Mention of this bizarre tribe is perhaps not untimely; the leveling process progresses fast, over Basque-land as in all the world; steam and lightning are the genii of the age, but they destroy while they build.  As a significant straw, the French government enforces here, in the public schools, the teaching and speaking of French to supersede the Basque.  Similarly, Spanish is required in the schools over the border.  In some of these, a child detected in a lapse into Basque must wear a certain ring, which he is allowed to pass on to the first companion he catches likewise tripping.  The latter may pass it on in turn.  At the end of the week comes the reckoning-day, and the unhappy individual then found with the ring is, punished for the collective sinners of the week.  Few more ingenious, even if demoralizing, expedients could be devised to put the native tongue and sentiments under ban.

“It has been truthfully observed,” says one,[8] “that, in ancient times, the Basques kept themselves outside of the Roman world; in the middle age they remained outside of feudal society; while to-day they would fain keep out of the modern world.  The spectacle of this little confederacy, steadily maintaining its isolation for so many centuries, is most interesting, and, in some aspects, affecting; but the very stubbornness and the prolonged success of its resistance to all attempts to draw it into the current of modern life and thought only enhances the significance of its ultimate failure, and furnishes an expressive commentary upon the futility of a people’s most determined efforts to hold itself aloof from the brotherhood of nations.  Contact is God’s manifest decree.  The five Basques at Bayonne bridge, helpless against the incoming tide, present a truthful prophecy of the destiny of the whole race before the advancing and mounting wave of modern civilization.”

[8] VINCENT:  In the Shadow of the Pyrenees.  New York:  Charles Scribner’s Sons.

V.

In this region, too, lies the famous pass of Ibaneta or Roncesvalles.  It may be readily visited in a two days’ excursion from St. Jean or from Biarritz.  There is a carriage-road to Valcarlos, a small village on the way; beyond, a mule-path winds on up through the pass and down to the convent on the other side.

This convent was founded to commemorate the one greatest tradition of the pass,—­the destruction of Charlemagne’s rear-guard by the Basques in ambush and the death of the hero Roland.

  “Oh for a blast of that dread horn
  On Fontarabian echoes borne
    That to King Charles did come;
  When Rowland brave and Olivier
  And every paladin and peer
    On Roncesvalles died!”

Of the few writers who have visited this region, all make airy mention of the battle of Roncesvalles; scarcely one, however, condescends to details.  Yet it gave rise to a great epic poem,—­the greatest epic of France, the delight of all her ancient minstrels.  One often hears named the Song of Roland; one seldom hears more than the name.  By many the charm of its story is all unknown.