Not She Which Burns

Montségur can be deceptive. From the approach road, the fortress appears to nestle in a valley among soaring, wooded mountain peaks. At this distance it seems vulnerable, a huddled figure, a woman bent in prayer. Nearer, it appears a giant rock slab—obdurate, unyielding, masculine. Its forbidding four thousand foot height can be safely scaled only on its southwest side—all other approaches too precipitous for any but the bravest or most foolhardy humans. On this pog the castle, a stone phal...