PAU.

Engaging a small omnibus for 8 francs to Bayonne, five miles distant, we left Biarritz at 12.25 for the 1.45 train to Pau. The station at Bayonne for Pau in one direction, and Bordeaux in another, is on the north side of the Adour, so that we had to cross the long bridge over that river. The day was glorious, and the Adour, by whose banks we proceeded part of the way, was looking very fine.

The traveller arrives at Pau by railway, in a station down in the depths on the banks of the river Gave, a tributary of the Adour. But the town itself mainly lies on a level platform, about 150 feet higher, and almost immediately above, the rise being sharp, and the road whereby it is reached very steep. The best advantage has been taken of the situation to erect in front line a series of imposing edifices near to the edge of this almost perpendicular height, so that on issuing from the railway station the coup d’oeil is extremely impressive. Commencing at the west end, the chateau or castle, with its ivy-clad old tower or donjon, is the first object arresting the attention—a large symmetrical building in the chateau style. Then the eye runs along to the great new Hotel Gassion, with its corner projections (which are neither towers nor turrets), surmounted by clumsy extinguisher pointed roofs, and then the white Church of St. Martin’s, with its lofty graceful needle spire, and on to the Hotel de France and other imposing houses in the Place Royale—the whole producing an effect which gives to the stranger the idea of a magnificent city behind. But the truth is (all honour to those who did it), that the grenadiers have here all been brought to the front rank; for the stately group assembles in this commanding spot nearly all the buildings which are noteworthy in Pau, the only other, if I am not mistaken, being the white Church of St. Jacques, with its fine double spires, and perhaps the adjoining Palais de Justice, both at a little distance from the Place Royale.

We had been recommended on our first visit to apply for quarters at the Pension Colbert, near the termination of the Rue Montpensier, at the north or rural side of the town, kept by English ladies (Misses Finch). It was at first a steep pull up the hill for the horses, but the hill conquered, the road was thereafter level. We had been made not merely so comfortable, but so much at home, at this house that we engaged rooms in it on our return from Biarritz. On our first visit in September, it was before the season commenced, and we were accordingly the only guests; on the second, the house was nearly full, and we experienced similar kind attention. It is recommended, with a view to getting gradually accustomed to the climate before winter sets in, that invalids should come in September, and there seems no reason in the shape of excessive heat or the presence of mosquitoes to prevent it; the weather, indeed, was cool during our first visit. But the season does not really begin before the end of October, and it is even the first week of November before Pau becomes tolerably full. We accordingly found it upon our second visit, in the middle of October, still comparatively empty.

The climate of Pau is not what suits every one. As compared with Biarritz in the months from October to March inclusive, the mean temperature is, according to the month, from one to five degrees lower. Whether it was owing to our experiencing a difference of temperature, or to the fact of our having had a good deal of rain while in Pau, or whether due to accidental circumstances, such as neglect to shut a bedroom window one evening, we all caught colds there, and lost much of the good we had got at Biarritz. The fact suggests some notice of what has been said on the subject of the climate of Pau as a health resort.

Dr., afterwards Sir Alexander Taylor, who wrote a special book on the climate of Pau and other places,[49] divides climates into three classes: exciting, sedative, and relaxing, and he gives us examples (p. 21)—

1. Of exciting climates—Nice, Naples, Montpellier, and Florence.

2. Of sedative climates—Rome and, par excellence, Pau.

3. Of relaxing climates—Pisa and Madeira.

‘In the sedative climate we have a more neutral state of the atmosphere—a remarkable freedom from dryness on the one hand, and from communicable humidity on the other, and in Pau particularly, great stillness of the atmosphere.’

It is therefore only in cases where a sedative climate would be beneficial that Dr. Taylor recommends Pau, and in a subsequent chapter (p. 100) he mentions the kind of cases for which the climate of Pau is specially beneficial.

