Atlas of Cursed Places

CHÂTEAU DE MONTSÉGUR

SATAN'S SYNAGOGUE

Before turning their thoughts to the intriguing legends associated with these ruins, hikers should watch where they put their feet. The consequences could be disastrous for any clumsy person who strays off the marked footpaths and loses his or her footing on the edge of the precipices that drop away on every side of this aptly nicknamed "citadel in the sky." And let us not forget that early in 1244 it was a feat of rock climbing that sealed the fate of the Cathars when they were besieged here by the army of King Louis IX. After seven months, during which traditional military strategies had brought nothing but failure, Hugues des Arcis, the commander of the forces encamped at the foot of this eagle's nest, finally decided to send a small group of particularly agile soldiers up the cliff face. Under cover of darkness, this detachment reached the summit, captured a watchtower, and installed a trebuchet, with which it proceeded to bombard the interior of the castle without respite, making life impossible for the besieged, who were forced to surrender after a few weeks.

The fate of this community, the last bastion of the Cathar faith in France, is well known. One Sunday in March 1244, the day of the equinox, the believers—more than two hundred men and women—were led down to a pyre that had been set up at the foot of the hill, steadfastly refusing to renounce their faith. What else could they do, these pacifists who had taken a vow to show courage in the face of suffering and death? The name Cathar—from the Greek katharos, meaning "pure"—was given them by their contemporaries on account of their asceticism and refusal to compromise in any way. For the same reason, those who had undergone the rite of ordination called the consolamentum were known as perfecti, although among one another they preferred the terms "good man" and "good woman." The band of sympathizers protecting the pacifist Cathars were allowed to go free provided they pledged to stop supporting heresy and swore allegiance to the king of France.

The Château de Montségur that stands today is not the same fortress that existed at the time of these dreadful events. Historians, archeologists, and local storytellers cannot agree on all the details. For example, was the Cathars' place of martyrdom the prats dels cremats ("field of the burned"), as indicated today by a stele, or was it a neighboring hill? At this magnificent site, so many questions remain unanswered. There's the legendary Cathar treasure, said to have been held in safekeeping at Montségur before being smuggled out to an unknown destination. And then there are the four men deputed by the community to slip away under the utmost secrecy prior to the ultimate surrender, carrying with them who knows what. Items of treasure? Precious documents? Mysterious keys enabling the Cathar tradition to be revived elsewhere? At Montségur nothing seems impossible. In the last century a team of German researchers came, with the blessing of the Nazi regime, to investigate, convinced that the castle housed the Holy Grail, the famous cup believed to have been used to catch Christ's blood.

What should we make of the site's architecture, of the spectacular alignment of the sun's rays at solstice time, as if its architects had wanted the castle to function as a kind of astronomical calendar? And doesn't its floor plan reflect the constellation of Boötes, with the donjon representing the star Arcturus? Is it also mere chance that "Cant del Boièr" (Song of the Herdsman) remains one of the most popular folk songs in the Occitanian canon, with some people reading into its words a coded message addressed to future generations?

"After seven hundred years the bay tree will flower again"—and with it, no doubt, the Cathar faith. Thus were the words of the troubadour in the Occitania of old. Or was it the last of the perfecti to be burned at the stake? Or even a poet born generations later? Basically, nobody knows. It is even possible that the bay tree could be an olive tree, and that the date is regularly adjusted so that it never loses its relevance. No matter. The legend remains perplexing enough for visitors to be drawn in by its verses while contemplating the ruins of what the inquisitors called "Satan's synagogue"—but never quite managed to utterly destroy.

ROCCA-SPARVIERA

THE PHANTOM VILLAGE

With its breathtaking panorama, the fame of Rocca-Sparviera (meaning "rock of the sparrow hawk") would no doubt be assured, even without the help of legend. But what evil spell could have been cast on this place to cause its inhabitants to desert such sublime views? Before abandoning this place, the local people had achieved the remarkable feat of constructing a bizarre village perched more than three thousand feet up a mountainside and an hour's walk along a steep path from the nearest hamlet. The second mystery—that of its origins—must remain unanswered: All that's known is that Rocca-Sparviera goes back to the twelfth century or before. A hundred years or so later the village is recorded as having a church and 150 parishioners. Had the castle already been built by then? Opinions differ, but a contract of infeudation in the name of a certain Pierre Marquesan, who acquired the fief for seven hundred gold florins, testifies to its existence the next century. The community grew year by year until it numbered some 350 souls.

And then, at the dawn of the fifteenth century, everything started to go wrong. A swarm of locusts devastated the modest crops, causing a famine that lasted several years. A diabolical succession of outbreaks of the plague, changes in alliance that threatened the security of the village, and the financial ruin of the lord of the manor were followed in 1564 by an earthquake that destroyed a number of houses. Subsequent tremors in 1612 and 1618 eventually laid the Rocca-Sparviera village to waste. In 1723, the village priest became the last diehard to abandon the ruins.

Were these entirely natural catastrophes? Evidently not, if one is to believe accounts of the awful Christmas Eve of 1357, when Queen Joanna of Naples was staying in Rocca-Sparviera as the guest of her vassal and decided to attend midnight mass at the neighboring village of Coaraze. Nothing in the life of Joanna, who was married at the age of eight, widowed at twenty, and remarried a further three times, ever went smoothly, so plentiful were her enemies both outside and inside her family. A shattering surprise greeted her upon her return: the sight of her two murdered children, their bodies displayed on the table as if the centerpiece of some macabre banquet. As she departed the following day, insane with grief and anger and having first set fire to the castle, she is supposed to have sworn that "No rooster or hen will ever crow again on this blood-soaked rock." Although the reality of Joanna's adventures in Provence casts some doubt over the chronology of the affair, the barrenness and instability of the mountain, which left has nothing standing but these sinister yet magnificent ruins, will ultimately have lent the legend an air of truth.

NUREMBERG

THE SINISTER REVERBERATION OF MARCHING BOOTS

Every decade is a new dawn. In the flower-adorned streets of this ancient imperial city, visitors' thoughts rarely turn, after all this time, to the sound of boots that once reverberated here before extending their murderous din across the planet. In the twenty-first century, Nuremberg is on people's lips for infinitely more frivolous and respectable reasons: Every year in early February it hosts the Spielwarenmesse, the world's largest toy fair. After this the modern, air-conditioned pavilions of the Messezentrum welcome Feuer Trutz, a trade fair dedicated to fire prevention, should any proof be needed that the lessons of the past have been well and truly learned.

The majority of visitors strolling the exhibition center are no doubt unaware that they are walking on the exact spot where Nazi troops paraded in the 1930s, for this was the heart of the Reichsparteitagsgelände (literally, "Congress Area of the Reich Party," but more informally known as the Nazi Party Rally Grounds). This immense complex was dreamed up by Adolf Hitler's architect-builder Albert Speer as a venue for the annual rally and demonstrations of military strength of the National Socialist regime. With a little application and a good historical map, the images easily take shape again. The impressive axis that extends for a little more than a mile in a northwesterly direction is the legendary Grosse Strasse, the monumental avenue leading from the Luitpoldarena, the assembly ground of the SA and SS, to the Märzfeld, the seven-hundred-hectare arena designed to accommodate several hundred thousand drilling soldiers. Between the two lay the imposing Roman-style amphitheater of the Kongresshalle and the interminable grandstand of the Zeppelinfeld, immortalized in so many photographs, with its military standards and lighting effects emphasizing the endless lines of uniforms, that it has become the very emblem of terrifying Nazi fervor.