Tout Seul in Carcassonne
Something about the double-walled, turreted city on a hill, Carcassonne, has always captured my imagination, so in Avignon I board a train to take me there via Montpelier, where all the world packs in like sardines, and through Narbonne, where the press of the train crowd eases up a little. Right next to the train station, I find a simple hotel for 55 Euros including breakfast along a lovely tree-lined canal.
In the morning, after a passable petit déjeuner in the convention center sized salle á manger, I’m on the streets of the modern little city, crossing through an enormous square where the morning fruit market is just setting up, and down the straight-lined streets, unusual for France, perhaps reflecting the grid-oriented time of the Romans, with tight-knit churches and shops.
I cross the Aude River, and pause on Pont Vieux, the old bridge built in the 14th century, to drink in the view, the chivalric grandeur of the double-walled old Cité de Carcassonne high on the hill.
People have lived and traded in the plain of Aude since Neolithic and Celtic times, but it was in the 1st century BC that a Gallo-Roman citadel was built, and in the 8th century during wars between Christians and Muslims, that there is the legend of a Saracen (Arab Muslim) Princess named Dame Carcas, the widowed keeper, or châtelaine, of the citadel. When war diminished city supplies to the point of starvation, Dame Carcas demonstrated strategic wit by feeding most of the scant remainder of their wheat to a pig and throwing it from the highest tower. Believing that the city they’d been fighting for years somehow had more than enough food and was nowhere near surrendering, Charlemagne stopped his siege. Dame Carcas rang the city bells and one of Charlemagne’s men said, “Carcas sonne!” (Carcas sounds), which is how it came to be called Carcassonne.
I circle the outer walls. Its towers are round in a way I haven’t seen before. Perhaps it’s the look of Moorish architecture. There are many slits convenient for arrows and square holes for boulders. I wonder where they threw the pig.
The walls of Cité de Carcassonne have 52 towers and are a mile and a half all the way around. I go inside once I reach the first entrance, the Porte Narbonnaise, where Dame Carcas herself greets me, or at least the likeness of her, as she continues to guard the entrance to old Carcassonne. It’s a dramatic face; somehow, she looks Russian, like the bust would be best suited as Mother Volga looming over the grand river much further east. The bust in Carcassonne is not the original because it endured too much wear. The replica is impressive.
Within the walls, there is an ancient village for tourists to explore. I walk the twisting streets and enter the brooding Basilique Saint-Nazaire. Originally constructed in the 6th century, it bears the marks of the Roman and Gothic periods.
There are gargoyles everywhere on the outside of the church. The word “gargoyle” comes from the old French word “gargouille” meaning “throat” because they were used as water spouts to remove standing water and minimize damage.
In my travels through Europe, I’ve seen many gargoyles, but none have captured my imagination and arrested my soul like those in Carcassonne. There are so many of so many different kinds and expressions. A couple tells me that there is even a snail gargoyle somewhere up there, but I don’t see it. Perhaps they imagined it, which would be easy to do.
For the most part, the figures appear to be in torment and I find myself feeling compassion for them, as if seeing a glimpse of a hell that I did not despise so much as pity.
Those poor souls. What brings them to such torment?
There is one gargoyle in particular that I keep coming back to. It is the image of the suffering soul.
Tout seul. I’d been thinking about those words over the past days and the feeling of being completely alone in the world. Perhaps we all feel that way on some level, on certain days and in certain places. None of us is always in communion and accord with others, and most communions end at some point.
I’d written a trio of stories that I thought of us as Dante’s hell, purgatory, and heaven from his Divine Comedy. Hell (Inferno) is the place where communion with God and others is lost, Heaven (Paradiso) is the place where it is found, and Purgatory (Purgatorio) is the mountain climb that brings the soul out of self-focused isolation to outward-focused community. An eternal tout seul is the worst torment of hell.
I don’t want to be alone. I do want to be in community. But where? How?
My attempts to be in community tend to get me into trouble because, quite honestly, I’m not very good at it. I’ve never been comfortable in my own skin and that is uncomfortable for others.
It’s easy to try to look for reasons, for people to blame, but the truth is that it is my responsibility and mine alone. Frequently disappointed in myself, the Parable of the Talents has haunted me my entire life. Like Q from the Star Trek series, Jesus is trying to help people understand Heaven, which can’t be understood in human terms, so he tells a series of stories about what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. In the talents story, three people are entrusted with talents, which I’ve often thought of as actual gifts given to people, but the literal meaning at the time was money. Both meanings work though because the master in the story invests in these people. Two of them returned with even more than they were given. The third one didn’t do anything with what he was given because he was afraid of his master’s wrath if he lost it all. The two who took risks and brought back more were rewarded while the one who was afraid and did nothing was cast into what is pretty clearly hell.
