Bayeux

“ Everywhere in Bayonne, it is easy to escape from the bustle of the city, and find yourself in a beautiful, shaded walk—an advantage seldom possessed by a commercial town.
Although many are delightful, and there is only the embarrassment of choice, the most beautiful and agreeable, it must be allowed, are the allées marines, which are walks nicely kept, planted with several rows of fine trees, reaching along the banks of the Adour for an immense distance, with meadows on the other hand, and a range of cultivated hills on the opposite shore. ”

“ In war it is considered that an attack with the bayonet or the immediate threat of one is a necessary preliminary to a successful assault.
Bayonne (ba ̇-yon) , a well-built fortified town, the largest in the French department Basses-Pyrénées, at the confluence of the Nive and the Adour, about 2 miles from their mouth in the Bay of Biscay; with a citadel commanding the harbour and city, a cathedral—a beautiful ancient building—shipbuilding and other industries, and a considerable trade. Among the lower class the Basque language is spoken. ”

“ The bayou curved like a crescent around the point of land on which La Folle's cabin stood. Between the stream and the hut lay a big abandoned field, where cattle were pastured when the bayou supplied them with water enough. Through the woods that spread back into unknown regions the woman had drawn an imaginary line, and past this circle she never stepped. ”

“ She dwelt alone in her solitary cabin, for the rest of the quarters had long since been removed beyond her sight and knowledge. She had more physical strength than most men, and made her patch of cotton and corn and tobacco like the best of them. But of the world beyond the bayou she had long known nothing, save what her morbid fancy conceived.
People at Bellissime had grown used to her and her way, and they thought nothing of it. Even when "Old Mis'" died, they did not wonder that La Folle had not crossed the bayou, but had stood upon her side of it, wailing and lamenting. ”

“ One day to Bayonne along the white, hard road that skirts the Chambre d’Amour, through the peace and quiet of Aiglet and on through kilometres of pines to the Adour, a river so beautiful in itself that all the ingenuity of man has been unable to make it wholly hideous, and thence by its banks to the outlying gardens of the city. ”

“ She turned at the cabin door to observe tentatively: "I reckon it's Wilkins tells you how the folks they talk, yonda up to Mr. Hallet's."
She did not go to the store as she had intended, but walked with a dragging step back to her home. The silver dollars clicked in her pocket as she walked. She felt like flinging them across the field; they seemed to her somehow the price of shame.
The sun had sunk, and twilight was settling like a silver beam upon the bayou and enveloping the fields in a gray mist. Evariste, slim and slouchy, was waiting for his daughter in the cabin door. ”

“ Bayonne has a reputation for being in general extremely healthy; and its position, in reach of the fine fresh sea air, seems to render it probable. To me, after the close atmosphere of Pau, it was peculiarly pleasant; and seemed to give new life, and restore the spirits, depressed by that enervating climate, where, except for invalids, a long residence is anything but desirable.
There seems but little commercial movement at Bayonne, and no bustle on the quays; indeed, except at Nantes, I have always, in France, been struck with the quiet and silent aspect of the seaports; so unlike our own. ”

“ Bayonne is a staid and serious city, Biarritz a youthful-hearted resort. Bayonne is reminiscent of the past; Biarritz is alive with its present. The genie of modern improvement has not yet come, to rebuild Bayonne. Neither fashion nor commerce has sufficiently rubbed the lamp. It holds unlessened its long-time population of about thirty thousand souls; it still drives its comfortable, trade as the second port of southwestern France; it is known as enjoying a mild commercial specialty or two, as in the line of textiles, particularly wools and woolen fabrics ”

“ The little one uttered a cry of dismay.
"La Folle!" she screamed, in her piercing treble. "La Folle done cross de bayer!"
Quickly the cry passed down the line of cabins.
"Yonda, La Folle done cross de bayou!"
Children, old men, old women, young ones with infants in their arms, flocked to doors and windows to see this awe-inspiring spectacle. Most of them shuddered with superstitious dread of what it might portend. "She totin' Cheri!" some of them shouted. ”

