The entire valley of the Ariège, from the Val d'Andorre until it empties into the Garonne at Toulouse, contains as many historic and romantic reminders as that of any river of the same length in France.
Saverdun and Mazères, between Toulouse and Pamiers, and perhaps fifty kilometres north of Foix, must be omitted from no historical trip in these parts. Saverdun sits close beside one of the few remaining columns which formerly marked the boundary between Languedoc and Gascogne, a veritable historical guide-post. It was one of the former fortified towns of the Comté de Foix. It is an unimportant and unattractive enough place to-day, if a little country town of France can ever be called unattractive, but it is the head centre of innumerable châteaux and country houses of other days hidden away on the banks of the Ariège. Mostly they are without a traceable history, but everything points to the fact that they played an important part in the golden days of chivalry, and such names as l'Avocat-Vieux, Frayras, Larlenque, Madron, Pauliac and Le Vigne--the oldtime manor of the family of Mauvasin--will suggest much to any who know well their mediæval history.
A diligence runs to-day from Saverdun to Mazères, the birthplace of the gorgeous and gallant Gaston of Foix, the hero of Ravenna. Mazères is a most ancient little town, built on the banks of a small river, the Hers, and in the thirteenth century was surrounded by important fortifications, now mostly gone to build up modern garden walls. Around the old ramparts has been laid out a series of encircling boulevards, which, as an expression of civic improvement, is far and away ahead of the squares and circles of new western towns in America. The encircling boulevard is one, if not the chief, charm of very many French towns.
The ruins of the ancient château where was born the celebrated Gaston are still seen, but nothing habitable is left to suggest the luxury amid which the youth was brought up. Near by are the châteaux of Nogarède and Nassaure, each of them reminiscent of family names writ large in the history of Foix.
Another dozen kilometres southward towards Foix is Pamiers. It is extremely probable that provincial France has changed its manners considerably since the Revolution, but one can hardly believe of Pamiers, to-day a delightful little valley town, all green and red and brown, that a traveller with a jaundiced eye once called it "an ugly, stinking, ill-built hole with an inn--_of sorts_," This is not the aspect of the city, nor does it describe the Hôtel Catala.