A Midsummer Drive Through the Pyrenees

IV.

In St. Jean de Luz, we are fairly in the country of the Basques. One sees so many of that singular people in the streets, and along the Biscayan shore generally, that inquiries about them are almost forced upon the attention. The Basques are still the curiously ill-explained race they have always been; the learned still disagree over their origin, and the world at large scarcely knows of them more than the name. They are scattered all through this lower sea-corner of France, shading off near Bayonne; and are in yet greater numbers in the adjoining upper edges of Spain. It seems strange that the beginnings of this isolated race should to-day be almost no better settled than in the time of Humboldt or Ramond. Yet they contrive still to embroil the philologists and historians. Here the race has lived, certainly since the days of the Romans, probably since long before, out of kin with all the world, and the world's periods have passed on and left them. No one knows their birth-mark; they have forgotten it themselves. Of theories, numberless and hopelessly in discord, each still offers its weighty arguments, and each destroys the certainty of any.

This appears incredible. What mystery is insoluble in the sharp light of modern research? Yet until the defenders of the view that the Basques came from Atlantis can make truce with the advocates of their Phoenician origin,—until the well-attested theory of their affinity with certain South American races can overthrow the better-attested theory that they are the remains of the ancient Iberians,—until Moor and Finn,^[7] Tartar and Coptic, can amicably blend their claims to relationship, the Basques must remain as they are,—foundlings; or rather, a race whose length of pedigree has swallowed up its beginnings.

It is these unattached sea and mountain races who are always hardest to conquer. Hence the boast of the Basques. Even the Romans, though they could defeat, could not subdue them. The strong Roman fortress of Lapurdum (now Bayonne) did not succeed in even terrifying them, though they were worsted several times by its legions. Down through all the early part of the long Christian era, the forefathers of these frank-faced fishers and mountaineers we see here in the streets of St. Jean kept their hills stubbornly to themselves. Later, as much perhaps from policy as necessity, the race came gradually to fall in with the general governments crystallizing about them. The Spanish Basques came first into the traces, though not until the thirteenth century; they were then finally incorporated into the Castilian monarchy. But they claimed and held marked rights in compensation. While special privileges—fueros—were accorded to certain other provinces as well as to them, theirs were the widest and endured the longest. They had five special exemptions: they were not subject to military conscription; nor to certain imposts and taxes, (paying a gross composition in their place;) nor in general to trial outside their province; nor to the quartering of troops; nor to any regulations of their internal affairs beyond that of the corregidor, a representative magistrate appointed by the king. These fueros lasted in substance even up to 1876, when Alfonso's government finally repealed them. While thus the Spanish Basques have, even under allegiance, held stoutly to the right of virtual self-government, their brethren north of the Pyrenees long preserved a still fuller autonomy, only coming into the national fold of France under the impetus of the Revolution.

Thus the Basques have a stiff record of independence; it keeps them in no little esteem, both with themselves and with their neighbors. Trains, travel, traffic, eat into their solidarity, and may in time disintegrate it; but a Basque has not yet lost a particle of his pride of clan; it is inborn and ineradicable; he would be no other than he is; "je ne suis pas un homme" he boasts, "je suis un Basque." You note instinctively his straighter bearing among the neighboring French peasantry; you can often single out a Basque by his air. This hardens into a peculiar result: since they are all of the same high lineage, all are aristocrats; every Basque is ex officio a nobleman; this is seriously meant and seriously believed. There are no degrees of caste, the highest is the only; the entire race is blood-proud, ancestor-proud. A Basque family might not improbably have been the originators of that celebrated family tree which remarked, in a marginal note only midway back, that "about this time the Creation took place."

They are not stilted in their pride, however; your true Basque cares much for his descent and little for its dignities. "Where the McGregor sits," he would affirm, "there is the head of the table," and so he cares nothing about the nominal headship. He lives a free, busy life in the hill-country or near the sea, stalwart, swarthy, a lover of the open air, apt at work and sufficiently enterprising, self-respecting, "proud as Lucifer and combustible as his matches," in no case pinchingly poor, but rarely rich, and never in awe of his own coat-of-arms.

Writers uniformly take a wicked pleasure in maligning the Basque language. Its spelling and syntax, its words and sentences, its methods of construction, are openly derided. Unusual word-forms and distended proper names are singled out and held up to jeers and contumely. A Spanish proverb asserts that as to pronunciation the Basques write "Solomon" and pronounce it "Nebuchadnezzar." The devil, it is alleged, studied for seven years to learn the Basque tongue; at the end of that time he had mastered only three words and abandoned the task in disgust. "And the result is," adds a vivacious writer, "that he is unable to tempt a Basque, because he cannot speak to him, and that consequently every Basque goes straight to heaven. Unfortunately, now that the population is beginning to talk French, (which the devil knows terribly well,) this privilege is disappearing."

