“Tunc rura Nemossi Qui tenet et ripas Aturri, quo littore curvo Molliter admissum claudit Tarbellicus æquor.”
S. Vincent of Saintonge was the first apostle of the region, and fell a martyr to his zeal. Dax formed part of the dowry of the daughter of Henry II. of England when she married Alfonso of Castile, but it returned to the Plantagenets in the time of Edward III. The city was an episcopal see before the revolution of 1793. François de Noailles, one of the most distinguished of its bishops, was famous as a diplomatist in the XVIth century. He was sent to England on several important missions, and finally appointed ambassador to that country in the reign of Mary Tudor. Recalled when Philip II. induced her to declare war against France, he landed at Calais, and, carefully examining the fortifications, his keen, observant eye soon discovered the weak point, to which, at his arrival in court, he at once directed the king’s attention, declaring it would not be a difficult matter to take the place. His statements made such an impression on King Henry, who had always found him as judicious as he was devoted to the interests of the crown, that he resolved to lay siege to Calais, notwithstanding the opposition of his ministers, and the Duke of Guise began the attack January 1, 1558. The place was taken in a week. It had cost the English a year’s siege two hundred and ten years before. Three weeks after its surrender Cardinal Hippolyte de Ferrara, Archbishop of Auch (the son of Lucretia Borgia, who married Alphonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara) wrote François de Noailles as follows: “No one can help acknowledging the great hand you had in the taking of Calais, as it was actually taken at the very place you pointed out.” French historians have been too forgetful of the hand the Bishop of Dax had in the taking of a place so important to the interests of the nation, which added so much to the glory of the French arms, and was so humiliating to England, whose anguish was echoed by the queen when she exclaimed that if her heart could be opened the very name of Calais would be found written therein!
This great churchman was no less successful in his embassy to Venice, where he triumphed over the haughty pretensions of Philip II., and, as Brantôme says, “won great honor and affection.” After five years in Italy he returned to Dax, where he devoted most of his revenues to relieve the misery that prevailed at that fearful time of religious war. Dax, as he said, was “the poorest see in France.” In 1571 he was appointed ambassador to Constantinople by Charles IX. Florimond de Raymond, an old writer of that day, tells us the bishop was at first troubled as to his presentation to the sultan, who only regarded the highest dignitaries as the dust of his feet, and exacted ceremonies which the ambassador considered beneath the dignity of a bishop and a representative of France. He resolved not to submit to them, and, thanks to his pleasing address, and handsome person dressed for the occasion in red _cramoisie_ and cloth of gold, he was not subjected to them. Moreover, by his fascinating manners and agreeable conversation, he became a great favorite of the sultan, and took so judicious a course that his embassy ended by rendering France mistress of the commerce of the Mediterranean, and giving her a pre-eminence in the East which she has never lost.