Chapter 23

Carcassonne dates from the Roman occupation of
Gaul. The place commanded one of the great roads
into Spain, and in the fourth century Romans and
Franks ousted each other from such a point of vantage.
In the year 436, Theodoric, King of the Visigoths,
superseded both these parties; and it is during his oc-
cupation that the inner enceinte was raised upon the
ruins of the Roman fortifications. Most of the Visigoth
towers that are still erect are seated upon Roman sub-
structions which appear to have been formed hastily,
probably at the moment of the Frankish invasion.
The authors of these solid defences, though occasionally
disturbed, held Carcassonne and the neighboring coun-
try, in which they had established their kingdom of
Septimania, till the year 713, when they were expelled
by the Moors of Spain, who ushered in an unillumined
period of four centuries, of which no traces remain.
These facts I derived from a source no more recondite
than a pamphlet by M. Viollet-le-Duc, - a very luminous
description of the fortifications, which you may buy
from the accomplished custodian. The writer makes
a jump to the year 1209, when Carcassonne, then
forming part of the realm of the viscounts of Beziers
and infected by the Albigensian heresy, was besieged,
in the name of the Pope, by the terrible Simon de
Montfort and his army of crusaders. Simon was ac-
customed to success, and the town succumbed in the
course of a fortnight. Thirty-one years later, having
passed into the hands of the King of France, it was
again besieged by the young Raymond de Trincavel,
the last of the viscounts of Beziers; and of this siege
M. Viollet-le-Duc gives a long and minute account,
which the visitor who has a head for such things may
follow, with the brochure in hand, on the fortifications
themselves. The young Raymond de Trincavel, baffled
and repulsed, retired at the end of twenty-four days.
Saint Louis and Philip the Bold, in the thirteenth cen-
tury, multiplied the defences of Carcassonne, which
was one of the bulwarks of their kingdom on the
Spanish quarter; and from this time forth, being re-
garded as impregnable, the place had nothing to fear.
It was not even attacked; and when, in 1355, Edward
the Black Prince marched into it, the inhabitants had
opened the gates to the conqueror before whom all
Languedoc was prostrate. I am not one of those who,
as I said just now, have a head for such things, and
having extracted these few facts had made all the
use of M. Viollet-le-Duc's, pamphlet of which I was cap-
able.

I have mentioned that my obliging friend the
_amoureux-fou_ handed me over to the door-keeper of
the citadel. I should add that I was at first committed