Cathar stronghold of Montsegur falls

March 16, 1244

After a nine-month siege perched on a limestone crag in the Pyrenees, the last great Cathar fortress surrendered. More than two hundred heretics who refused to abjure were burned together in a single great pyre at the mountain's foot, an emblem of a civilization finished. The field where they died, the Prat dels Cremats, remains a place of pilgrimage for those who remember the alternative faith.