Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 386, December, 1847

Between Barcelona and Gerona the Baron was much amused by the energetic proceedings of a zagal, or Spanish postilion, who jumped up and down from his seat, with the horses at full gallop, to the great peril of his neck, and sang never-ending songs in praise of Queen Christina and of the joyous life of a smuggler, only interrupting his melody to shout an oft-repeated tiro! tiro! (pull! pull!) and to swear Saracenic oaths at his steaming mules. "By the holy bones of Mahomet!"5 he would exclaim, "I will make thee dance, lazy Valerosa! (the valorous;) rebaptize thee with a cudgel, and then hang thee. Holy St Anthony of Padua never had a lazier jackass!" "And then he ran himself breathless by the side of poor Valerosa, and screamed himself hoarse, and flogged and flattered; and the oddest thing was, that the beasts seemed to understand him, and showed fear or joy as he blamed or praised them. Each mule had a name of its own, pricked up its long ears when addressed by it, and testified, by more rapid movements, that it well knew what laziness would entail. Manuela, Luna, Justa, Generala, Valerosa, Casilda, and Pilar, the zagal loved them all, and preferred caressing to punishing them. If horses are generally bad in France, it is assuredly in great measure because no nation in the world are more unfeeling to their beasts, especially to horses, than the French. A large proportion of the cart-horses are blind from cuts of the whip in the eyes; the postilions cannot harness their cattle without giving them violent kicks in the side; and one sees the poor brutes tremble at the approach of their tyrants. Abuse, oaths, and blows are the order of the day. The Arab makes much of his noble steed, and even the rude Cossack looks to his horse's comfort before providing for his own."

The town of Gerona, well fortified, and possessing a strong citadel, is celebrated for its noble defence against the French, related, in interesting detail, by Toreno, in his "History of the War of Independence." Its brave governor, Don Mariano Alvarez, having few provisions, and a large garrison, economised the former, and was prodigal of the latter. In repeated sorties he inflicted severe loss on the besiegers. One officer, ordered on a very perilous expedition, inquired, with some anxiety, what point he was to fall back upon. "Upon the churchyard," was the consolatory reply of Alvarez. When things came to the pass that five reals were paid for a mouse, and thirty for a cat, and somebody talked of capitulating, Alvarez swore he would have the offender slaughtered and salted, and would do the same by all who hinted at surrender. After nine months' continual fighting, all provisions being exhausted, the fortress was given up. The garrison had dwindled from fifteen thousand to four thousand men, and only a small portion of these were capable of bearing arms. The protracted and glorious defence was to be attributed – so some of the Spaniards thought – to the especial protection of the holy St Narcissa. That respectable lady is the patroness of Gerona, where her ashes repose; during the siege, a cocked and feathered hat was put upon her statue, and she received the title of generalissima. Figueras, the last town of any note before reaching the French frontier, is also a fortified place. Taken by the French in the Peninsular war, it was recaptured by the Spaniards, who entered in the night through a subterraneous passage. Its citadel of San Fernando is one of the strongest in Spain, and can accommodate fifteen thousand men. The town itself is insignificant, and only celebrated for the scale and solidity of its fortifications, which remain as a monument of former Spanish grandeur. But they lack completion, and are ill situated, which caused some connoisseur in the art to say that the mason should have been decorated, and the engineer flogged.

Pau, the favourite resort of English sojourners in southern France, was selected by the Baron and his companions for their winter-quarters; and although, upon their arrival there, the severe cold and heavy snow induced them to doubt the truth of the praises they had heard of its mild and beautiful climate, they soon became convinced the encomium was well merited. The meadows remained green the whole winter through, and once only, in the month of March, came a fall of snow, which disappeared, however, in forty-eight hours. From their windows, they commanded a magnificent view southwards, bounded in the distance by the lofty summits of the Pyrenees, supreme amongst which rises the snow-covered dome of the Pic du Midi, – "a magnificent amphitheatre, whose aspect is most sublime at night, in the full moon-light. Morning and evening, at the rising and setting of the sun, the snowy points of the Pic resemble great spires of flame, blazing through the gloom. With incredible suddenness darkness covers the lowlands, whilst the tall peaks, clothed in ice, still remain illuminated, gleaming far and wide above the broad panorama of mountains, like isolated lighthouses on the shores of the mighty ocean." Many of the Pyrenean mountains are known as the Pic du Midi; there is a Pic du Midi d'Ossau, another of Bigorre, a third of Valentine, &c.; but the Pic du Midi de Pau is the highest, and rises fifteen hundred and thirty-one toises (nearly ten thousand English feet) above the level of the sea. In like manner many rivers bear the name of Gave, a Celtic word, equivalent to mountain stream; but the Gave de Pau is the greatest and most celebrated of the family. The Pic du Midi, from certain peculiarities of position, was long thought the highest of the Pyrenees, till it was ascertained that the Monperdu, the Vignemale, and the Maladetta, are in certain parts more than a thousand feet higher.

