Many imperishable souvenirs are left of the reign at Orthez of the brilliant Gaston de Foix, when tourneys and fêtes followed in rapid succession. It was Orthez' most brilliant epoch.
It was here, to the court of Gaston Phoebus, that Messire Jehan Froissart came, in 1388, and stayed three weeks and some of his most brilliant pages relate to this visit. Of his host, the chronicler said: "_De toutes choses il est si parfait_."
Gaston Phoebus was so powerful and magnificent a seigneur in his own right, and his castle at Orthez was such a landmark of history that Louis XI--who conceded little enough to others as a usual thing--said to his followers as he was passing through Béarnais territory on a pilgrimage: "_Messeigneurs, laissez l'epée de France, nous sortons ici du royaume_."
Gaston Phoebus was the most accomplished seigneur of his time, and he had for his motto "_Toquos-y se gaasos_"--"Attack who dares."
One day, in the month of August, 1390, on returning from a bear hunt, greatly fatigued, he was handed a cup from which to drink. He drank from the cup and instantly expired. Was he poisoned? That is what no one knows. It was the custom of the time to make away with one's enemies thus, and in this connection one recalls that Gaston himself killed his own son because he would not eat at table.
Orthez was deserted by the court for Pau, and in time the natural destruction of wind and weather, and the hand of man, stripped the château to what one sees to-day.
The Pont d'Orthez is a far better preserved monument of feudal and warlike times, and it was a real defence to the city, as can be readily understood by all who view it. Its four hardy arches span the Gave as they did in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It was from the summit of one of the sentinel towers of this most remarkable of mediæval bridges that the soldiers of Montgomery obliged the monks to throw themselves into the river below. The "Brothers of the Bridge" were a famous institution in mediæval times, and they should have been better treated than they usually were, but too frequently indeed they were massacred without having either the right or the means to defend themselves.
The history of Montgomery's connection with Orthez, or more particularly the Pont d'Orthez, reads almost as if it were legend, though indeed it is truth. The story is called by the French historians "La Chronique de la Tour des Caperas."