Places to go: St Martin du Canigou in Pyrénées Orientales, Languedoc Roussillon

It’s an easy 40 minute walk up the public footpath which climbs 300 meters through a limestone gorge but it’s worth it. Clinging to the side of Mount Canigou, the abbey of St Martin du Canigou perches high above a ravine with breathtaking views over the eastern Pyrenees.

First built as a monastery around the year 1000 for Guifred the Second, count of Cerdagne and Conflent, the site was home to an order of Benedictine monks until 1786. It was abandoned and left empty for the next 120 years. 

Then the Bishop of Perpignan and Elne bought the ruins in 1902. The abbey was restored and extended twice during the twentieth century. 
 
Since 1988 it is home to the Catholic Community of the Beatitudes, a fundamentalist group within the Catholic Church. They’ve been likened to a cult, but they receive visitors, both tourists and also the more serious variety in search of enlightenment and repose.

The abbey itself is closed to visitors in January but offers guided tours throughout the rest of the year, except on Mondays. The situation, complete with a dramatic public viewing point is spectacular anytime.

The short 1.6 km walk to reach it starts from the village of Casteil, 3 km south from the picturesque spa town of Vernet les Bains. For those to infirm to make the climb, one of the brothers will happily descend with one of the holy fleet of Suzuki jeeps.

Not to be missed...

Photos: Martin Castellan

Irénée Cros - an ordinary Frenchman

In June 1940, the French government capitulated to advancing German forces. Defeatists amongst France’s politicians and senior commanders had overestimated Germany’s strength and underestimated their own. 

Hitler had simply bluffed them. In reality, Britain and France together were consuming his forces faster than he could replace them. Angry that France had given up the fight without being beaten, Général De Gaulle decided to continue the war from London. On June 18^th 1940 he broadcast over the BBC a legendary appeal to his compatriots to carry on the fight. 

One of them was Irénée Cros.

Trained as an architect, he found himself in Foix when France surrendered. Foix was the capital of the Pyrénéan département of Ariège. Irénée became Ariège’s resistance leader.

Of course, the Germans did their best to seal the border with Spain but it leaked like a sieve. Mountains hold no mystery for those who live amongst them. Over in Spanish Catalonia, people were involved in their own struggle against facism. Frenchmen and Spaniards alike travelled to and fro as they pleased.

With his friends, Irénée Cros led sabotage missions and directed the struggle against the occupiers. Most importantly they organised the passeurs, those who escorted refugees from Nazi persecution through the mountains. With them too went free French volunteers and allied airmen to neutral Spain from whence they would find their way to Britain to fight again another day. 

Then, on the night of 13^th December 1943, came the long-awaited hammering on the door. An informer, supposedly a friend, had denounced Irénée to the Germans. He wasn’t surprised. Traitors were a bigger threat than the enemy. That's what made the Nazis evil - that they sowed distrust, turned Frenchman against Frenchman. He'd probably expected it since the beginning.

Irénée knew what would come next – interrogation, torture and sooner or later, death. He didn’t open the door. He didn’t try to run. He calmly set about burning all the documents which might lead the Gestapo to other members of the resistance. The last page still smouldered in the grate when the Germans broke down the door.

Furious that they were seconds too late, the Gestapo executed Irénée on the spot. No interrogation. No torture. The end came quickly with a bullet in the back of the neck. All the incriminating evidence was gone. The Germans received nothing for their trouble. Even in death one ordinary Frenchman had beaten them with the power of his will.

There were many like him.

Friends and veterans remember Irénée Cros on 13th December, the anniversary of his death.

(Photo:La Dépêche du Midi)