Foix gras today. The weather couldn’t be worse than yesterday, surely. It scarcely rained at all on our drive up to the hills and to Foix where the counts are all called Raymond or Roger. This extraordinary castle was never taken during the anti-Cathar Crusade but only succumbed much later after the County of Toulouse was already incorporated into the French Crown. Foix today is, as we were forcefully reminded, a market town and the streets were busy with shoppers.
After a brisk walk up to the castle in Foix we left towards Montségur, one of the great strongholds of Cathar resistance towards the end of their time here. In 1241 there was a sham siege of the castle by the counts of Toulouse before an assassination in 1242 of two Inquisitors in Avinyonet brought the forces of the Inquisition down on their heads. In May of 1243 the siege began that was to end ten months later with the burning of 221 Cathar believers at the stake on the field below the castle. A savage end to an extraordinary period of heresy. As we arrived at Montségur the weather had decided that it couldn’t rain any more so it started to snow.
Our hike took us across the hillside to the north with great views back to the castle. The going was soft but with perseverance we all made the lunch site where Ben had made a sumptuous picnic with tarts of all descriptions for dessert. In the afternoon we hiked on to a small village in the valley before returning to the delightful Camon for another quite excellent dinner. With foie gras…
