As to the battles in the valley of the Orbieu, it is more certain that the Saracens, on their way to attack Carcassonne, were met by William, Duke of Aquitaine, in this valley, where, though defeated, he performed prodigies of valor, and made the followers of Mahound buy their victory dearly. They soon withdrew into Spain, carrying with them rich spoils from Narbonne, among which were seven statues of silver, long famous in Andalusia, and many marble columns, still to be seen in the famous mosque of Cordova, on which they forced the vast number of prisoners they carried with them to labor.
Nor was the abbey of La Grasse the only famous monastery of this region. There was the Cistercian abbey of Fonfroide, founded in the twelfth century by Ermengarde, Vicomtesse of Narbonne, to whom Pierre Roger, the troubadour, gave the mystic name of Tort n’avez, and so well known from the permanent Court of Love she held in her gay capital. This abbey at one time contained two hundred monks, who were great agriculturists, and understood drainage and all the improvements we regard as modern. They
brought vast tracts of land under cultivation, and, by their industry and economy, became wealthy and powerful. In 1341, this abbey had nineteen thousand two hundred and thirty-four animals, including sheep, cattle, mules, swine, etc.
Among the celebrated monks of Fonfroide was Peter of Castelnau, whom the Holy See appointed one of the legates to suppress the heresy of the Albigenses, and who acquired so melancholy a celebrity by his conflicts with Count Raymond of Toulouse and his tragical end. Another member, eminent for his knowledge and piety, of this house was Arnaud de Novelli, uncle of Pope Benedict XII. He was made cardinal by Pope Clement V., and sent as one of the legates to England to make peace between Edward II. and his barons. He died in 1317, and lies buried under the high altar of the abbey church. Pope Benedict XII. himself was a monk at Fonfroide, and succeeded his uncle as abbot of the house. As pope, he is specially celebrated for the part he took among the theologians of the day in discussing the question of the immediate state of the righteous after death, and the decretal which he finally issued in 1355—Benedictus Dominus in sanctis suis—in which he declares that the souls of the justified, on leaving their bodies, are at once admitted to behold the Divine Essence face to face without intermediary; that by this vision they are rendered truly happy, and in enjoyment of everlasting repose; whereas those who die in the state of mortal sin descend immediately into hell.
The abbey of Fonfroide, after seven hundred years’ existence, was closed in 1790, but, more fortunate than La Grasse, it is now inhabited by Bernardins, who seem to have
inherited the virtues and spirit of the early Cistercians.
The tombs of the old vicomtes of Narbonne, who were mostly buried here, are no longer to be seen. William II., by an act of May 25, 1424, ordered his remains to be taken to Fonfroide, wherever he might die. He left two thousand livres for his tomb, which was to be of stone and magnificently adorned, and an annuity of twenty-five livres as a foundation for a daily Mass for the repose of his soul. He was killed by the English at the battle of Verneuil, the following August; his body was fastened to a gibbet, and had to be ransomed before it could be brought to Fonfroide.
Another noted abbey of the country was that of St. Hilaire, built over the tomb of its patron saint—not St. Hilary of Arles, who walked all the way to Rome in the dead of winter, but the first bishop of Carcassonne, who never walked anywhere, dead or alive—at least, out of his own diocese. This abbey was built in the good old days of Charlemagne, who seems to have never missed an opportunity of building a church or endowing a monastery—if we are to believe all the traditions of France—and of course endowed this one. However, Roger I., Count of Carcassonne, enriched it still more. He never went into battle without invoking St. Hilaire, and to him he ascribed the success of his arms. In his gratitude, he had the body of the saint exhumed and placed in a beautiful tomb of sculptured marble, and promised to furnish the twelve monks—all there were at that time—with suitable clothing during the remainder of his life, which says very little in favor of Charlemagne’s endowment. The abbey ultimately became very
prosperous, and, among other possessions, owned the most of Limoux. It lost its importance, however, in the sixteenth century, and was finally secularized. In one of the rooms may still be seen the names of its fifty abbots. The beautiful cloister of the fourteenth century is well preserved, and the tomb of St. Hilaire, with its sculptures of the tenth century, representing the legend of St. Saturnin, still serves as the altar of the church. The abbey stands in a bend of the Lauquet, that has escaped from the Aude, with its little village around it, among low hills covered with excellent vineyards. Here blow alternately the Cers and the Marin, the only two winds known in the valley of the Aude, shut in as it is between the Montagne Noire on the north and the Corbières on the south. These winds blow with alternate violence, like two great guns, the greater part of the year, and when one dies away the other generally takes up the blast. The very trees are planted with reference to them. People who would live according to the Delphic principle of “not too much of anything,” should not come to the valley of the Aude. The Cers increases in violence as it approaches the sea, where it seems to put on the very airs of the great planet Jupiter itself, noted for the violence of its winds; whereas the Marin waits till it gets away from the sound of “the jawing wave” before it ventures to come out in its full strength. However, as people often take pride in displaying their very infirmities, as if desirous of being noted for something, so the inhabitants of this valley boast of their winds. They did the same in the days of Seneca the philosopher, who says that though the Circius,
or Cers, overthrew the very buildings, the people of Gaul still praised it, and thought they were indebted to it for the salubrity of their climate. Perhaps they acted on the principle of Augustus Cæsar, who erected an altar to propitiate the Circius when he was in Gaul, so much did he dread it.