Abandoned-France, Chateau de Peyrepertuse

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The Chateau de Peyrepertuse (in occitan Castel de Peirapertusa) is a cathare chateau.

Located on the commune of Duilhac-under-Peyrepertuse department of the Aude in Languedoc-Roussillon area in Corbieres. It is on a rock peak on the top of a hill which separates Duilhac from the village of Rouffiac-de-Corbieres.

A strategic position which at the same time makes it possible to see far in the various valleys which surrounds it, to control the collars or to communicate signals with the chateau de Queribus a little more in the south.

The sight of the castle from Duilhac (in the south) is impressive thanks to the cliff of over 30 to 40 meters on which the castle is posed. The main entrance is northern side, but at the time of the Cathares a secret passage made it possible to pass through a narrow way behind a large rocky outcrop to return to the castle. Today the postern of the secrete way is closed but the passage will always be there behind the spur which is exceptional.

The site was occupied at the time of the Romans at the beginning of the first century before Jesus-Christ, like shown in recent excavations. In 806 the first mentions of the castle in History appear. It is then Catalan and is called Perapertuses. It belongs to the count de Besalu, a small town located in Catalonia between Figueres and Olot, in a text of 1020.

It passes then in the county of Barcelona in 1111, then also the Viscount of Narbonne. In 1162, the count of Barcelona, Alphonse II, separates the crown from Aragon forming the kingdom of Spain.

At the time of the crusade against the Albigensians, it is the stronghold of Guillaume de Peyrepertuse, excommunicated in 1224. This last is subjected after the failure of the head office of Carcassonne, and the castle becomes a French possession in 1240. In 1242, Saint-Louis decides to reinforce it and to add a second part, the keep 'Sant JÚordi', located higher on the peak. The situation is confused in this area to the signature of the treaty of Corbeil in 1258 leaving free Catalonia and Languedoc. It fixes also the border right at the south of the chateau de Peyrepertuse. This one, like its neighbors, the castles of Puylaurens and Queribus, is one of the royal fortresses rebuilt at the end of the XIIIth century to defend the border against the kingdom of Aragon then Spain in the XVIIth century.

A garrison is maintained until the Revolution even if the citadel did not have too much any more of value since the annexation of Roussillon in 1658. It will be then given up and its ruins remain until today.

Remainders of the vault

Its ruins accommodate today nearly 100 000 visitors per annum. They dominate the 800 m of vineyards of the area and the village of Duilhac (vineyard's of Corbieres).

One reaches it by a road which stops just in lower part of cliff on a carpark, the visitors can then use a pathway (approximately fifteen minutes) to make the turn of the castle by the east and to return by the northern main entrance side. Even if the castle is in ruin, the majority of the walls are still upright, certain parts are still well preserved (in particular the vault strengthened in the Low-Castle), and the sight up there per good weather is worth the pain to go up there.

For the courageous ones and the hikers, a path of great excursion leaves the village of Duilhac (to take the road to the castle onwards for a few hundred meters before taking a small way on the right which cuts the path). It is about an alternative of the cathare path as you will find.

In high winds or stormy weather, the rise is strongly dis advised and often prohibited to protect the visitors from the lightning and the dangerous slips in the Saint-Louis staircase, which connects the old castle to the keep, already extremely slippery in good weather.

The limestone cliff is favourable with climbers and the ways all lead or almost to the enclosure, to the great pleasure of climbers which finish their climb under the glance of the tourist spectators.

The castle is 300 meters long and 60 meters wide in its greater width. The entry is in north and all the remainder of the castle is inaccessible from the cliffs which it overhangs. All the castle is surrounded by ramparts carefully hung in top of the cliffs. But the wall of the more accessible northern part is more imposing than that of the southern part which is made up of very steep slopes. It is composed of two esplanades in the east and the west.

That of the east east bordered of a 120 meters length curtain marked out by two turns. One can observe on this esplanade the primitive castle of the count de Besalu and the vault of the XIIth century. An old water cistern is visible close to the primitive castle.

On the western esplanade draws up the more recent castle perched on the rock Sant Jordi. It was built on the order of king Saint-Louis in 1242 to reinforce the fortress. To reach it, a staircase known as of rather vertiginous Saint-Louis goes up along the wall of the rock. The 'keep of Sant JÚrdi' is a castle with its own defense system able to resist to the attackers having succeeded in reaching the fortress.