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Languedoc Roussillon

France - Languedoc - Roussillon-Cathar country part 4

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The Cathar
country
part 1

 The Cathar country part 2

 The Cathar country part 3

 The Cathar country part 4

Climbing to MONTSEGUR is some kind of pilgrimage. More than 200 Cathars, were driven down the path to die in horrible circumstances, burnt at the stake. Thousands of persons come here every year and each one of them has his own thoughts and expectations. Some experience special vibrations. Others study the fissures of the opposite standing walls, admiring the colourful changments of the sunlight filtering through. They call it a sun temple. The pretend that everything here is built according to a certain geometric scheme, even the roads and the surrounding villages. Some come here to meditate and are sometimes subject to heavy emotional attacks. They are sure that they are reincarnated Cathars! Others believe that the Cathars in this spot guarded the Holy Grail. But most come because the fortified castle has become a symbol of the Cathar's struggle to have a freedom of opinion and freedom of religious belief. 
I see an elderly couple enter the remains of the clock tower. The woman drapes a body-heater over his shoulders and rubs his back. There they sit, silently, watching all around. What is that odour? I see, someone deposited a scent-burner, filling the rubble space with a sweet odour. 
"Do you feel something yet?" the old woman asks her husband, pointing at the roofless space inside the injured walls. No, he feels nothing. Showing the holes in the wall he narrates where the entrance gate must have been, and the floor of the upper level. He knows a lot, but no, he adds with disappointment, he still feels nothing. 
Some time later, when we are looking for the ruins and remains of the Cathar stone huts, at the foot of the castle, I hear a thin sound of plucked strings. I look up. There, above, on the wall top of the castle, a man sits playing some small harp. We mount the stairs and sit down to listen. What a melancholy in his play, on the top of that mountain, loaded with memories of dramatic events from long gone times. I ask him why he plays here. 
"Pour la montagne", he says (For the mountain).
"Not for the Cathars? ", I ask surprised. 
"No" he says", for me this not a special Cathar place. Cathars are everywhere, they have always existed and will exist forever."
How true that is! Slowly our regards slide over the landscape. What is really left of the Cathars, except the places where they sought refuge, but were not destined for them? In fact, only the country they wandered around, the paths and trails they travelled on. 
I pick a few blossoming branches of thyme and lavender and put them to dry in my notebook to give them later a place of honour at home in one of my books. Their footsteps lie here, on these paths, in these mountains. They smelled the same odours and maybe they picked, just like me, a branch to keep it in their clothes.