Among the characteristics of the climate, he mentions that while more rain falls in Pau than in London and some other situations in England, yet from the absorbent nature of the soil, and from some peculiar electric state of the atmosphere, there is an absence of ‘free communicable humidity;’ and that while 27 inches of rain fall annually in London, and from 40 to 50 inches in Pau, the number of rainy days is only 109 against 178 in London. Further, a very important advantage possessed by Pau is its distinguishing freedom from wind from apparently any quarter, while the malevolent circius, bise, and the mistral are never felt there. Dr. Taylor contrasts in tables the difference of temperature between Greenwich and Pau—as, for example, in the mean temperature of each for the months between October and May, showing them to vary, according to the month, from 3 to 7 degrees in favour of Pau. The mean moisture of the air is also shown to be generally about one-twelfth less at Pau; while a further circumstance is that there is more sunshine at Pau, imparting greater cheerfulness to the winter climate. A very curious additional fact is thus stated (p. 80):—

‘From an examination of the mean distribution of the winds, according to the cardinal points of the compass, indicated by carefully-kept registers for a considerable series of years, we find that they show northerly winds prevailed in summer, southerly in winter, easterly in autumn and winter, and westerly in spring and early summer; and when we recall to the reader what has before been said with regard to the usual want of force of the winds at all times at Pau, he can easily figure to himself how the heats of summer being modified by the northerly wind, the cold of winter shorn of its intensity by the southerly, and the usual biting keenness of spring softened by the prevalence of westerly winds, the climate should act beneficially on the irritable air passages and on the lungs of invalids either predisposed to active disease or which are already a prey to it.’

At another place Dr. Taylor gives a table of death-rates, from which Pau would seem to be at the top of the list for least mortality—as, for example, while in Pau 1 in 45 died annually, in London it was 1 in 40, in Nice 1 in 31, Rome 1 in 25, Vienna 1 in 22½, etc.; and he adds this important statement (p. 94):—

‘In the department of the Basses PyrÉnÉes, in a period of seventeen years, 1777 persons died from 90 to 95, 649 from 95 to 100, and 168 above 100 years of age. In Pau itself, during a period of twenty years, 390 persons died from 80 to 85, 161 from 85 to 90, and 103 from 90 to 100 and upwards. By the last census, there were in Pau several persons ranging from 100 to 104 years of age, and in the department also several centenaires who are described as being still very healthy.’

But I must refer to Dr. Taylor’s work for more information on this and other matters relating to Pau. Besides containing general information relative to the town itself, it deals in its last half with the climate of other places, and particularly affords information relative to the different places of resort in the Pyrenees.

Another book (already referred to, p. 53), by Dr. Frederick H. Johnson, entitled, A Winter’s Sketches in the South of France and the Pyrenees, is similarly devoted to Pau and the Pyrenees, and is written in an interesting, graphic manner.

Mr. C. Home Douglas, in his little work called Searches for Summer, takes a rather different view of the climate of Pau from Dr. Taylor, although opening his observations by saying:

‘Passing from Biarritz to Pau, as we did in the beginning of May, seemed almost like returning to the still sunny climate of the south of Spain. The fresh strong Atlantic breeze—invigorating, doubtless, to many constitutions—gave place to such gentle and balmy air as we used to open our windows to at Malaga.’

Mr. Douglas, not confining comparison to London, compares the temperature of Pau with that also of other places in Great Britain, showing that the sunny temperature of Pau is 4°·1 below that of Helstone in Cornwall, and is under that of Torquay in Devonshire and Valentia in Ireland during the same winter months, and quotes Dr. Otley to the effect that there is greater daily range of temperature at Pau than in England, adding that the nights must be colder at Pau than in the west coasts of Britain, and expresses the opinion that ‘no one who cannot stand severe cold ought to think of going to Pau for the winter; better go to Easdale in Argyllshire. No one so constituted should think of going till March at soonest; April, in my opinion, is early enough.’

Mr. Douglas writes as a meteorologist, and his little volume is a valuable contribution to the consideration of the temperature of the various places of health resort therein mentioned; but the facts stated by Dr. Taylor, even though one is inclined to look with suspicion on medical advocates of special places, show that the value of a place for an invalid may not wholly depend on the records of the thermometer.

