Bayonne

Bayonne, one of the most strongly fortified towns of France, in the department of Basses-Pyrénées, situated at the confluence of the Adour and Nive, 4 miles from the mouth of their united waters in the Bay of Biscay, and 63 miles WNW. of Pau by rail. The two rivers divide the town into three parts—Great Bayonne, Little Bayonne, and St Esprit. Pop. (1872) 27,173; (1891) 24,982. Many of its streets are narrow and dark, but the town still wears an air of wealth and comfort, spite of its declining prosperity from the competition of the railway and the gradual filling up of the mouth of the Adour. The river formerly emptied by a mouth 12 miles farther north than its present one, which it opened for itself in the 16th century. The manners of the inhabitants as well as the architecture remind us of Spain, only 22 miles distant, but among the poorer natives the Basque type and the Basque tongue are predominant. Of the seven churches the finest is the cathedral, in the oldest part of the town, begun in the 13th century, with its three naves, its stately portal, and its elaborate roof. The citadel, on a height in St Esprit, was one of Vauban's masterpieces. Having opened its gates only during the armistice in 1814, it still bears its proud motto, 'Nunquam polluta.' The chief manufactures are brandy and liquorice, besides chocolate, leather, tobacco and glass (especially bottles); and in these products, together with wine, corn, cork, wax, oil, wool, and the celebrated Bayonne hams, there is a large trade with Spain and Northern Europe. Bayonne belonged to the Duchy of Aquitaine, then to Gascony, and was in the hands of the English from 1152 to 1451. During the wars with Spain it was often besieged, but never taken. Here the great Napoleon cozened Charles IV. out of the crown of Spain, after he had ineffectually endeavoured to get Ferdinand VII., to whom Charles had previously resigned it, to give it up. In 1814 it was besieged in vain by the British and Spanish allies, and was the scene of a series of desperate bloody struggles. In five days' fighting on the banks of the Nive, south-east of Bayonne (December 1813), the French lost 6000 men, the allies upwards of 5000, and in the bloody sortie from Bayonne of April 1814, as many as 800 English soldiers fell.