Overhearing disjointed Basque phrases on the Biarritz beach or here in the streets and cafés of St. Jean, one will not blame the devil's discouragement. There is scarcely one familiar Aryan syllable. For centuries their speech was not even a written one; there is said to be no book in Basque older than two hundred years. But, its strangeness and isolation once allowed for, there is in reality much to defend in the Basque language. As spoken, it is far from being harsh, and falls pleasantly, often softly, on the ear; the sounds are clear, the articulations rarely, hurried as with the French. The words, other than a few proper names, do not exceed a sober and reasonable length, and as to spelling, every letter has its assigned use and duty; there are no phonetic drones. The original root-forms are short and always recognizable; the full words grow from these by an orderly if intricate system of inflections and the forming of derivatives.

The inflections are, it must be admitted, intricate. Each noun boasts two separate forms, and each of its declension-cases keeps a group of sub-cases within reach for special emergencies. There are only two regularly ordained verbs,—"to be" and "to have"; but they don different canonicals for each different ceremony, and their varying garbs seem fairly without limit. In the Grammaire Basque of M. Gèze, published in Bayonne, I count no less than one hundred and eight pages of closely-set tables needed to paint the opalescent hues of these multiform auxiliaries,—and this only in one dialect, out of six in all. M. Chaho, an essayist of weight and himself a Basque, informs us artlessly and seriously that one counts a thousand and forty-five forms for their combined present indicatives, and a trifle over ten thousand forms for the two fully expanded verbs; and yet the language, he hastens to add, is so magically simple that even a Basque child never makes an error!

As to its appearance in print, the reader may judge for himself, for here is one of their favorite love-songs. These light songs abound, many being surprisingly delicate and dainty.

A graceful English version of the above is in existence, and will fitly complement its original:

—COSTELLO.

In regard to length of words, there exist undoubtedly some surprising examples, but they are merely compound expressions and quite in analogy with those of better known and less abused tongues. The German, for one, indulges in such with notorious yet unrebuked frequency. One is naturally startled at encountering in Basque such imbrications as Izarysaroyarenlarrearenbarena, or Ardanzesaroyareniturricoburua, which are actual names of places in Spanish Basque-land; but they are mercifully rare, and when analyzed prove to be rational and even poetic formations, laden with a full equivalent of import,—the first of the above two signifying "the centre of the field of the mountain of the star," and the second, "the summit of the fountain of the mountain of the vine."

These be scarcely fair samples, however. Commoner words and some of their more musical phrases are instanced in the following, taken in the dialect of this region of St. Jean:

Home words, such as these latter, give a glimpse of this people's home life. For they are devoted to their household as to their tribe, and uniformly show a certain homely honesty and simplicity underneath all their free ways. Love of smuggling does not impugn this honesty,—in their own view, at all events; for the Basque, man and woman, is a born smuggler, and believing it right is not ashamed. Indeed, they make common cause of it; for years, if a revenue officer detected and shot a Basque in the act, he had to fly the land at once, for the entire neighborhood united in seeking hot and deadly vengeance.

The race is notably fond of dancing and drama, and the villages hold frequent open-air theatricals, generally upon religious themes, which they always handle with great seriousness. They have at intervals unique contests in improvisation, rivaling Wolfram and Tannhaüser, or the Meistersingers, in this special talent. They are fruitful, too, in proverb lore, as would be expected in an old race. Their wise saws are sharp, often rasping:

Husbandmen, herdsmen, fishermen,—such are the majority. The farms are small, averaging four or five acres, and descend by primogeniture; flax, hemp, corn, are their staples. Basques were the first whalers, so it is declared, and St. Jean used to be a noted port for their vessels; the whales have since sought more northern banks, and St. Jean is reduced to the humbler quest of sardines and anchovies. There are iron-mines and marble-quarries, besides, to engage many; hunting and logging are favored pursuits; Basque sailors are to be found in all waters, while great numbers of the younger men are now yearly emigrating to the South American coasts, to make a better living,—and to avoid conscription.

Those of the race we see in our transit impress one, on the whole, favorably. The men have, in the main, the lithe, firm port attributed to them, though there are Basque "trash," as there are Georgia "crackers," and average-lesseners everywhere. The women are often noticeably attractive; the younger ones have a ruddy face and full, clear eye, but the skin shrivels and wears with middle age, as does that of their French peasant sisters. The Basques about Biarritz and St. Jean appear to associate with the French element in entire amity; the race strives still to keep distinct, but habits and idioms and manners imperceptibly mingle; they speak French or patois quite as much as their own tongue, and in divers ways hint at the working of amalgamation and assimilation.

