Word: montbrun
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...thought, that Author Oldenbourg has now begun to meet herself coming and going. It is rather that the real history is so compelling that the histrionics of her characters sometimes seem frivolous and shoddy intrusions. It is hard, really, to care much about the courtly romance between Roger de Montbrun (Catholic knight of Toulouse) and Lady Gentian d'Aspremont (Cathar heretic), which takes up one-third of the book, at a time when, for example, human heads were actually being used as gun stones, and the brave Count of Toulouse, in order to save his people and make peace...
...everyone knows, and as the count should have expected, remained implacable. Instead of forgiveness, it created the Dominican Order, and set in motion the Inquisition just to cope with heretics. Under the horrifying impact of burning and torturing that ensued, even so uncomplicated and generous a Catholic as De Montbrun (parted from his love), like thousands of others, refuses to accept the sacraments and is burned as a despised heretic...
Frequently diffuse and cryptic, Miss Oldenbourg's account nevertheless rises on occasion to a passionate eloquence which perceives (and persuades) that physical cruelty is a pure manifestation of evil. As a temporarily absolved prisoner, De Montbrun is forced to watch the Inquisition's heretic burnings in Toulouse. Through the swirling clouds of smoke, De Montbrun sees "the bloody contorted bodies writhing like snakes on poles-the raw heads, the faces blistered and bursting, and still screaming. It was ugly; never had human faces been so ugly...
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