On the side of a steep hill that descends to the Rebenty, another branch of the Aude, are three narrow arches to the cave of Las Encantados—the grotto of the fairies—where, in the depths, the noise of the turbulent stream is repeated by subterranean echoes, and changed, now into a soft harmonious murmur and now into a solemn roar, giving the effect of an organ in a cathedral. Nothing could be more impressive by night than this mysterious music, which the people formerly ascribed to some weird influence.
But to return to the royal foundation of La Vallée Grasse. That this abbey was really founded under the patronage of Charlemagne is proved by a charter of the year 778, still preserved in the prefecture at Carcassonne, signed with his own imperial monogram. According to this, the name of the first abbot was Nimphridius; and the house appears
to have been so well endowed that it held lands and livings and seigneuries, not only throughout the province, but on the other side of the Pyrenees. Louis le Débonnaire took it under his special protection, together with three cells dependent thereon, to wit: St. Cucufat on the banks of the Aude, St. Pierre on the Clamoux, and La Palme on the seashore. In fact, favor towards it seemed hereditary in the Carlovingian race. Louis IX. kept up the tradition, and when in Palestine wrote to his mother and the sénéchal of Carcassonne, recommending the abbey of La Grasse to their protection. The kings of Aragon, too, respected its extensive domains in their realm.
The grateful abbey never forgot its illustrious founder. Every morning at the conventual Mass the bread and wine were offered by the lord abbot, or his representative, at the Offertory, for the repose of Charlemagne’s soul, till authorized to render him the cultus due to a saint, from which time the twenty-eighth of January was kept in his honor as a festival of the first class.
It is one of the traditions of this monastery that, when Pope Leo III. was about to dedicate the church, he received a supernatural warning that it had been miraculously consecrated, and on approaching the altar he discovered the marks of the divine hand, which remained visible till the end of the fourteenth century, when the greater part of the church was consumed by fire. It was then rebuilt in a style corresponding to the wealth of the abbey, with numerous chapels, a choir with rare carvings, and a silver retablo with twelve silver statues in the niches, all plated with pure gold. The monastic
buildings were surrounded by fortified walls of vast circuit. They were grouped around an immense cloister, the arcades of which were supported by marble columns. On the east side were the church, dormitories, infirmary, and rooms for visitors. At the north were the abbot’s spacious residence, the granary, bakery, stables, etc. South and west were the chapterhouse, the large refectory, and houses appropriated to the aged monks. A hospital, where the poor were fed and sick strangers received gratuitous care, was further off, near the principal gate. There was an extensive park, with avenues of chestnut-trees, watered by the Orbieu, which also turned the grist-mills, oil-mills, and cloth-mills. The water was also brought into the abbey. The library now forms part of the public library of Carcassonne.
The abbey of La Grasse was immediately dependent on the Holy See, in acknowledgment of which it paid an annual tribute of five gold florins. And the Bishop of Carcassonne, and the Archbishop of Narbonne, though the primate, were obliged to recognize its independence of their jurisdiction before they could obtain admittance to the abbey. The abbot from the time of Abbot Nicolas Roger, the uncle of Pope Clement VI., had the right of wearing pontifical vestments. He held legal jurisdiction over eighty-three towns, besides which, three other abbeys, three monasteries, twenty-four priories, and sixty-seven parish churches were dependent on the house of La Grasse.
This great abbey was suppressed in 1790, after existing over a thousand years, and before long was transformed into barracks and
manufactories. The church became a melancholy ruin, with its columns lying among the tall grass, the capitals covered with lichens, bushes growing in among the crumbling walls, and here and there scattered mutilated escutcheons of the old lords of the land and the very bones from their sepulchres.
But the town of La Grasse, that sprang up under the mild sway of the old abbots, is still queen of the lower Corbières by its population and historic interest. It is noted for its blanquette—a sparkling white wine, which rivals that of Limoux.