We are tracing the memory of the Cathars in the French Pyrenees, south of Albi and Carcassonne. Castles ruled by the nobles who supported them, which were occupied from 1209 onwards by the crusaders sent by the French king under the leadership of Simon of Montfort. Small towns whose population was put to the sword or sent to the stake by the crusaders, in part or to the last man: “The Lord will know those that are his own.” Monasteries, mainly Cistercian ones, founded by local bishops in the second half of
The Aude River that runs from the Pyrenees to the south of Carcassonne is flanked by a string of such monasteries: St-Hilaire, St-Polycarpe, Rieunette, Alet-les-Bains. Among them I discover on the map the name of Monastère de Cantauque, which is not mentioned in the historiography of the Cathars. I mark it for a visit.
From the road winding along the Aude between the hills of the Limoux wine region, a smaller road turns off into the valley of the tributary Baris, and then an even smaller one, a mere strip, into the valley of the stream Lauzy. Finally, at the beginning of a white gravel road branching off from this, you see a sign for the Orthodox monastery of Cantauque.