Concerning the English residents at Pau, M. Vaerst says little or nothing, except that he and his companions, although unprovided with introductions, received visits and invitations from them, attentions for which they probably had their titles to thank. The Baron seems to have taken more pleasure in the society of the friendly French prefect, M. Azevedo, with whom he had strenuous discussions on the everlasting subject of the Rhine frontier. The Frenchman, like many of his countrymen, insisted that the far-famed German stream is the natural boundary of France, a proposition which M. Vaerst could by no means allow to pass unrefuted. Indeed, the excellent Baron seems particularly sensitive on this subject, for in various parts of his book we find him in hot dispute with presumptuous Gauls who hinted a wish to see the tricolor once more waving on the banks of that river, which Mr Becker has so confidently affirmed they shall never again possess. The Baron considers a hankering after the Rhine to be ineradicably fixed, in every Frenchman's breast, and now and then shows a little uneasiness with regard to the strife and bloodshed which this unreasonable longing may sooner or later engender. We do not learn how he fared in his discussions at Pau and elsewhere, but in his book he advances eloquent and learned arguments against French encroachment. In the very midst of them he is unfortunately interrupted by a severe attack of illness, against which he bears up with much philosophy and fortitude. "If pain purifies and improves, as I have often been told, I ought assuredly to be one of the best and purest of men. But although I have never yet lost courage under physical or any other suffering, and have ever remained cheerful as in the joyous days of my youth, I have yet no wish to continue thus the darling of the gods, who, as it is said, chastise those they best love." His patience, proof against pain, gave way at last, under a less acute but more teasing infliction, and he breaks out into a humorous anathema of the well-meaning tormentors who pestered him with prescriptions. Every body who came within ten paces of him had some sovereign panacea and unfailing remedy to recommend. He began by taking a note of all these good counsels, with no intention to follow them, but out of malicious curiosity to see how far the persecution would extend. At the end of a week he abandoned the practice, finding it too troublesome. In that short time, he had been strongly enjoined to consult twenty different physicians, and to make trial of fourteen mineral baths. One kind friend insisted on bringing him a mesmeriser, another a shepherd, a third an old woman, all of whom had already wrought marvellous cures. One recommended swan's down, another a cat's skin, another talismanic rings and a necklace of wild chestnuts. He was enjoined to sew nutmegs in his clothes, to wear a certain sort of red ribbon round his throat, to cram himself with sourkraut. And each of his advisers thought him disgustingly obstinate because he turned a deaf ear to their advice, and discredited the virtues of their medicaments, preferring those of his doctor. "I should long since have been a millionaire," he says, "if every good counsel had brought me in a louis-d'or. And truly I uphold the old Spanish proverb against advice-givers: Da me dinero, y no consejos– Give me money, and not advice."

