
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THE small town of Lourdes is situated in the department of the Hautes-Pyrenees, at the embouchure of the seven valleys of the Lavedan, between the last undulations of the hills terminating the plain of Tarbes and the first escarpments with which the Grande Montagne commences. Its houses, scattered irregularly over an uneven surface, are grouped as it were in defiance of order at the base of an enormous rock, entirely isolated; on the summit of which, rises like the nest of an eagle, a formidable castle. At the foot of this rock, beneath the shade of alders, oaks and poplars, the Gave hurries rapidly along, breaking its foaming waters against a bar of pebbles, and serving to turn the noisy wheels of three or four mills built on its banks. The din of these mills and the murmur of the wind in the branches of the trees are mingled with the sound of its gliding waves.
The Gave is formed by the several torrents of the upper valleys, which in their turn themselves issue from the eternal glaciers and stainless snows which mask in the depths of the chain, the arid sides of the Grande Montagne. The most important of these tributaries proceeds from the cascade of Gavarine, which falls, as every one knows, from one of those rare peaks which no human foot has yet been able to scale.
Leaving on its right the town, the castle and all the mills of Lourdes (with the exception of one built on its left bank), the Gave, as if anxious to reach its ultimate destination, flows rapidly towards the town of Pau, which it hurries by in order to join the Adour and finally the ocean.
Leaving on its right the town, the castle and all the mills of Lourdes (with the exception of one built on its left bank), the Gave, as if anxious to reach its ultimate destination, flows rapidly towards the town of Pau, which it hurries by in order to join the Adour and finally the ocean.
In the environs of Lourdes, the scenery on the banks of the Gave is sometimes wild and savage, sometimes charming; verdant meadows, cultivated fields, thick woods and lofty rocks, are reflected by turns in its waters. Here, the eye gazes over smiling and cultivated farms, the most graceful landscape, the high road to Pau, continually dotted with carriages, horsemen and travelers on foot; there, over stern mountains in all the terror of their solitude. The castle of Lourdes, almost impregnable before the invention of artillery, was in days of yore the key of the Pyrenees. It has been handed down by tradition that Charlemagne, at war with the Infidels, was long unable to take possession of it. Just as he was on the point of raising the siege, an eagle, winging his flight above the highest tower of the beleaguered fortress, let fall upon it a splendid fish which it had just captured in a lake in the neighborhood. Whether it was that on this particular day the laws of the Church prescribed abstinence, or that the fish was a Christian symbol still popular at that epoch, one thing is certain-the Saracen chief Mirat, who occupied the castle, regarded the occurrence in the light of a prodigy, and became a convert to the true faith. It needed nothing less than this miraculous conversion of Mirat and his subsequent baptism, to re-incorporate this castle into the domains of Christendom. Further, the Saracen, as the chronicle informs us, expressly stipulated, that “having become the champion of Our Lady, the Mother of God, he would have it understood, both in his own case and in that of his descendants, that his dignity of Count, free from all earthly fiefdom, was held from Her alone.”
The punning coat of arms of the town testify to this extraordinary fact of the eagle and the fish. Lourdes bears on a field gules three towers or, faced with stone-work sable on a rock argent. The center tower, higher than that on either side, is surmounted by an eagle with outstretched wings sable, holding in his beak a trout argent.
During the whole period of the Middle Ages, the castle of Lourdes was a center of terror to the surrounding country. Sometimes in the name of the English, sometimes in that of the counts of Bigorre, it was occupied by a kind of free-booting captains, who, in point of fact, warred strictly on their own account, and levied contributions on the inhabitants of the plain in a circle of forty or fifty leagues. Their incredible audacity, we are told, carried them even to the extent of laying violent hands on persons and property up to the very gates of Montpelier, after which they sought security, like veritable birds of prey, in their own inaccessible aërie.
In the eighteenth century the castle of Lourdes was converted into a state prison. It was the Bastile of the Pyrenees. The Revolution opened the gates of this prison to three or four persons confined in it by the arbitrary power of despotism, and in return peopled it with several hundreds of criminals, who, to tell the truth, were culpable in a very different way. A contemporary author has noticed on the prison register the offences of these unfortunate wretches. He gives us specimens of the designations of the crimes attached to the name of each prisoner: “Unpatriotic— Having refused the kiss of peace to citizen N—before the altar of our country—Troublesome—A drunkard—Cold as ice toward the Revolution—Hypocritical in disposition and reserved in his opinions—A peaceable Harpagon, indifferent towards the Revolution, etc., etc.”
From this we perceive that the Revolution had just reasons for complaining of the arbitrary power of kings, and had substituted a regime of mild toleration and entire liberty for the terrible despotism of the monarchy.
During the Empire the Castle of Lourdes preserved its character of state-prison, and only lost it on the return of the Bourbons. Since the Restoration, the terrible castle of the middle ages having become in the natural order of things a place of fourth or fifth-rate importance, is now peaceably garrisoned by a company of infantry under the orders of a commandant.
The punning coat of arms of the town testify to this extraordinary fact of the eagle and the fish. Lourdes bears on a field gules three towers or, faced with stone-work sable on a rock argent. The center tower, higher than that on either side, is surmounted by an eagle with outstretched wings sable, holding in his beak a trout argent.
During the whole period of the Middle Ages, the castle of Lourdes was a center of terror to the surrounding country. Sometimes in the name of the English, sometimes in that of the counts of Bigorre, it was occupied by a kind of free-booting captains, who, in point of fact, warred strictly on their own account, and levied contributions on the inhabitants of the plain in a circle of forty or fifty leagues. Their incredible audacity, we are told, carried them even to the extent of laying violent hands on persons and property up to the very gates of Montpelier, after which they sought security, like veritable birds of prey, in their own inaccessible aërie.
In the eighteenth century the castle of Lourdes was converted into a state prison. It was the Bastile of the Pyrenees. The Revolution opened the gates of this prison to three or four persons confined in it by the arbitrary power of despotism, and in return peopled it with several hundreds of criminals, who, to tell the truth, were culpable in a very different way. A contemporary author has noticed on the prison register the offences of these unfortunate wretches. He gives us specimens of the designations of the crimes attached to the name of each prisoner: “Unpatriotic— Having refused the kiss of peace to citizen N—before the altar of our country—Troublesome—A drunkard—Cold as ice toward the Revolution—Hypocritical in disposition and reserved in his opinions—A peaceable Harpagon, indifferent towards the Revolution, etc., etc.”
From this we perceive that the Revolution had just reasons for complaining of the arbitrary power of kings, and had substituted a regime of mild toleration and entire liberty for the terrible despotism of the monarchy.
During the Empire the Castle of Lourdes preserved its character of state-prison, and only lost it on the return of the Bourbons. Since the Restoration, the terrible castle of the middle ages having become in the natural order of things a place of fourth or fifth-rate importance, is now peaceably garrisoned by a company of infantry under the orders of a commandant.
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