Gaston Febus, the Sun Count

When Gaston became Febus

Gaston Febus (1331-1391), the son of Gaston II of Foix-Béarn and Aliénor of Comminges, was born in Foix on April 30, 1331. When his father died during the 1343 crusade in Andalusia, he became Count of Foix and Viscount of Béarn, Marsan and Gabardan. He was 12 at the time.

On one front, he was waging a relentless war against the Count of Armagnac, who had been appointed Steward of the King in Languedoc. During that Southern Hundred Years’ War, Gaston  III ravaged the Armagnac lands and took the city of Toulouse under his protection in exchange for a hefty sum, finding for himself a risk-free vocation as a war entrepreneur. The ancestral hatred between the two families prompted them to fight many battles in Languedoc and over the inheritance of Comminges. On December 5, 1362, during the battle of Launac, Febus defeated the House of Armagnac, took a large number of prisoners and received many ransom payments that made him wealthy.

He took advantage of a truce to go fight war in Spain then left during the summer of 1357 to join Teutonic knights going on a crusade in Prussia. On his way back, he set free the Dauphin of France’s wife who had been imprisoned in the market of Meaux and was about to be embroiled in the upheaval of the Jacquerie (June 1358). That feat brought him considerable fame and from that day on, he took on the name of Febus.

A builder and a scholar

That powerful prince was also a wise administrator. He reorganised his estates, set up a permanent tax system, a permanent administration, put together a well-equipped army and organised defence by creating militias and building many forts bearing the prideful motto “Febus me fe”. He developed trade and ensured the safety of traders along the Pyrenees and in the Garonne valley routes. He turned the Morlaas currency into a trading tool that inspired trust all the way to Asia.

A feared prince, he was without a doubt one of the most refined and cultured nobles of his time. He had a magnificent court which drew visitors from all Europe. A lover of the arts, he wrote the Book of Prayers and the Book of the Hunt. He sent for and had many manuscripts translated, including Albucasis’s work and the Elucidari. The chronicler Froissart went to the court in Orthez and wrote some of his best work there.