“ Within its bosom are hidden romances and stories, such as were sung by minstrels of old. From the source to the mouth is not far distant, visibly speaking, but in the life of the bayou a hundred heart-miles could scarce measure it. Just where it winds about the northwest of the city are some of its most beautiful bits, orange groves on one side, and quaint old Spanish gardens on the other. Who cares that the bridges are modern, and that here and there pert boat-houses rear their prim heads? ”

“ A bayou runs irregularly across this low land, the bottom of which, however, is above the surface of the Big Black at ordinary stages. When the river is full water runs through it, converting the point of land into an island. The bayou was grown up with timber, which the enemy had felled into the ditch. At this time there was a foot or two of water in it. The rebels had constructed a parapet along the inner bank of this bayou by using cotton bales from the plantation close by and throwing dirt over them. The whole was thoroughly commanded from the height west of the river. ”

“ The Madrid coach sets out from Bayonne. The conductor is a mayoral, with a peaked hat adorned with velvet and silk tufts, a brown waistcoat embroidered with coloured ornaments, leather gaiters, and a red sash; these impart a nice little amount of local colouring. Beyond Bayonne, the country is exceedingly picturesque; the chain of the Pyrenees becomes more distinct, and beautifully undulating lines of mountains vary the aspect of the horizon, while the sea appears frequently to the right of the road. ”

“ Getting aboard again, the boys pushed a little way further up the bayou, which seemed to extend clear through the River Island and out to the old channel; but the tangled, half-flooded shores were so melancholy that they presently dropped down the current again to the bee-yard. Here they moored the boat, and started to explore the lower part of the bayou on foot.
The ground was higher here, and the walking dry and good, though obstructed with blackberry, gallberry, and oak-scrub. They went down to the mouth of the bayou, then turned inland and came in a circle back toward the cabin. ”

“ But Bayonne has later associations with us. At the close of the Peninsular War, when Wellington had driven Marshal Soult and the French out of Spain, and had crossed the Pyrenees, his forces, under Sir John Hope, invested the citadel. In February, 1814, Sir John threw a bridge of boats across the Adour, boats being provided by the fleet of Admiral Penrose, in the teeth of a garrison of 15,000 men, and French gunboats which guarded the river and raked the English whilst conducting this hazardous and masterly achievement. ”

“ The town also possesses an important military arsenal and military hospital. The commerce of Bayonne is much more important than its industries, which include the manufacture of leather and of chocolate. The port consists of an outer harbour, the so-called “rade” (roadstead) and the port proper, and occupies the course of the Adour from its mouth, which is obstructed by a shifting bar, to the Pont St Esprit, and the course of the Nive as far as the Pont Mayou. Above these two bridges the rivers are accessible only to river navigation. Vessels drawing from 16 to 22 ft. ”

“ There are few old towns in France, which can be called fine in themselves: their advantages lie in situation, and in the modern additions which have succeeded to the ramparts and close-walled enclosures of the ancient time, when to crowd streets together and fence them in was the principal aim; but Bayonne, although still fortified strongly, is less confined than most cities: a thorough air blows through the tolerably well-paved streets ”

“ A walk about Bayonne brings to notice of course a great amount of fortification, especially the citadel [Pg 35] of Vauban, where Marshal Soult and the Duke of Wellington fought very hard and sacrificed a great number of the soldiers of their respective countries. Proceeding in another direction outside the town, the tourist will come to a cemetery where lie forgotten, mouldering in the dust of a foreign land, the remains of the officers of the British guards who fell during the fruitless siege of Bayonne. ”

“ Bayonne was the scene of a struggle between a few privileged families, which sought to monopolise municipal office, and a popular opposition based upon the seafaring class. The neighbouring princes cast greedy eyes on a land so rich, divided, and helpless. Theobald IV., the poet, Count of Champagne and King of Navarre, coveted the valley of the Adour. Gaston, Viscount of Béarn, the cousin of Queen Eleanor, plundered and destroyed the town of Dax. Ferdinand the Saint of Castile and James I. of Aragon severally claimed all Gascony. Behind all these loomed the agents of the King of France. ”

