The Knights In The News Monday 4th August

Camargue horses in the field down the road

In order to catch a cool breeze through the car windows, we went for a drive via the municipal tip and dropped off the first batch of rubbish before we set out with the loaded trailer tomorrow afternoon. Timing is everything here and having come from a country where everything is open by 9am and never closes until at least 8.30 in the evening, seven days a week, we are having to work out Mondays, lunch times and weekends. The French government have implemented a system whereby the citizens of France can only work a maximum of 38 hours a week, and in most cases it is less. This certainly makes for a lot more jobs being available, but it also plays havoc with opening times, and the “au noir” business is booming.

Having got rid of the first batch of rubbish, we rambled on around the small country lanes of Beaulieu and then crossed the main road and wound our way down through St Christol until we found ourselves in the tiny village of Veragues where we spotted signs leading to the Chateau de Pouget. The signs were small and elegant and the Chateau peeping from behind the trees was obviously large and imposing. However, it was also firmly closed behind extremely high wrought iron gates. Slightly disappointed, we were turning around in the big carpark and beginning our retreat when a young man accompanied by two rather large dogs appeared in the courtyard. He was dressed very simply in merely a pair of swimming shorts, and he was polite but firm.

The Chateau was only available for people hiring it for wedding receptions or other types of entertaining, and although there were plans in the future to open it to the general public, this would not happen any time soon. I took at stab at the language and asked “Quelle age” to which I got the response “parts of it are from the 11th Century and the more modern parts are from the 12th”. I was still busy working out the numbers in French and missed the bit where he casually mentioned that it belonged to the Knights Templar. As we drove away, I quizzed Jean on the last comment.

“Did it BELONG to them or had it BELONGED to them?” I asked, but he was vague and told me to ask Uncle Google. I had visions of Tom Hanks working his magic around the dungeons in search of the Holy Grail, but there was no way that we were going to get the other side of those imposing gates without a wedding party in tow.

The reason that this caught my interest was that while lying prone in the easy chair on the stoep, reading my copy of the Daily Telegraph, I happened to spot an article describing how the Knights Templar of Spain were bringing a legal suite against the Catholic Church asking for compensation for the 100 Billion Euros that had been taken from them during the 11th and 12th century. This sounded like an astoundingly large bill for anyone, and taking into account he amount that the church is being sued for in the States at present from the victims of abuse by priests of the church, I really felt that shares in the Catholic Church could be taking quite a dip right now. I look forward to being back on line and I can find out more about the Chateau, and deduce whether the nice young man who appeared from nowhere and who answered our questions, in fact wears sack cloth and ashes and a black hooded robe and walks the battlements at night accompanied by his two large dogs.