Chained to the chimney corner by the unsatisfactory state of his health, the Baron devoted himself to study and literary occupation, pored over Froissart, acquired the old French, and revelled in the gallant pages of Queen Margaret of Navarre. At Pau, indeed, his third Pyrenean expedition concludes, but not so his book, for which he finds abundant materials in the reminiscences of his two previous journeys. His account of the Basques is especially interesting, containing much that could only have been gleaned by long residence in the country, and great familiarity with the usages of that singular people. Few in number, these dwellers amongst the western Pyrenees are formidable by their courage and energy; and from the remotest periods of their history, have made themselves respected and even feared. Hannibal treated them with consideration, and was known to alter his proposed line of march to avoid the fierce attacks of this handful of mountaineers. The Roman proconsuls sought their alliance. Cæsar, against whom, and under Pompey's banners, they arrayed themselves, was unable to subdue them. After the fall of Rome, the men of the Pyrenees were attacked in turn by Vandals, Goths, and Franks; their houses were destroyed, their lands laid waste, but they themselves, unattainable in their mountains, continued free. A deluge of barbarians overflowed Gaul and Spain; conquerors and conquered amalgamated, and divided the territory amongst them; still the Pyreneans continued unmixed in race, and undisturbed in their fastnesses. The vanquished Goth retreated before the warlike and encroaching Saracen, and the crescent standard fluttered amongst the mountains of northern Spain. It found no firm footing, and soon its bearers retraced their bloody path, strewing it with the bones of their best and bravest, and pursued by the victorious warriors of Charles Martel. But of all the historical fights that have taken place in the Pyrenees, there is not one whose tradition has been so well preserved as the great defeat of Charlemagne. The fame of Roland still resounds in popular melody, and echoes amongst the wild ravines and perilous passes, whose names, in numerous instances, connect them with his exploits.

The Basques are brave, intelligent, and proud, – simple but high-minded. They have ever shown a strong repugnance to foreign influence and habits; and have clung to old customs and to their singular language. It is curious to behold half a million of men – whose narrow territory is formed of a corner of France and another of Spain, closely hemmed in, and daily traversed, by hosts of Frenchmen and Spaniards – preserving a language which, from its difficulty and want of resemblance to any other known tongue, very few foreigners ever acquire. They have their own musical instruments – not the most harmonious in the world; their own music, of peculiar originality and wildness; their own dances and games, dress and national colours, all more or less different from those of the rest of Spain. There is no doubt of their being first-rate fighting men, but the habit of contending with superior numbers has given them peculiar notions on the subject of military success and glory. They attach no shame to a retreat or even to a flight; but those antagonists who suppose that because they run away they are beaten, sooner or later find themselves egregiously mistaken. Flight is a part of their tactics; to fatigue the enemy, and inflict heavy loss at little to themselves, is upon all occasions their aim. They care nothing for the empty honour of sleeping on the bloody battle-field over which they have all day fought. They could hardly be made to understand the merit of such a proceeding; they take much greater credit when they thin the enemy's ranks without suffering themselves. And if they often run away, they are ever ready to return to the fray. They are born with a natural aptitude for the only species of fighting for which their mountainous land is adapted. We have been greatly amused and interested, when rambling in their country, by watching a favourite game frequently played upon Sundays and other holidays. The boys of two villages meet at an appointed spot and engage in a regular skirmish; turf and clods of earth, often stones, being substituted for bullets. The spirit and skill with which the lads carry on the mock-encounter, the wild yells called forth by each fluctuation of the fight, the fierceness of their juvenile faces, when, after a well-directed volley, one side rushes forward to the charge, armed with the thick bamboo-like stems of the Indian corn, their white teeth firmly set, and a barbarous Basque oath upon their lips, strongly recall the more earnest and bloody encounters in which their fathers have so often distinguished themselves. These contests, which sometimes become rather serious from the passionate character of the Basques, and often terminate in a few broken heads, are encouraged by the elder people, and compose the sole military education of a race, who do not fight the worse because they are unacquainted with the drill-sergeant, and with the very rudiments of scientific warfare. The tenacity with which these mountaineers adhere to the usages of their ancestors, even when they are unfitted to the century, and disadvantageous to themselves, is very remarkable. The Basque is said to be so stubborn, that he knocks a nail into the wall with his head; but the Arragonese is said to surpass the Basque, inasmuch as he puts the head of the nail against the wall, and tries to drive it in by striking his skull against the point. When, in the ninth century, the French Kings conquered for a short time a part of the Basque provinces, they prudently abstained from interference with the privileges and customs of the inhabitants, and when the whole of Spain was finally united into one kingdom under Ferdinand the Catholic, the Basques retained their republican forms. Every Basque is more or less noble. The genealogical pride, proverbially attributed to Spaniards, is out-heroded by that of these mountaineers, amongst whom a charcoal-burner or a muleteer will hold himself as good and ancient a gentleman as the best duke in the land. "In the valley of the Bastan," says the Baron, "all the peasants' houses are decorated with coats of arms, hewn in stone, and generally placed over the house door; the owner of the smallest cottage is rarely without a parchment patent of nobility. A peasant of that valley once told me his family dated from the time of Queen Maricastana. El tiempo de la reyna Maricastana, is a proverb implying, 'from time immemorial.'" Certainly there is no country where such equality exists amongst all classes; an equality, however, rather pleasing than disagreeable in its results. The demeanour of the less fortunate of the people towards those whom wealth and education place above them, is as remote from insolence and brutality, as it is from cringing servility. The poorest peasant, tilling his patch of maize, answers the question of the rich proprietor, who drives his carriage past his cottage, with the same frank courtesy and manly assurance, with which he would acknowledge the greeting or interrogatory of a fellow-labourer.

