Without condescending to remonstrance they assembled in bands, and marching down with flags flying, demolished the enclosures and took back their possession.
In the same year, 1543, the sovereign of Bearn was obliged to solicit of these tyrants of the valley permission for his cousin, the Dame d'Artiguelouve, to send her cattle to feed in the Pont Long, to which they consented "_for a consideration_"-- _i.e._ by being paid the _baccade_, such as is demanded of the shepherds.
The Princess Magdelaine, governess of Prince Francois Phoebus, in 1472, obtained, _as a favour_, the permission for her physician, Thomas Geronne, to introduce _seven mares_ to feed in the marsh.

A letter of the princess entreats, also, at another period, the same grace for the cattle of her treasurer-general.
For more than eight centuries the possession of this _precious_ marsh has been the subject of litigation, and it has remained in its barren state.
The Vallee d'Ossau has had to defend its rights sometimes against the viscounts of Bearn, sometimes against the monks of Cluny, and the _Poublans_ of Pau.

Law or combats have been always necessary to enable them to retain their rights.

It was on occasion of a decision in their favour by Gaston IV., that the Ossalois made a gift to that prince of the sum of two thousand four hundred florins, to aid him in finishing the castle of Pau, which was then in the course of erection.
This Pont Long, which has so long been an apple of discord to Bearn, is at the present hour likely to have settled bounds; for, in 1837, the members of the Cour-Royal of Pau occupied themselves on the subject, and a chance exists of something useful being done with the ground: there is a project for encouraging mulberry-trees and silk-worms there, and of making a canal to carry off its waters, and render it fit for cultivation.

This is the more necessary, as fever and ague are sufficiently common in its neighbourhood.