brick towers close the line with their esplanades and battlements. It
is connected with the city by a narrow old bridge, by a broad modern
one with the park, and the foot of its terrace is bathed by a dark but
lovely stream.

Near at hand, this arrangement disappears; a fifth tower upon the
north side deranges the symmetry. The great egg-shaped court is a
mosaic of incongruous masonry; above the porch, a wall of pebbles from
the Gave, and of red bricks crossed like a tapestry design; opposite,
fixt to the wall, a row of medallions in stone; upon the sides, doors
of every form and age; dormer windows, windows square, pointed,
embattled, with stone mullions garlanded with elaborate reliefs. This
masquerade of styles troubles the mind, yet not unpleasantly; it is
unpretending and artless; each century has built according to its own
fancy, without concerning itself about its neighbor.

On the first floor is shown a great tortoise-shell, which was the
cradle of Henry IV. Carved chests, dressing-tables, tapestries, clocks
of that day, the bed and arm-chair of Jeanne d'Albret, a complete set
of furniture in the taste of the Renaissance, striking and somber,
painfully labored yet magnificent in style, carrying the mind at once
back toward that age of force and effort, of boldness in invention, of
unbridled pleasures and terrible toil, of sensuality and of heroism.
Jeanne d'Albret, mother of Henry IV., crossed France in order that
she might, according to her promise, be confined in this castle. "A
princess," says D'Aubigné, "having nothing of the woman about her but
the sex, a soul entirely given to manly things, a mind mighty in great
affairs, a heart unconquerable by adversity."

She sang an old Bearnaise song when she brought him into the world.