Ax-Les Thermes to Perpignan via Spain, Sat. 8/21 to Mon. 8/23/10

The Region of the Final Cathar Resistance

To those familiar with Cathar history or who have been following along with this blog, it is evident that, even though the Cathar movement was stymied by the 1244 defeat at Montsegur and the official Crusade against it ended when southern France was annexed to the northern French kingdom, it was not yet eradicated. Expelled from their hometowns and without political protectors, the remaining faithful fled south, melting into the deep valleys and high peaks of the French Pyrenean foothills, to be pushed finally in the later decades of the 13th century across the mountains into present-day Spain, then ruled by the more tolerant monarchs of Aragon and Majorca.

From 1244 to 1321, when the last known Perfect was captured and executed, the Inquisition, led by the Dominican Order founded specifically to exterminate heresy with preaching and less benign forms of persuasion, scoured the Languedoc for every last Cathar believer or sympathizers. Because the previous political regimes of Toulouse, Foix and Carcassonne had aligned more with the Cathars than the Catholics, the region’s patriots, anti-French partisans, were often scooped up by the monks in black and white, tried and imprisoned, Cathar or not.

France, but not quite French
Travelling the region, on both the French and Spanish side of the Pyrenees, I was surprised to find vestiges, some 800 years later, of the old political allegiances and languages as well as of the old faith. Street signs on the French side are in Occitan as well as French, and area newspapers push to keep the native language and aspirations for independence alive. As recently as the 1930’s, Catalan, the northernmost province of modern Spain, resisted General Franco’s attempt to outlaw their native tongue and limit their political autonomy.

My abode for the two days in the area was a ski lodge just up the steep hill from Ax-les Thermes, a town famous since Roman times for its sulphurous hot springs, salubrious for sufferers from rheumatism, skin diseases, and other maladies. Ax was also the nexus of a final Cathar revival, peaking around 1300, over 50 years after the fall of Montsegur. Headed by the zealous Authier brothers, it took the Inquisition more than a decade to capture and kill this new band of leaders and punish their followers. It is this little known phase of Catharism, its unexpected resurgence and swift suppression, that I feature in my novel, The Perfect, and thus my interest in a region rarely on the itinerary of the ordinary tourist.

On Sunday, the 22nd, I took another one day circle tour, heading east from Ax across a stunning but vertiginous section of the lower Pyrenees, to Usson ,where yet another fortress that sheltered Cathar personnel and perhaps treasure still stands, this one on a strategic pinnacle at the mouth of the Aude River Gorge.

I then turned north, through the Gorges of Saint Georges, on a narrow road threaded between two huge rocky walls and the river, then west to the mountain village of Montaillou made famous by Le Roy Laudrie’s book of the same name and covered in an earlier blog . Finally, brimming with ideas after this intimate contact with towns and countryside I’d studied on paper for years past and with plenty of photos and video tucked into my camcorder for future perusal, I straggled back to Ax for the night. (Oh, and for those who are wondering, I finally found a place to do some laundry.)

A Bit of Spain
Monday was reserved for an unfairly short “look-see” into the extreme northeastern corner of Spain, a detour required because my novel touches on the Cathar refuges south of the Pyreenes. A good effort but it proved too much, as I noted in my journal: “Yes, Spain, the small amount of it that I saw was disappointing in comparison to southern France. Seemed hotter (the weather had turned decidedly warmer by this point), dryer, more industrial, even though the largest city I got into was Manresa; glad I didn’t try Barcelona. Toward the end got myself into a ball trying to find the Mediterranean coast, only to discover later I had a map that [had I used it] would have prevented my confusion, with some doubling-back when I did not have to.”

Only after I crossed back into France did I get my first glimpse, with many others to come, of the glorious Mediterranean. Then a beeline for the hotel, and a most welcome bed, in the ancient city of Perpignan, which in the 14th century was not part France or Spain but the capital city of the short-lived kingdom of Majorca.

 
Again, I’d bitten off more than a mouthful, but no pity required. I was learning to pace myself and so noted in my journal about the day just ended: I am “getting to know my physical and psychological self a whole lot better, what to expect and not to expect of me. In situations where there is some stress, usually late in the day when I am having some difficulty navigating, a level of angst turns on, and I have to talk myself through it. Something says I should not have such times, especially when I am doing precisely what I want to be doing, but I see that is not the case.” Self-knowledge, in whatever form it comes, is always welcome!

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Copyright 2012 by Victor E. Smith. All rights reserved.