Baron Vaerst indulges in some curious speculations as to the origin of this flourishing and unmixed race of mountaineers. "Some say they are an aboriginal tribe, and that their language was spoken by Adam(!); others set them down as an old Phœnician colony, whilst others again vaguely guess them to be the descendants of a wandering horde from the north or east. The language is like no other, and those who speak it know nothing of its history. Except before God, these people have never bent the knee in homage, and have never paid taxes, but only a voluntary tribute, collected amongst themselves.

"Proud of the independence they have so well defended, they for the most part, in order to preserve their nationality, have married amongst themselves. The Basque tongue has one thing in common with those of Spaniard Gascony, namely, the indiscriminate use of the B. and the V. They say indifferently Biscaya or Viscaya, Balmaseda or Valmaseda. The story is a well-known one, of the Spaniard who maintained French to be a miserable language, because in speaking it no distinction was made between a widow and an ox, —veuve and bœuf receiving from him pretty nearly the same pronunciation. I have still a letter from the well-known Echeverria, addressed to me as Baron Baerst. Scaliger, when speaking of the Gascons and of their custom of confounding the v and b, says; felicitas populi quibus bibere est vivere." Many troubadours have written and sung in the Gascon dialect; the memory of one of the most ancient of them is preserved in popular legends on account of his tragical fate. Beloved by an illustrious lady, the wife of Baron Castel Roussillon, he was enticed into an ambuscade and murdered by the jealous husband, who then tore out his heart, and had it dressed for the Countess's dinner. The meal concluded, he produced the severed head of her lover, told her what she had eaten, and inquired if the flavour was good. "Si bon et si savoureux," she replied, "que jamais autre manger ne m'en ôtera le gout." And she threw herself headlong from her balcony. The nobles of the land, the King of Arragon at their head, held the conduct of the husband so unworthy that they threw him into prison, confiscated his estates, and united in one grave the mortal remains of the unfortunate lovers.

Whilst the Basques and Bearnese enjoyed a long series of tranquil and happy years, Roussillon was a prey to bloody wars and to the ravages of ruthless conquerors. Goths and Saracens, Normans, Arragonese, and French, fought for centuries about its possession. This state of perpetual warfare naturally had great influence on the character of the people, who continued wild and savage much longer than their neighbours. The passes of the Pyrenees were a constant motive for fresh hostilities, and pretext for lawless aggression. The rich committed every sort of crime, without being made personally answerable. One of the old laws of Roussillon, significant of the state of the country, fixes the rate of payment at which crimes might be committed. Five sous were the fine for inflicting a wound; if a bone was broken, it was ten times as dear; a box on the ear cost five sous, the tearing out of an eye a hundred; a common murder three hundred sous, that of a monk four hundred, and of a priest nine hundred. Other luxuries in proportion. From which curious statement, a priest in those days appears to have been worth three laymen, and a gouged eye to have been estimated at twice the value of a broken bone. Flesh-wounds and punches on the head were decidedly cheap and within the reach of persons of very moderate means. For the delightful state of comfort and prosperity, indicated by this tariff of mutilation and manslaughter, the men of Roussillon had to thank their last Count, who, in the year 1173, bequeathed his dominions to Alphonso II. of Arragon. Thence eternal strife with the French, who did not choose to see the key to their country in the hands of a Spanish prince; and Roussillon, the bone of contention, was also the battle ground. Nearly five centuries elapsed before the treaty of the Pyrenees put an end to these dissensions.

