Montaillou

February 1982. I was staying for a week or so in France with friends, somewhere near Carcasonne. I'd recently taken my BA in History. One of the more popular books at the School of Language and Literature (now named The Hague University) was Montaillou by Le Roy Ladurie. On our way to Andorra we passed the famous settlement, where this photograph was taken. It was still freezing in the Pyrenees. Most of the mountain passes were still closed because of snow, so in the end we would not make it to Andorra. Montaillou was deserted, but it seems a handful of people from Paris is holidaying there in summer. No trace of the mother-in-law of the priest who had the poor woman's tongue teared out. No old women in black gossiping about the latest events in the village. Not even a lost goat. Maybe just a brown bear hibernating somewhere in the nearby mountains. We decided not to go and look for it.