When I heard the parable as a child, it was like a haunting foreshadowing of what was to come. And now, it is the painful reality of the very little I have made of my life. Much was given and very little happened with the much required. I never could figure out how to make anything happen. I’m a failure. And it’s worse than the guy who buried what he was given so that he could bring it back. What I was given is gone. What will God say when I show him my empty hands?
And that is torment.
Strangely, I am also an optimist, so I keep trying to find a way to make something anyway. Each time, my hopes are crushed, I am left with nothing, and I am alone.
Someone speaking about the Parable of the Talents brought up something that I hadn’t thought about before. The fundamental difference between the first two entrusted with talents and the third one was how they perceived God. The first two believed that God was merciful and benevolent and were willing to take risks with what they’d been given because they knew God would understand. The third believed that God was harsh and cruel and took things without working for them, so felt justified in his fearfulness and inaction. In this way of looking at the story, confidence in the benevolence of God is at the core and we are encouraged to take risks with what we are given within that confidence.
I am the fourth worker. The one who was given talents, took risks, tried to invest them, but nothing came to fruition. Is that evidence of a lack of faith? I don’t think so, because I do believe that mercy is God’s overriding characteristic. I suppose it doesn’t have to do with God’s response. I am disappointed in myself for not figuring it out and I’m disappointed when I lack energy and courage to keep trying.
I suppose in the lesson of Dame Carcas, through courage and tenacity, one makes one’s own success, pretends one is doing well, and rings one’s own bells in the face of starvation.
Back in the touristed streets, I enter a bakery shop, a chain called La Cure Gourmande, and the saleslady is so friendly that I leave with three bags of filled cookies: petits biscuits fourrés au caramel, petits biscuits fourrés à l’abricot, petits biscuits fourrés au chocolat. They will serve as back-up comfort food for the rest of the trip. Working in a bakery seems like a lovely way to provide for others and live in community.
There is a song about dying before seeing Carcassonne and it strikes me as an absurdity. Why does it matter in the grand scheme of life whether or not one individual has been to a certain place? When you die, do you somehow bring the places you’ve visited with you?
We are given this little bit of time, given gifts to use and grow, and they flow through our fingers until they are gone, and all the things we’ve seen and places we’ve visited won’t bring the gifts back.
‘I’m growing old, I’ve sixty years;
I’ve labored all my life in vain:
In all that time of hopes and fears
I’ve failed my dearest wish to gain.
I see full well that here below
Bliss unalloyed there is for none.
My prayer will ne’er fulfilment know
I never have seen Carcassonne,
I never have seen Carcassonne!
You see the city from the hill,
It lies beyond the mountains blue,
And yet to reach it one must still
Five long and weary leagues pursue,
And to return as many more!
Ah! had the vintage plenteous grown!
The grape withheld its yellow store!
I shall not look on Carcassonne,
I shall not look on Carcassonne!
‘They tell me every day is there
Not more or less than Sunday gay:
In shining robes and garments fair
The people walk upon their way.
One gazes there on castle walls
As grand as those of Babylon,
A bishop and two generals!
I do not know fair Carcassonne,
I do not know fair Carcassonne!
‘The vicar’s right; he says that we
Are ever wayward, weak and blind,
He tells us in his homily
Ambition ruins all mankind;
Yet could I there two days have spent
While still the autumn sweetly shone,
Ah me! I might have died content
When I had looked on Carcassonne,
When I had looked on Carcassonne!
‘Thy pardon, Father, I beseech,
In this my prayer if I append:
One something sees beyond his reach
From childhood to his journey’s end.
My wife, our little boy Aignon,
Have traveled even to Narbonne;
My grandchild has seen Perpignon,
And I have not seen Carcassonne,
And I have not seen Carcassonne!’
So crooned one day, close by Limoux,
A peasant double-bent with age;
‘Rise up, my friend,’ said I; ‘with you
I’ll go upon this pilgrimage.’
We left next morning his abode,
But (Heaven forgive him) halfway on,
The old man died upon the road;
He never gazed on Carcassonne,
Each mortal has his Carcassonne!
Lyrics by Gustave Nadaud
Translated by John Reuben Thompson
Next France for Two Months: Théâtre de Poche in Sète
This is #16 in a series of stories: Two Months in France. Follow the links below to read the other parts of the series starting with the first:
1. Santa Fe Depot Departure
2. Return to the Great Lady
3. Shakespeare and Company Bookstore
4. Paris Stroll
5. Paris – des heures exquises
6. Train to Thonon-les-Bains
7. Château de Ripaille
8. Getting up with the Birds: Lac Léman to Lyon to Lille
9. Navigating to Avignon
10. In the Walled City of Avignon
11. Inside the Rich Ochre of Roussillon
12. Up the Steep Calades to Gordes
13. Retraversant à Fontaine-de-Vaucluse
14. Diving Deep in the Closed Valley
15. Défense de marcher sur l’eau