We made Pau only a halting-place for nine days, en route for the Riviera, and to form some opinion as to its suitability for a longer stay at another time. Coming from the ever-changing ocean, and from Biarritz, which had so captivated our fancy, perhaps we did not take so kindly to Pau, a large inland rural town, as we might otherwise have done; while, in consequence of the season not having fairly commenced, the strangers encountered in the streets were few, and the town consequently was more dull than it would have been later on. The weather also was such that we had not much opportunity of seeing the environs.

Before 1840, Pau apparently was a place of no repute. I presume Dr. Taylor’s recommendation gave it its great stimulus. But in twenty years after 1840 it had largely increased, evidences of which were, that the octroi duty had in 1860 realized nearly double, that the British visitors had amounted to 1000 in number in the year, and that its population had augmented to 21,000. It has gone on increasing since, and is now so well frequented as to require no less than three English churches and one Scotch church, with resident ministers, while the population is reckoned to amount to 30,000.

The town itself is regularly built, with good leading streets, and possesses a large market-place, where goods of all kinds, even broadcloths, are sold in open stalls; and as Pau is the centre of a very large rural population, it is on market days a busy place; but there are many good shops in some of the best streets, and the wares are, I think, cheaper than in Nice and elsewhere in the Riviera. The two town churches, St. Martin’s and St. Jacques, are new and of white stone, and with their fine tapering spires are externally handsome, but internally, except for their stained-glass windows, want the richness of ornamentation we had seen in so many other Roman Catholic churches abroad.

The grand sight at Pau is the chain of the Pyrenees. We had only to go a short way along the country road, in which the Pension Colbert is, to see them. But a more uninterrupted prospect is had from the Boulevard du Midi, or terrace of the Place Royale, in front of the prominent buildings I have already mentioned. Leaning upon the parapet wall of this fine terrace, and looking almost straight down upon the valley below, one sees beyond the road and a small outlying portion of the town and the railway station, the river Gave flowing sluggishly along, crossed by a handsome low stone bridge of, I think, five arches, and lined on both sides by rows of tall poplar and other trees, and bordered by straggling houses, which give some character to the scene. Then, on the other side, there rises a range of well-wooded knolls and hills, called the CÔteaux of JuraÇon and Gelos, the highest about 300 feet in height, and dotted over among the trees by mansions; and then apparently the ground dips behind them, and in the distance (the nearest being twenty miles off) the long range of the Pyrenees stretches out in a continuous line eastward and westward as far as the eye can see, and forming the natural boundary and barrier between the two great countries France and Spain. Rising abruptly and prominently out of the range like two great tusks, are the Pic de Midi d’Ossau, to appearance nearly opposite Pau, and the grandest of the Pyrenees; and away to the eastward, the Pic de Gers; while still farther to the east, but eclipsed by intervening heights scarcely visible from Pau, the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, each of them, or at least the first and last mentioned, from 10,000 to 11,000 feet high. From the upper windows of the hotels on this Boulevard the view must be magnificent. It was very fine from the windows of the Chateau, but they are of a low elevation. This view, perhaps the finest in France, is really the great attraction to the hotels in this quarter, for nowhere else does it seem possible to obtain the prospect from so high a position, and so free from intervening obstructions. When we were at Pau, there was no snow upon the Pyrenees, so that we failed to see them in their best. Even, however, when snow-covered, they cannot bear comparison with the Alps as seen from Turin. But the view may be finer when the mountains are snow-covered and there is a grand sunset, for which Pau is famed. The mountains in the ruddy glow may then resemble the Bernese Alps, as seen from Berne in a brilliant sunset. At Turin, as the mountains lie to the west of the town, the sunset effect must be greatly lost.

