enmity, swore unutterable fidelity to their own wives, and set out in company together for the Holy Land."
Arreau stands at the junction of the two rivers called Neste, and also where the Lastie enters the stream. It has a cheerful appearance. The church of Notre Dame is of the fifteenth century, castellated, with additions a century later, built on the foundations of a church of the twelfth century, of which a good doorway remains. The chapel of S. Exuperius is of the eleventh century, and has a Romanesque portal. It stands above the Neste of Aure. The mairie is over the wooden market-hall. The entrance to the valley of the Neste de Luron is through a ravine with precipitous sides. Presently it opens out and reveals the little bourg of Borderes, commanded by the ruined castle of the Armagnacs. For now we are in Armagnac territory, and with this castle is connected the story of the last of that evil and ill-omened race. Michelet says of them:—
"Frenchmen and princes as they were become, their diabolical nature broke out on every occasion. One of them married his brother's wife, so as to be able to retain the dower, another married his own sister, by means of a false dispensation. Bernard VII, Count of Armagnac, who was almost king, and ended so ill, had begun by despoiling his kinsman, the Viscount of Frezenzaguet, flinging him into a cistern, along with his sons, his eyes plucked out. This same Bernard, pretending to be a servant of the Duke of Orléans, made war against the English, but only worked for his own ends, for when the Duke came into Guyenne he made no attempt to assist him. But no sooner was that prince dead than he posed as his avenger, brought up all the South to ravage the North, made the young Duke of Orléans marry his daughter, and gave her as dower his bands of robbers, and the malediction of France.
"What made these Armagnacs specially execrable was their impious levity allied to their innate ferocity."