The sea, the Ebro, and the Pyrenees, form the natural boundaries and bulwarks of the Spanish Basque provinces. Favoured by these defences, the three provinces were the natural and safe refuge of the Iberians, when hunted by various conquerors from the plains of southern and middle Spain. Of Navarre, only the mountainous portion afforded similar safety; the levels, and especially the rich banks of the Ebro, were occupied by the victors. Biscay, Alava, and Guipuzcoa were never under the dominion of the Moors, who obtained quiet possession of Navarre as far as Pampeluna, but only held it about twelve years. Each of the three provinces has its own constitution and rights, peculiar to itself, some of the privileges and laws being of a very original character. In Alava, the general procurator, or chief of the provincial government, swears every year upon an old knife – the Machete Vitoriano– to uphold the privileges of the province. "I desire," he says, "that my throat may be cut with this knife if I fail to maintain and defend the fueros of the land." The Biscayan coasts breed excellent sailors; as already mentioned, they were the first to undertake the distant fisheries of the whale and cod. They are probably better calculated for enterprising merchant-seamen than for men-of-war's men, the inveterate independence and stiff-neckedness of the race being obnoxious to regular military discipline. "Quisiera mucho mas ser leonero que tener carga de Biscaynos,"6 was a saying of Gonsalvo de Cordova. The naval squadrons of Biscay, however, are to be read of in history. It seems strange enough to Englishmen, to whom these petty provinces are known but as obscure nooks of the Peninsula, to read in Baron Vaerst's pages that "the fleet of Guipuzcoa, united with that of Biscay, completely annihilated, in a bloody naval action, fought on the 29th August 1350, the English fleet of King Edward the Third, and thereby procured Spain an advantageous treaty of commerce with England." There is small probability, we presume, of Lord Auckland's sending half-a-dozen frigates to revenge this old insult by fetching the present Spanish fleet into an English port, and there retaining them until the wise men of Madrid reduce their suicidal duties on foreign manufactures. We have stated our firm conviction that England would gain little by such reduction. Little, that is to say, in the way in which Messieurs Louis-Philippe and Guizot and their organs are pleased to assume that she expects to be benefited. "England," says a writer, already quoted, "has never asked any thing for which she did not offer a generous reciprocity. If the Spanish government, blind to its true interests, has constantly refused, in consequence of chimerical fears and false views, to renounce a prohibitive system, rendered illusory by smuggling, itself alone has suffered. For England it is a mere question of morality. The contraband trade compensates her for the ignorance of Spanish rulers… But the government of a commercial country must grieve to see commercial transactions resting on the basis of smuggling – on a violation of law and of public morality. England, where every thing reposes on credit and good faith, submits with strong repugnance to stipulations so organised that smuggling is the rule, and legal traffic the exception."7

JUDAISM IN THE LEGISLATURE

It has been frequently observed, that the chief events of the English history, during the last three centuries, have turned on religion.

Until the Reformation, our history scarcely deserved the name. The government an iron despotism, the people serfs, the barons tyrants, and the religion Popery, England possessed neither equal law, nor popular knowledge, nor security of property. And she suffered the natural evils of a condition of moral disorder; all her nobler qualities only aggravated the national misfortune, her bravery only wasted her blood in foreign fields. Her fidelity to her lords only strewed the soil with corpses; her devotional spirit only bound her to the observances of a pedantic superstition. While every kingdom of the Continent was advancing in the march of power, or knowledge, or the arts; while Germany in her mail gathered round her the chivalry of Europe; while Italy began that glittering pageant of the arts which has left such brilliant remnants behind, even in her dilapidated archives and tottering palaces; while Portugal was spreading her sails for the subjugation of the ocean, and Spain was sending Columbus to the west for a prouder conquest than was ever won by consul or emperor, – England remained like a barbarian gazer on this passing pomp of kings.