“ Also, calling one of the attendants of the Bishop, she entrusted him with the little trunk containing linen and other necessaries for Bayard, begging him to give it in the care of the equerry who would have charge of the boy at the Duke of Savoy's Court, and she gave him two crowns. There was no time for more, as the Bishop of Grenoble was now calling his nephew. As he set forth on that Saturday morning, riding his spirited chestnut towards Chambéry, with the sun shining and the birds singing, and all his future like a fair vision before him, young Bayard thought that he was in paradise. ”

“ The mist shifts about us all the way to Bayonne, and when we have passed that city, seems to have settled into rain, but we are no sooner made snug by the cover and lap-robes than the clouds break and the sun shines warmly and pleasantly. ”

“ Then if ever you have business that takes you to Bayonne, come in by river and from the sea, and how well you will understand the little town and its lovely northern Gothic!
Some of the great churches all the world knows must be seen from the water, and most of the world so sees them. ”

“ The spring came early in Orville, and so subtly that no one could tell exactly when it began. But one morning the roses were so luscious in Placide's sunny parterres, the peas and bean-vines and borders of strawberries so rank in his trim vegetable patches, that he called out lustily, "No mo' winta, Judge!" to the staid Judge Blount, who went ambling by on his gray pony.
"There's right smart o' folks don't know it, Santien," responded the judge, with occult meaning that might be applied to certain indebted clients back on the bayou who had not broken land yet. ”

“ In an affray over this the mountaineers killed several citizens of Bayonne. In reprisal, in the reign of Edward III of England, Duke of Gascony and Aquitaine, the mayor of Bayonne, a Sieur de Puyane, descended on Villefranche on S. Bartholomew's Day, when a fair was being held there, caught five burgesses of note and fastened them to the arches of the bridge, and let them drown to show by occular demonstration that the tide did rise to Villefranche, and that therefore it was within the jurisdiction of Bayonne. The Basques rose en masse and massacred the Labourdins wherever they caught them. ”

“ This Villa not being above four Leagues from Bayonne, we got there by Dinner time, where at an Ordinary of twenty Sous, we eat and drank in Plenty, and with a gusto, much better than in any part of Spain; where for eating much worse, we paid very much more.
BAYONNE is a Town strong by Nature; yet the Fortifications have been very much neglected, since the building of the Citadel, on the other Side the River; which not only commands the Town, but the Harbour too. It is a noble Fabrick ”

“ Along the banks of the bayou were a few live oaks; on either flank the swamp was densely wooded, mainly with cypress, cottonwood, and willow, with an outlying and almost impenetrable canebrake, while between the attacking columns and the Confederate position, on either bank of the bayou, stretched a field where the young shoots of the sugar-cane stood knee-high. This was crossed at right angles with the bayou, by many of those wide and deep ditches by which the planters of Louisiana are accustomed to drain their tilled lowlands. ”

“ If our village boasted one of those horseless juggernauts, such as are used to carry sightseers in Boston from the old North Church to the Public Library and other points of interest—that is, if there was a “seeing Bayport” car, it is from this hill that its occupants would be given their finest view of the village and its surroundings. As Captain Josiah Dimick always says: “Bayport is all north and south, like a codfish line. It puts me in mind of Seth Higgins's oldest boy. ”

“ This unexpected upheaval from the marsh, bounded by the narrow, circling Petite Anse Bayou, rises into the sky one hundred and eighty feet, and has the effect in this flat expanse of a veritable mountain, comparatively a surprise, like Pike’s Peak seen from the elevation of Denver. Perhaps nowhere else would a hill of one hundred and eighty feet make such an impression on the mind. Crossing the bayou, where alligators sun themselves and eye with affection the colored people angling at the bridge, and passing a long causeway over the marsh, the firm land of the island is reached. ”