Mont Aimé

Bergères-lès-Vertus

Isolated above the plain of Champagne, between Vertus and Bergères-lès-Vertus, Mont Aimé rises 240 metres over the vineyards of the Côte des Blancs. This natural promontory, occupied since the Palaeolithic, bears the traces of a protohistoric stronghold where, in 1886, eighty tombs were uncovered and explored by the archaeologist Joseph de Baye. Local legend has it that Saint Alpin, bishop of Châlons, led the people fleeing Attila's troops here around 451, making the hill a providential refuge. In 1210, Countess Blanche of Navarre, widow of Count Theobald III of Champagne, had a powerful entrenched castle built here, which lives on in local memory as the "castle of Queen Blanche". The site knew its darkest episode in 1239, when one hundred and eighty-three men and women convicted of Catharism were burnt alive on the orders of the inquisitor Robert le Bougre, one of the largest mass burnings in French medieval history. The fortress, besieged three times by the English during the Hundred Years' War between 1360 and 1429, was finally dismantled. Today only earthworks, moats and remains of curtain walls survive, but the panorama over Champagne and the silence of the place keep alive the memory of this lookout steeped in history and tragedy.

Getting there : Footpath, free access from Bergères-lès-Vertus

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound