The Blood of Toulouse

by Maurice Magre

  All of that was loaded on to mules whose feet were surrounded with felt. Loup de Foix and Esclarmonde d’Alion commanded the handful of men who were to fight and try to save the treasure in case of surprise.

  From the height of the balcony of rock that overlooked the Ers, with the group of leaders, I watched the silent cortege plunge into the darkness. Esclarmonde d’Alion was the last, and as she turned round to make a sign to Jordan d’Elcongost she stumbled, made a noise and almost fell.

  Jordan d’Elcongost watched her silhouette decrease. The perfecti followed the hope of Catharism with their eyes. Pierre Roger de Mirepoix, who was beside me, was thinking about the gold that was drawing away from him. Had he not been fighting for its possession? His face expressed despair. Never had the enigma of the man appeared greater to me. There was no Albigensian faith in him, and he was even scornful of the believers for their religious scruples, and their horror of bloodshed. He did not believe in anything except his own hatred. If Montségur held out for so long it was because of the determination of that inexorable leader. He never confided in anyone. The only words he spoke were military orders. But I sensed that he was linked to the presence of gold in the château, and when the gold had gone, he found himself in the midst of empty stones. He fought with the same tenacity until the final hour, but perhaps without knowing why.

  Very late, just as daylight as about to appear, a flame on the mountains of Serrelongue told us that the treasure had been saved.

  Roger de Massabrac had inspired so much confidence in us in the power of his evil eye. To the west of the fortified part of the mountain he commanded a little redoubt above a sheer path. That path, known only to shepherds, was almost vertical. Its stones were hostile and vertigo troubled the mind there. It was thought to be impossible to climb by night, especially with Roger de Massabrac’s evil eye above it. Doubtless a shepherd betrayed it. Doubtless there were particularly skillful mountain-climbers among the crusaders who possessed a talisman against the evil eye. It was by that path that defeat slid toward us.

  From all sides at once an attack had taken place during the day. We were exhausted. In the evening, Bertrand de La Baccalaria made a tour of the broken walls in order to say that all was well. His joyful voice could be heard resonating through the ruins. We had scarcely fallen sleep in the subterranean ant-hill when the alarm trumpet resounded, followed by clamors. I threw myself on my weapons and launched forth half-dressed, scarcely taking time to wake my neighbor, the companion of the dead Boubila.

  The stairway that I climbed ended in the great courtyard, where a torch was perpetually alight. By its light I perceived Roger de Massabrac, tottering and supporting himself with his hand against a wall. I thought he was drunk and I was about to reproach him sharply when a man appeared through a low door that I did not recognize. He looked to the right and left, seemingly frightened. I saw that he had a red cross on his coat of mail and that everything he was wearing was singularly bright and new by comparison with the rags in which the château’s defenders were now clad. In my folly, I thought of some incomprehensible disguise.

  But he suddenly turned round and shouted in the French language: “Come on, there are two of them here!”

  Pouncing like a cat, he thrust with the point of his sword at Roger de Massabrac, and tried to lay me out with another. Roger de Massabrac fell face down. I think that he was already dying when he received that final thrust. I had time to see that his back bore several wounds. He must have received them while he was trying to get back to the château to warn us. The man was still bounding as if he belonged to the feline species rather than the human.

  Albigensians emerged from all sides. A few pikes, behind which there were gleaming eyes, had appeared at the little door. We rushed in that direction. A small group of crusaders, driven back against the wall of a tower, were exterminated in the gloom. But there were others almost everywhere. Pierre Roger de Mirepoix had gathered the men of the guard who were sleeping, fully armed, in the main hall of the central keep. His stature had suddenly increased. His voice had taken on a metallic tone. A warrior spirit animated him. He was holding a short pike in his right hand and a dagger in his left. He had thrown away his helmet as if he were certain that he would not be hit. Thanks to his presence of mind and his divination of the danger that menaced us, we were able to repel the enemy from the circle of the four central towers.

  But the enormous stone-throwing machines, grating and groaning, were set in motion in spite of the darkness. There was a rain of cyclopean blocks, as if the somber sky were against us and dropping fragments of stars. A procession of old men and children who had gathered and who emerged singing to ask death to come more rapidly had their wish granted immediately. The men posted at the ballistas must have been the first killed, or could not reach the towers in the disorder.

  We perceived above us the skeletons of our own machines, dislocated by stones and motionless. It was impossible to tell what was burning, or how the fire had been ignited, but spirals of suffocating smoke blinded the eyes and blackened faces. The perfecti ran around, lavishing the consolamentum upon the dying. Jordan du Mas San-Andréo, whose chest was crushed, bid me adieu smiling and gave me a rendezvous in the other world, into which he was preceding me, at a precise hour on the following day. I saw Pelegrina de Bruniquel, who had received an arrow in the heart, raise the petals of a rose hastily to her lips. All those who were dying said: “Finally!”

  Late in the night there were a few minutes of calm. I was surprised to see Bertrand Martin coming toward me. He took me by the hand and drew me through the wounded and along the interior staircase to a little bare cell. Bertrand Martin was reputed to be the most saintly of the perfecti. My master Raymond VI had held him in veneration. It was claimed that he was the Pope of the secret Church.

  “I have chosen you,” he said. “You must live.”

  I made a gesture to express the impossibility of realizing that wish, but he stopped me.

  “It’s necessary that a courageous man save the most precious part of the treasure of the Albigensians. You can still take advantage of the darkness, go down the mountain and slip through the crusaders’ lines. Don’t regret death. It will not be definitive for you. It will be necessary for you to be reincarnated very often in human forms.

  He assured me thus of an imperfection of which I as well aware but that no one likes to hear specified. It was not a time for polite reticence and Bertrand Martin’s purity obliged him to an absolute sincerity.

  He took from his garments an oval object of which I could only perceive part beneath the hide that enveloped it. It was a glaucous stone, perhaps an enormous emerald, which as hollow and which contained some sort of red-tinted liquid.

  He hesitated for a second, wondering whether he ought to explain the nature of the treasure to me. He simply said: “Give this to the perfecti who have taken refuge in the grotto of Ornolac. I have confidence in you. Adieu.”

  And he embraced me.

  The grotto of Ornolac was the place near Castelverdun to which the treasure of Montségur had been transported.

  I went back upstairs, reflecting on the means of getting out of the château.

  Almost all of the defenders of Montségur were assembled in the great courtyard. Jordan d’Elcongost was holding a torch above a seated cleric who was writing. Beside him, Pierre Roger de Mirepoix was shouting names at regular intervals, and his voice resonated strangely. It seemed to me that there was no longer any sound from the direction of the besiegers and that silence seemed lugubrious to me. First light was beginning to appear. I interrogated Delga in a low voice as to the significance of the scene.

  There was no more fighting. A negotiator had come. The whole mountain was full of crusaders. There were thousands of them and resistance was impossible. Pierre Roger de Mirepoix had made a treaty with the Seneschal of Carcassonne. He was surrendering what remained of the château but he had obtained a guarantee of life for him and his soldiers. He had just drawn
up a list of combatants who, with their weapons, were about to leave the château with him.

  There were scarcely more than sixty defenders still alive. Pierre Roger de Mirepoix ordered the cleric to read the list of names that he had just dictated. As no one could hear him, he took it and read it himself, pausing to curse because of the poor handwriting, which he had trouble deciphering. When he had finished, the cleric, who had stood up, sat down, livid, He was not on the list. Nor had Pierre Roger de Mirepoix read my name. But as he concluded, our eyes met. He hesitated, and articulated, regretfully: “Dalmas Rochemaure.”

  The silence that followed tore my heart. We were about to leave behind three or four hundred Albigensians, women and old men for the most part. They had appealed for death with such ardor that death was now there, under the arch of the gate, with crosses and pikes.

  Pierre Roger de Mirepoix instructed us to pick up our weapons and hold ourselves ready in order to be able to defend ourselves if there was treason. A few minutes were wasted searching for a trumpet. All those who knew how to play one were dead. The man who took the instrument drew discordant sounds from it.

  We went down the mountain to the bizarre sounds of that trumpet. The sun rose. An unusual number of crows filled the sky. A group of cavaliers with dazzling armor preceded us. Another followed us. We whispered to one another that they were going to surround us and massacre us. The fatigue was so great that, in spite of that prospect, several of my companions fell asleep as they marched. Jordan d’Elcongost stayed beside Pierre Roger de Mirepoix and listed, bitterly, the names of combatants who had been forgotten.

  “No, they’re dead,” replied the other, indifferently.

  At the foot of the mountain, near the Ers, at the entrance to a wood, there was a mass of cavaliers arranged in good order. Through the trees, tents could be glimpsed and a blazing fire with a soup tureen suspended above the flames, and soldiers at repose chatting and laughing.

  “They’re going to throw themselves upon us,” said my neighbor, indicating the cavaliers.

  And another murmured: “The bridge must have been sawn through, and it will collapse when we pass over it.”

  I saw Roger de Mirepoix’s hand clench on his dagger.

  Only Bertrand de La Baccalaria was completely reassured, and claimed that the crusaders must be preparing a meal for us.

  We passed over the bridge. No one attacked us. The seneschal Pierre des Arcis prided himself on his chivalry. He was on horseback at the head of a further group of cavaliers. He looked at us with curiosity, his head tilted slightly forward. He did not salute. He remained motionless, but there was a hint of emotion on his face and I am sure that he would gladly have shaken our hands.

  Beside him was a fat man with the expansive face of a sensualist. That was Pierre Amiel, the Archbishop of Narbonne, denounced the previous year by his own canons as incapable, debauched and scandalous. He winked at us benevolently.

  We filed past without looking round, with all the dignity of which we were capable in our ridiculous accoutrements. But we were sad to find such a sympathetic attitude in those we had cursed throughout a year of siege.

  The road to Lavelanet was cluttered with carts and mules. We took a small path that plunged into the mountains.

  After walking for several hours I stopped on a platform of rocks at a place where the path, after having climbed the slopes of Serrelongue, descended again through a forest of firs.

  In the distance, the water of the Ers was as blue and metallic as the reflection of a word. I saw a spiral of smoke that rose up swirling in the depths of the valley.

  On the platform known as the Spaniards’ Aerie, an enormous pyre had been built, whose framework I could make out. It had just been ignited in several places at once, and the flames were beginning to rise into the calm air. To the right, a mass of gold and miters had to be formed by the bishops with their crosses and their clergy. A circular forest of pikes and helmets surrounded the Spaniards’ aerie. The neighboring woods were full of human silhouettes and flashes of armor.

  And in front, the few hundred wretches that had been captures in Montségur were huddled together, giving the impression of a palpitating heap of human rags.

  No sound reached as far as me. A mysterious silence reigned, with the result that what I saw seemed more like an image, an arbitrary tableau, than a living reality.

  Suddenly, at an invisible signal, all the pikes lowered simultaneously, pushing the Albigensians toward the flames. I saw a man tear off his clothing, gesticulating. It was midday. It was the crank Nebulat. He had finally rediscovered the innocence of the first days. A few women ran back and forth. I saw others seize children and cover their heads with the flaps of their robes. Those who had so desired death seemed hesitant before it. The flame, now immense, was almost invisible under the light of the sun, as if purified by the blue of another universe.

  Finally, I heard. An immense, grave, religious chorus rose up. It was the Veni Creator. Commenced by the bishops, it was intoned by the cavaliers on their horses, by the pike-bearers and by the entire army spread throughout the valley. Perhaps there was in that song a mysterious appeal of death heard by my heretic friends. As if the pyre was no longer anything but the gate of fire by which one enters the divine country, they all launched themselves into it simultaneously. The Veni Creator swelled, made the firs vibrate, and resonated in the mountains.

  I perceived that Pierre Roger de Mirepoix was beside me, watching those who had been his companions for long months burn. He was impassive. Was he dreaming of vengeance? Did he regret not having died in combat in the ruins of Montségur? I attempted to speak to him but he did not reply.

  As I was no longer under his command I thought about reproaching him in vehement terms for the hardness of his heart. Doubtless he would have thrown himself upon me to kill me. I reflected that there are closed and mute souls that it is necessary to leave in their darkness. We were both exhausted and we went to sleep side by side.37

  X

  At the place where the Ariège receives the springs of Ussat, on the flank of the stony mountain, the grotto of Ornolac opens.38 It extends over great depths; it has descending tunnels, others that rise in staircases, vaults higher than cathedrals and a lake with silent waters extends at the heart of its shadows. It was in that grotto that the last Albigensians, hunted throughout the Comté de Foix, took refuge one by one.

  I had lived with shepherds for a long time. Then I had received hospitality in the Château d’Alion. But the Château d’Alion was burned. All the châteaux of the heretic seigneurs were destroyed by the seneschal of Carcassonne. In order not to die, a large number of Albigensians renounced their faith. Others formed bands and resisted in the mountains. I was one of them. But we became too few to fight in the open. I went to ground in the grotto of Ornolac.

  Those who had been living there for a long time had lost the habit of seeing the light of the sun and consumed themselves in perpetual prayer. Pierre Pagès had succeeded Bertrand Martin and it was into his hands that I had put the emerald confided to me at Montségur. In the darkness of the grotto, where there were no birds or vegetation, by tremulous candlelight, I recognized faces encountered in the past that I had forgotten. I saw a workman from Carcassonne who had been under my orders at the siege of that city. I saw a nephew of Pierre de Roaix of Toulouse, and the peasant Ferrocas, who did not understand anything but was filled with love.

  The circle formed by the seneschal’s soldiers tightened around the entrance to the grotto. We learned that all the roads in the region of Castelverdun were guarded. Boats filled with armed men were traveling back and forth on the Ariège. The grottoes of Lherm and Badaillac had been occupied and their inhabitants massacred. The last fugitives that ran to us told us that the seneschal had decided to take the refuges of Ornolac by assault.

  The men who were with me were worn out and discouraged by the miseries of their errant life. Their energy was exhausted. They expected nothing of this world and
only had aspirations for the joys of the afterlife.

  I succeeded, however, in uniting the most audacious. I grouped them at the junction of two narrow tunnels that bifurcated shortly after the entrance of the grotto. The disposition of the rocks and the inclination of the terrain rendered its defense facile. The first soldiers that appeared were transpierced by arrows springing from the shadows. The seneschal rapidly took his men backwards. Undoubtedly he had to know the length of the tunnels hollowed out under the mountains and understood the difficulty of pursuing us there. He used another, surer means.

  All the Albigensians had gathered in a large space as high as a church. The treasure and the stores of provisions were there. The same little oil lamps had to serve everyone. Light was the rarest wealth in Ornolac, for oil and tallow were what had been transported there most parsimoniously. The perfecti charged with their distribution only surrendered it groaning, with exhortations to economy. A few families and hermits had plunged into corridors leading no one knew where in order to meditate and die alone. No one ever knew what became of hem. All the others had assembled, seeking in union the strength of soul necessary to struggle against the anguish of the darkness. In order not to reveal our presence, it had been recommended only to pray in low voices. The whisper of prayers alongside the palpitation of little lamps under the vaults rendered our assembly more lugubrious.

  We perceived in the silence the sound of blocks of stone being shifted. The walls vibrated around us. Those who were charged with watching the entrance of the grotto came running and told us that the entrance was being walled up, in order to cut off the portal that led to the light.

  Everyone got up and ran to see the sun one last time. Then everyone remained motionless. Everyone evoked internally the prisons of Foix with the torture chambers where their companions had perished in slow agony. The Albigensians sat down in the shadow, formulating a mute adieu to the sun.