Mention of this bizarre tribe is perhaps not untimely; the leveling process progresses fast, over Basque-land as in all the world; steam and lightning are the genii of the age, but they destroy while they build. As a significant straw, the French government enforces here, in the public schools, the teaching and speaking of French to supersede the Basque. Similarly, Spanish is required in the schools over the border. In some of these, a child detected in a lapse into Basque must wear a certain ring, which he is allowed to pass on to the first companion he catches likewise tripping. The latter may pass it on in turn. At the end of the week comes the reckoning-day, and the unhappy individual then found with the ring is, punished for the collective sinners of the week. Few more ingenious, even if demoralizing, expedients could be devised to put the native tongue and sentiments under ban.

"It has been truthfully observed," says one,^[8] "that, in ancient times, the Basques kept themselves outside of the Roman world; in the middle age they remained outside of feudal society; while to-day they would fain keep out of the modern world. The spectacle of this little confederacy, steadily maintaining its isolation for so many centuries, is most interesting, and, in some aspects, affecting; but the very stubbornness and the prolonged success of its resistance to all attempts to draw it into the current of modern life and thought only enhances the significance of its ultimate failure, and furnishes an expressive commentary upon the futility of a people's most determined efforts to hold itself aloof from the brotherhood of nations. Contact is God's manifest decree. The five Basques at Bayonne bridge, helpless against the incoming tide, present a truthful prophecy of the destiny of the whole race before the advancing and mounting wave of modern civilization."

V.

In this region, too, lies the famous pass of Ibañeta or Roncesvalles. It may be readily visited in a two days' excursion from St. Jean or from Biarritz. There is a carriage-road to Valcarlos, a small village on the way; beyond, a mule-path winds on up through the pass and down to the convent on the other side.

This convent was founded to commemorate the one greatest tradition of the pass,—the destruction of Charlemagne's rear-guard by the Basques in ambush and the death of the hero Roland.

Of the few writers who have visited this region, all make airy mention of the battle of Roncesvalles; scarcely one, however, condescends to details. Yet it gave rise to a great epic poem,—the greatest epic of France, the delight of all her ancient minstrels. One often hears named the Song of Roland; one seldom hears more than the name. By many the charm of its story is all unknown.

"In truth and fact," observes a recent anonymous writer, "the chain can claim one single real legend. That one, however, is so great, so grand, so dominating,—it is so immense, so universal, so world-wide,—that it suffices all alone; it creates a doctrine by itself, it needs no aid, no support, no companions,—it is the mighty tale of Roland. The mountain is full of Roland. His hands, his feet, his horse, his sword, his voice, have left their puissant mark on almost every crest, in almost every glen. Above Gavarnie, amidst the eternal snow, gapes the slashed fissure hewn by Durandal, his sword; ten miles off in a gorge you see the indents of the hoofs of Bayard on a rock which served as his half-way touching-point when he sprang in two flying bounds from the Breach to the Peak of the Chevalier near St. Sauveur. At the Pass of Roland, above Cambo, the rock remains split open where the hero stamped and claimed a passage. The ponds of Vivier Lion, near Lourdes, were dug by the pressure of his foot and knee when Vaillantif, a charger which carried him in his last fight, but who was then unbroken, had the audacity to throw him. At St. Savin, where the monks had lodged him, he paid his bill by slaying the irreverent giants, Passamont and Alabaster, whose neighborhood, was unpleasant to the convent. And so on, all about. His tremendous figure is everywhere, all full of the superbest violence and of the most wondrous acrobatry. But it is at Roncesvalles that his great name is greatest. There, where he died, his memory lives in an unfading halo. In Spain, beneath the Peak of Altabiscar amongst the beech groves, on the 15th of August, 778, perished the astounding paladin. The Song of Roland tells how he fell, not quite exactly but very amazingly; the story is so intensely interesting that the reader is carried away by it and finds himself for a moment almost able to believe it. It does not matter that the defeat is attributed to the Saracens, not one of whom was present, (the whole thing having been got up and carried out by the Basques alone;) that error was indispensable to the tale, and gives it much of its strange charm."

There is an excellent reason why the poem might fail in sharp historical accuracy; it was not formally composed until between three and four hundred years after the battle. The event itself happened in 778; the first known MS. was made, by a scribe, about 1150. All during the long interval, ballad-singers and minstrels had been extolling France and Roland; the love of the heroic was as strong as before Homer; the hero's name had grown: with his fame into titanic proportions; the actual author, (conjectured to have been one Turoldus or Theurolde, a monk,) had but to take the poetic material ready at his hand and fashion it into the epic. Time had dimmed and enlarged the details; the Song of Roland deals in mass and massive heroes; in this it is like a book from the Iliad.

