A short distance before Roland's Fountain, along the Roncevaux camino, is the text inscribed on the stele placed in the year of Compostela 1999

Roncevaux Through the Ages

...The weather is rather nasty this morning, at the gates of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, and Jerome is walking.

In the climb towards Hontto, the light drizzle mixes with the beads of sweat on his face.

Soon he disappears, swallowed up by the fog, like a man who can walk through walls: in this whitish tunnel, apart from his stick, his shoes, and a patch of asphalt, nothing can distract him.

The external silence makes his thoughts almost noisy. Besides, what does it matter if it's sunny or rainy, silent or noisy, day or night. The road is still long to Santiago de Compostela.

It's almost 9 am, this July 25th, and Jerome is still walking.

A stone cross. He leaves the hard, black road and takes the grassy path of the ancient way. Insidiously, the fog turns into mist. It gently dissipates, caressing the rocks of Leizar Atheka. It envelops them and transforms their contours into ghostly dervishes: Jerome the pilgrim, glimpses for fleeting moments the pale disk of the sun: in the middle of the path, tired, he puts down his bag, sits down and leans against it. His eyes slowly close on the army of small beeches ambushed opposite, ten paces away.

Opposite, ten paces away, Valerius Cornivus, the old centurion of the Legio III Flavia, smiles: he returns through these mountains to Aquitaine: he recalls the battles and his wound in Cantabria. The gaze of Consul Octavius Augustus, and that smile of the beautiful Iberian on the bridge of Deobriga.

Very close to the ravine, Bernard-Antoine Carrère grimaces: there, on this July 25th, 1813, a furious blow from an English saber took away half of his forearm: so many glorious campaigns with his 50th line without a scratch, so many victorious battles, from Ulm to Salamanca, to grow old - half-pay and almost one-handed.

And there, ten paces away, the emir Abb-al-Rahman al-Gateki prays and thanks Allah: between these two rocks and far beyond, the grass has disappeared under the hooves of the countless mounts of his invincible army: and far away, towards Poitiers, Charles Martel, Duke of Austrasia, prays and implores the help of God.

A little below, Arzain Zahar meditates. The Orhy on the horizon; his only fortune is this small flock that he accompanies from hill to valley: his life and his death are here: and in the center of the stone circle, there, lie the embers of the pyre: the pyre that consumed, long moons ago, the remains of his father.

A horse whinnies. Jerome starts slightly: a vague feeling of a dry throat, he dozes off.

Not far from the narrow passage, Aymeri Picaud drinks. His gourd is almost empty, his stomach too: the bundle is getting heavy and the leagues long towards Compostela: where is that famous priory of Roncevaux and its fresh bread, its fragrant soup, its ruby wine, and its soft straw?

Ten paces away, Charles Dinigo hides: The Gestapo is after him, twenty years old and eager to fight: rather than the tortures of the rack, he would prefer arrest by Carlos Sanchez, the Francoist civil guard who watches, from his hut, the border at Bentarte: ... the camp of Mirandas, Gibraltar, and who knows? maybe London.

Up there, a thousand paces away, Loup, Duke of Vascony, waits: from the crest of the Xangoa, he sees the entire army of the Great Charles: in the front, there are Frankish infantrymen with the hostages, Basques and Muslims.

Even the mules in the rear, laden with the booty taken from the Navarrese at Pamplona: In an hour, amidst a storm of rocks and arrows, Roland will die, and with him, Eggihard and Anselme and many others.
Nearby, on the path, Jeanne trembles. The convoy of carts and carriages is blocked by snow. Her Highness, Princess Elisabeth of Valois, betrothed to the master of all Spains, Philip II, has a fever. Jeanne gives her the potion prescribed by Monsieur Gaston Moncade, the surgeon: she tastes it, grimaces, and throws it ten paces away.
Ten paces away, a hundred paces away, a thousand paces away, the mist disappears, the mist has disappeared: the sun warms Jerome's face: his memory merges with Memory, his history with History.

He slowly opens his eyes, he is thirsty: Jeanne's perfume dances in the south wind: somewhere, Aymeri's bell rings a cappella: towards Elizachar, a horse whinnies.

It is time to follow in Aymeri's footsteps...

Jubilee Year compostellane 1999