The Chateau, which was the residence of the Princes of Bearne in former times, and where Henry IV. of France was born in 1553, is well worthy of inspection, and, of course, any stranger coming to Pau pays it a visit. Three bridges connect it with the town, and at one time it was doubtless a place of strength. Entering on one side through what appears to be a modern screen of three open slender arches embellished by carved work (seemingly rather too delicate for a warlike place), and passing the sentinel, the visitor is at once in the court-yard, the remaining three sides of the nearly square yard forming the castle, pierced by decorated windows. The walls are of great thickness, giving the idea of massive strength and solidity. In some of the rooms the walls are covered with tapestry, and in parts the tapestry is a close imitation in worsted of paintings in oil—a mistake in art, I think. The ceilings are bold in design, without being either fine or remarkable. The old beds are curious high boxes of carved oak, requiring steps to enable the occupants to get up into them. A lower modern carved bed in one of the rooms, devoid of the canopy of the old ones, seemed vastly preferable. One of the bedrooms was hung with silk of the time of Madame de Maintenon, and, as we understood, manufactured under her superintendence. The most interesting object in the castle was the cradle of Henry IV., made of a large tortoise shell. There is a statue of the great monarch in the grounds, and in the country round about places exist with which he was associated; and, indeed, Pau and its neighbourhood is a place of great historical interest.

A public park closely adjoins the Chateau. It is filled with lofty trees, and continues for a long stretch by the banks of the Gave on a rising ground, through which and under the trees walks have been formed and seats placed, whence charming views of the river and mountains are had. The band plays during the season sometimes in the park and at other times in the Place Royale.

The environs of Pau are said to be beautiful, but we had not much opportunity of exploring them. Mr. Inglis (the traveller), in a passage quoted by Dr. Taylor, says:—

‘The Gave serpentines through the charming undulating country that surrounds the town. Grain, meadows, and vines diversify the scenery, and innumerable country-houses are everywhere scattered around. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the promenades in the neighbourhood of Pau. Some lie alongside the Gave, others along the banks of the smaller river.’

The road to Bordeaux and the other roads out of Pau seem to be all lined with regimental rows of poplars, shady perhaps in sunshine, but stiff. Some neat villas in nicely-planted gardens in the outskirts of the town—delightful retreats—are let furnished. I had the pleasure of meeting a very old Scotch friend, who, after having tried many places, has found the climate of Pau to be most suitable, and has accordingly built just out of town an elegant villa for permanent residence.

There are, I believe, many excellent excursions from Pau, such as a drive to Lourdes, 25 miles distant—a long day’s work for the horses there and back, but, I was told and can readily believe, most enjoyable. In the summer-time, everybody who can, escapes to the mountains, where so many charming spots, including Eaux-Chaudes and Eaux-Bonnes, are to be found.

We paid a visit to the cemetery, which lies back from the Place d’Armes, and quite out of town, the Protestant ground being, as customary, separate from the Roman Catholic. There are throughout many monuments, including one to Marshal Bosquet, whose name is familiar to us in connection with the Crimean War. After the war he spent his last years in Pau, his native place. One monument to the memory of a Russian lady, representing her in the act of kneeling and praying, in very rich attire, is of white marble, and has no doubt been executed in Italy.

During our stay in Pau, the French General Election took place, and according to French practice was on a Sunday (14th October 1877). Everything was quiet, quieter even than it would have been at home, notwithstanding it was politically a time of great anxiety. Although there were some small crowds of people hanging about the streets on the day of election, and on the following day the newspaper shops at the time of publishing were besieged, all was quite orderly. We had it, of course, for the comfort of the old ladies, that all the Protestants were in bodily fear; and perhaps in former times there might have been some risk, for in some parts of France it was an inconvenient custom, occasionally exercised on a sumptuous scale, to burn, shoot, and otherwise destroy Protestants and other obnoxious heretics. In the present day, however, it would no doubt be considered an economic mistake to slay, or to drive away to other lands, the birds which beneficently lay, in hotels, pensions, furnished villas, shops, and other places, their heart-winning, hate-dissipating golden eggs; and instead of a display of unpleasant engines of extirpation, there is great kindliness of feeling towards Protestants, and every provision is made for alluring strangers to Pau, and detaining them there by means of cricket and golf grounds, skating-rinks, fox-hunting, lawn tennis, libraries, museums, and the like active and passive means of enjoyment.