CHAPTER X.
THE ROMANCES OF THE CASTLE OF ORTHEZ--TOUR DE MONCADE--THE INFANTS--THE SON OF GASTON PHOEBUS--- LEGENDS--THE OATH--THE BAD KING OF NAVARRE--THE QUARREL--THE MURDER--DEATH OF GASTON PHOEBUS--PARADISE THE REWARD OF HUNTERS--THE CAPTIVE--THE STEP-MOTHER--THE YOUNG COUNTESS--THE GREAT BEAR--THE RETURN--THE REAL CAUSE--THE MEETING IN THE FOREST--THE MASS.
THE most interesting place on the road to Bayonne is Orthez, once the seat of the counts of Foix.

We proposed remaining there a short time, in order to visit its remains on our way to Bayonne, and alighted at the hotel of _La Belle Hotesse_, which is on the site of _La Lune_, where the historian, Froissart, stopped some centuries before us, and where he heard so many stories and legends which he has immortalized in his charming _romantic_ chronicle.

The soldiers of Marshal Soult occupied this inn in 1814, when the pale old lady, who is still mistress, then deserved the title which her beauty gave to her house of entertainment.
On approaching Orthez we were struck with the appearance, on a height above the town, of the castle ruins, whose battered walls seem so fragile that a breath of wind might blow them away: the upper part of the great tower is much injured, and its irregular stones project in a manner which threatens their fall: the blue sky shone through the arrow slits and windows, and the whole mass gave us an idea of its hastening to immediate dissolution.

It has an imposing and venerable effect, and excited in our minds considerable interest: we therefore hastened up the rugged way to the hill on which it stands, and there found ourselves in the midst of the remains of one of the strongest castles of which this part of Bearn could boast, from the earliest time.
It is called the castle of Moncade, having been, in 734, the abode of a Catalonian knight of that name, who was accustomed to issue forth from this strong-hold to combat the Moors of Spain.

In after times the fortress was possessed by a warlike lady, called La Grosse Comtesse Garsende de Bearn, who, in 1242, offered her services to Henry III.