Crusade Against the Grail - Rennes-le-Chateau Research and ...

THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE GRAIL 177
The "treasure of the heretics"?
Since Peire Roger de Mirepoix was given permission to take all the gold and
silver with him, what the four intrepid Cathars brought to safety in the caves of the
Sabarthes, an area that belonged to the lords of Castellum Verdunum, was
certainly not gold or silver.
Amiel Aicart, Poitevin, Hugo and the fourth knight, whose name is unknown,
were the grandchildren of those wise Celt Iberians who in other times threw the
treasure of Delphi to the bottom of lake Tabor. As Cathars, they would have
preferred to take the pathway to the stars together with their brothers in the fire of
the camp des cremats. As they climbed the pathway of the Cathars that crosses the
"valley of enchantment" bordering the lake of the Druids and ascends abruptly
toward the Tabor and Bidorta, they must have seen the blazing flames of
Montsegur to the north. What they were safeguarding was neither gold nor silver;
it was the "Desire for Paradise."
The Inquisitors knew full well why the Cathar sanctuary was called the
"treasure of the heretics." That is why they set fire to anything that could constitute
proof for posterity. They burned everything—even the books, whose life is longer
than that of man.
The peasants of the little village of Montsegur, a beehive at the foot of the rock
upon which the castle sits suspended above the gorge of Lasset, tell the story that
on Palm Sunday, when the priest celebrates the Mass, the Tabor rips itself open in
a hidden place in the thickness of the woods. That is where the treasure of the
heretics can be found. Unfortunate is he who has not left the mountains before the
priest intones his ite missa est. At those words, the mountain closes, and he who is
searching for the treasure will die from the bites of the snakes that guard it.
The peasants of the Tabor have not forgotten that this treasure can only be
found when all others are in the church. Despite its power and cruelty, the
Inquisition could not erase the memory of what those mountains contemplated
seven hundred years ago.
This is how the Grail, the Occitan Mani, was brought to safety in the caves of
Ornolac. No tree flowers there, the sun never shines, the nightingale doesn't sing at
dawn, and no fish swims beneath the sun. The walls of the cavern are the empire
of night and death. Before their exit to the luminous land of light and souls, the last
priests of the Church