It is not a long poem; there are only about 3,500 lines in all, but the Old French in which it is written makes it difficult reading, at least to one not a Frenchman. The briefest citation will show this:

However, it has been transmuted into modern French, and latterly twice translated into English verse; and the English translations appear to have preserved remarkably both the power and sweetness of the original.

The poem centres almost wholly upon this deadly battle in the Pyrenees,—the last battle of Roland its hero. Charlemagne and the Franks had invaded Spain, and spent seven years warring with the Moors and conquering their cities. On their return, as the poem narrates it, the Moors, instigated by a traitor in Charlemagne's army, plotted an ambush in this pass of Roncesvalles. The army began its march. The main body defiled through in safety, and turned westward to await the rear-guard nearer the coast. But when that division, the flower of the Frankish forces,—commanded by Roland, his bosom friend Oliver, the warrior-archbishop Turpin, and the others of the twelve great paladins,—reached the pass, hostiles began to appear,—in front, above, behind. More and more they thickened around it,—fierce Basques or swarthy Moslems, "a hundred thousand heathen men;" and the three leaders soon realized their betrayal. Oliver exclaimed:

—a touch of magnanimity strange for that brutal age, yet only one of many in the poem. Roland rather exulted than shrank at the prospect of a battle, by whatever means brought about. Oliver was the cooler of the two, and he promptly urged Roland to sound his great horn, which might be heard for thirty leagues, and so summon Charlemagne to the rescue. He saw that the danger was real, for the odds were overwhelmingly against them. But Roland impetuously refused. Thrice, though not in cowardice, Oliver pleaded with him:

The Moors at last swarmed to the attack. They were no cravens, the Moors; the fight grew rapidly desperate. The Franks performed wonders; they tingled with the Archbishop's glorious assoilment:

The twelve paladins slew twelve renowned Paynims; the mailed phalanx hewed its way into the infidels, laying them low by thousands. But thousands more were behind,—the reserve was inexhaustible; the "hundred thousand" were cut to pieces, when the Moorish king, hastily summoned, came up with a fresh army of myriads more. It was too much; little by little the Franks were beaten down, not back, and melted unyielding away. The peers fell one by one, upon heaps of the Moslem dead; the day wore on; of the twenty thousand Frankish warriors, but sixty men at length remained. Too late Roland would wind his horn; it was Oliver's turn to disdain the now useless expedient. Roland sounded nevertheless:

Again the desperate sound was faintly heard:

The third time, Roland blew; his nostrils and mouth are filled with blood, his temples crack with the stress:

—and the Emperor instantly gave the command to turn and rush to the rescue.

But the battle had gone too far. Again and again the little band of Franks clove its way into the enemy; the latter wavered, retreated, fell by hundreds, and came back in thousands. Roland's tears fell fast over his dead companions:

The last Frankish man-at-arms at length fell; only the three foremost paladins remained of all the host. But the Saracens dared no longer to approach them; they hurled their lances from afar. Spent and faint and bleeding, the three still stood out, but the death-wound of Oliver finally came; his vision swam, he swayed blindly on his horse. There is no more touching and beautiful incident in the whole range of song than this of his death:

And now but Roland and the Archbishop were left,—the former on foot, his charger dead. Wounded and gasping, they rushed forward upon the enemy; the sword-arm of the Moorish king was cut from his side, his son fell dead before him. The Moors quailed; their lances fell in storms upon the heroes. Suddenly a long, far sound was heard; it was of the trumpets of Charlemagne's returning army rushing to the rescue but still miles and hours away. The Saracens turned at the very sound; a final lance-shower, and they fled; the two held the pass of Roncesvalles, unconquered,—but dying.

For it was too late.

The Archbishop had sunk to the ground, gasping,—lifeless. Roland, stricken himself, placed his companion gently on the grass:

Then with his remaining strength, he sought one by one for the corpses of the other ten paladins; one by one he brought them to the feet of the dead prelate and laid them before the august body,—Oliver's corpse last and dearest of all. There he might leave them, the solemn assembly of the peers. It was his last task. His wound too was mortal; his time had come to join them.

"In vigor and pathos," justly observes the review before mentioned, "this poem rises to the end. There are few things in poetry more simply grand than the death of Roland. He moves feebly back to the adjoining limit-line of Spain,—the land which his well-loved master has conquered,—and a bow-shot beyond it, and then drops to the ground:"