On 25 September 1347 one Acharias de Brunheys, ‘gentleman’, brought to the Count of Foix letters bearing the royal seal of France. He was much taken aback when, after reading the letters, the fifteen-year-old Gaston III informed him that he had come to the wrong place, at the wrong time. The envoy had travelled very far indeed, all the way to Orthez in the viscounty of Béarn (now the French département of Pyrénées-Atlantiques), only to be told that the royal summons would only be considered, and answered, after the feast of All Saints, when the Count would be back at his other seat in his county of Foix (modern Ariège). The weary, disappointed messenger returned no doubt as he had come, by way of Toulouse. His route sometimes ran parallel to the Pyrenees, and analogies may have occurred to him, between the reliability of certain far-flung allegiances and some elusive aspects of the great mountain range that shines one day high above the foothills, only to vanish the next day in a thin mist, itself almost invisible. And even when in clear weather those sharp peaks and glittering glaciers seem near enough to touch, their crystalline purity often conceals the imminence of a storm.

The looming, abrupt north face of the Pyrenees seems to confirm the opinion held so long by so many, that here ends Europe proper. While they are not the highest range on the continent – not rising above 12,000 feet – they stretch continuously from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.