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

THE APOTHEOSIS OF THE GRAIL 181
convent of the Cistercians at Boulbonne, where the mausoleum of the Counts of
Foix is located. All the sons and daughters of the House of Foix found their last
resting place there, with the exception of course of Esclarmonde, who had flown
to eternal Paradise in the form of a dove.
Jacques was sent by his uncle, the abbot of the monastery of Fontfroide, to
Paris to study theology until 1311, when he became abbot of the monastery.
Sixteen years later, Pope John XXII named him Bishop of Pamiers, a town where
a hundred years earlier Esclarmonde had convoked all the wise men of the
Sabarthes in order to decipher the doctrines of Plato and John the Evangelist. As
Bishop of Pamiers, Jacques Fournier achieved great success in the pursuit of the
heretics: success that would eventually bring him the Papal tiara and the
fisherman's ring. But before undertaking the extermination of the heretics of the
Sabarthes, he had to form part of the tribunal that judged Bernard Delicieux.
Bernard Delicieux was one of the lectors of the Franciscan convent of
Narbonne. He had close contact with the most illustrious minds of his time: for
example, with Raimon Llull, the original "Reformer of the World," and with
Arnaldo de Vilanova, the private medical officer of the Pope and a tireless seeker
of the Philosopher's Stone and the aurum potabile. He was a worthy follower of
Saint Francis. He was such a Franciscan that he had to share the fate of the
Cathars, of whom he became a defender and advocate.
Bernard is one of the most discussed and appreciated personalities of the
fourteenth century. In his renunciation of everything worldly, he even sold off his
books and went into debt only to help the poor. His Order, which—let us not
forget it—opposed the Inquisition of the Dominicans in almost every way, was
loyal to him.
Bernard could deliver his speeches against the Dominicans even in the
convents of the Franciscans. On one occasion, an Inquisitor, Fulk de Saint George,
and twenty-five mounted men arrived at the abbey where Bernard was staying and
demanded that he be handed over. The brothers of Saint Francis denied them
entrance, began ringing the bells, and from the walls of the convent, started to
stone the Dominicans. When they heard the tolling of the bells, the people came in
throngs and the Inquisitor was hard pressed to get out alive.
Bernard's fervent eloquence managed to move the burghers of Carcassonne to
free those who remained imprisoned in the Tower of