Castles and Chateaux of Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces

Castles and Chateaux of Old Navarre and the Basque Provinces

No account of the life and historical monuments of any section of the old French provinces can be made to confine its scope within geographical or topographical limits. The most that can be accomplished is to centre the interest around some imaginary hub from which radiate leading lines of historic and romantic interest. Henri de Navarre is the chief romantic and historical figure of all that part of France bounded on the south by the Pyrenean frontier of Spain. He was but a Prince of Barn when his mother, Jeanne dAlbret, became the sovereign of French Navarre and of Barn, but the romantic life which had centred around the ancestral chteau at Pau was such that the young prince went up to Paris with a training in chivalry and a love of pomp and splendour which was second only to that of Franois I. The little kingdom of Navarre, the principality of Barn, and the dukedoms and countships which surround them, from the Mediterranean on the east to the Gulf of Gascony on the west, are so intimately connected with the gallant doings of men and women of those old days that the region known as the Pyrenean provinces of the later monarchy of France stands in a class by itself with regard to the romance and chivalry of feudal days. The dukes, counts and seigneurs of Languedoc and Gascony have been names to conjure with for the novelists of the Dumas school; and, too, the manners and customs of the earlier troubadours and crusaders formed a motive for still another coterie of fictionists of the romantic school. In the Comt de Foix one finds a link which binds the noblesse of the south with that of the north. It is the story of Franoise de Foix, who became the Marquise de Chateaubriant, the wife of Jean de Laval, that Breton Bluebeard whose atrocities were almost as great as those of his brother of the fairy tale. And the ties are numerous which have joined the chatelains of these feudal chteaux and courts of the Midi with those of the Domain of France. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 43609
Author: Mansfield, M. F. (Milburg Francisco)
Release Date: Aug 31, 2013
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: McManus, Blanche, 1869-1935