We have seen that in 1312, the castle of the Lords Bels, in Albi (France), was taken by assault by the people:

“Vox Exitatoria Apud Albienses. Charta anno 1312. Cum dictis armis et magna vociferatione more hostili clamando a Bels, a Bels, a foc, dictum castrum sive bastidam expugnaverunt. Vide supra. Allot et mox.”.

It is still unknown what happened to the Lords Bels and to their castle (see also from 1208 to 1244). In Sept 2005, I contacted the Archives Départementales du Tarn, in Albi, and sent them a copy of the above Latin text, asking if they knew something about this event and the location of the castle. Their answer dashed my hopes to receive any help from their side:

“Would it be possible for you to indicate us where you got this Latin citation from?”

In other words, they had absolutely no clue! Being on a historical study journey in the region, I went to the above-mentioned Archives and spoke to the “Chef de salles” Mr. Henri Bru, who indeed received my Emails but did not know what to do with it (sic)!

I told him that there must be traces somewhere from this castle and from its lords. What about the documents called “Compoix”, which were the Cadastral Survey ancestors of the Middle Age time? He agreed. They had indeed such documents, but they were to be consulted and studied exclusively on the spot. In addition to that, only medievalists do have access to them and would be able to decipher them. These very old documents are written either in old French, in Latin or in a mixture of both! Such a study could take years. The actual Bels from the Albi region promised me to see how they may solve the problem.

This, for my Archives Départermentale du Tarn experience!

During my journey, some members of our Lineage informed me that there was a spot where very old ruins remnants could be seen in a place called Ambels located on the southern Highland (haut plateau) of Ambialet (Tarn River, France). Coordinates: 43.923663, 2.356687

In the region there are indeed historical legends linked to an old castle and a lordship having belonged “long ago” to a Bels family. I visited the location called today “Château d´Ambels” (member of the Gîtes de France) and met the actual owners of the estate, Mr Alfred Alibert and family. They told me that:

• Since the most remote times the site was called Ambels (Am-Bels) which is part of the small village on the Tarn River called Ambialet (Am-Bialet).
• There is a spot some 300 m west of their residence (that is part of a big farm) where remnants of ruins can be found.
• They asked themselves the questions to know why this place was called “Château” (castle) although there is hardly a trace (*) of it and why it was called Ambels? They found no answers and could get none from anybody.

(*) There is however a trace: Almost every castle in Europe had what is called in French “une drêve, une allée” from there the “la Drêve du Château”. That is a long entranceway bordered with old trees. This is the unmistaken sign of an old Seigniorial place and most of these “Drêves” survived, sometimes for centuries, the disappearance of the Castle that they led to. And in Ambels, there is precisely such a long entranceway.

They found several old and heavy objects in stones, such as the one on the picture for what they have no idea what they might be. This stone might have been a kind of kitchen (sic) sink because the plate as a hole in it ?

Ambialet, today a small place of 381 inhabitants, used to be for more than two centuries, the strongest fortress of the Albigian region.

Etymologically the toponym Ambialet, in Latin "Ambiletum" and "Ambileto" in the langue d'Oc, takes its origin from the Latin word "ambi", around and from the Gallic word "leto", Flow, Tide. Therefore, can Ambialet be translated as “Flow that turns around”. This makes sense because the Tarn River “turns around” the village making it an isthmus.

The Bels castle near Ambialet was called Ambels (Am = word that would localise it near Ambialet and Bels = that designated its Lords). Seen the importance of the castle of Ambialet, Ambels must have been a fief of it, from whom it takes its toponym variant.

Some notes on the Latin language. In Latin, the meaning of a word in a sentence depends on its ending (inflexion). Example: Annus (year) and dominus (master or lord).

“In the year of the lord” will so mutate into anno (in the year) domini (of the lord). Two words instead of six ! Romanian, another Latin-based language, has one more: “In anul Domnului”. French is not better: “Dans (la) l´année du seigneur”, where the article “la” is replaced by the elision mark! German follows the same principle: “In dem Jahr des Hernn”. Dutch gears up to six words to say the same thing: “In the jaar van de heer”, etc.

Another advantage of the Latin language is that the order of the words in a sentence does not matter. “Domini anno” still means “in the year of the lord”. In English, if you switch the word order you change the meaning or get no meaning at all such as: “In the lord of the year” or “Of the lord in the year”!

Latin has no definite or indefinite articles. It uses the word “ille” (masculine) or “illa” (feminine) for “that” when speaking emphatically: “I want to buy that wine”. The French language shortened them in “le” and “la”. In Spanish, it produced “el” and “la” and in Italian “il” and “la”.

Latin has no prepositions. However, some words such as “in”, “at”, “of”, were, later, gradually used for emphasis. In modern Latin, the endings (inflexions) were replaced by prepositions.

A good example is the genitive form of German: “Der Hut von meinem Vater” is a prepositional variant of the old Latin inflective system: “Der Hut meines Vaters”. This last sentence does not need any preposition! If you simply say: “Hut Vaters”, every German will know that you are talking about the hat that belongs (Genitive form) to your father. In French, you will need four words to say the same thing: “chapeau de mon père”.

Ambialet, as an isthmus, was an extremely safe stronghold. Only four roads led (and still lead) toward the place. Two ran along the wild Tarn River coming from the west (route 1 from Albi) and from the east (route 2 from Millau). Needless to say, that they could be very well defended.

The third road plunged from the highlands north down to Ambialet. It could be controlled and defended thanks to the Tarn River eventual aggressors would have to cross.

The fourth road plunged from the highlands south down to Ambialet. This road, hard to control and to defend, would allow the enemy to besiege the city from above it and in its back, what is a very serious threat. To prevent this, a castle had to be built to control that road. The castle might very well have been the Ambels castle whose ruin remnants are found exactly at the highest elevation of the south highland and close to the road heading to Ambialet. Strategically spoken, the location of Ambels was perfect to safeguard the southern flank of Ambialet.

Could the blazon, once more, be of any help to our study? Here displayed (1) are the actual blazon of Ambialet.

On the actual blazon we can see: Two castles, one on top and one at the bottom strongly suggesting that there were two castles linked to the village or to the lordship, one located on an elevation and another in a valley (River Tarn).

A red lion on a yellow background. This blazon is the primitive Lion of Scotland (2) taken by William Ist, King of Scotland in anno 1165. Since the Lion of Scotland is the same one as the Lion of the Counts of Flanders, but with different colours, it may not be unreasonable at all to speculate on this coincidental occurrence.

The Saint Andrew’s cross (3) (crux decussata) is another troubling element here that points once more toward Scotland. It is the Flag of Scotland! According to the legend, this Scottish flag would date from the IXth century and would have appeared at the time of the battle of Athelstaneford (to the west of Edinburgh) that opposed the Pict King Angus MacFergus against the Saxon Athelstan.

Clouds would have formed a white cross in the sky (sic) and would have represented Saint-Andrew's support that permitted the victory of the Celt against the Saxon. It is to this time that Saint-Andrew becomes the holy protector of Scotland.

Is it not strange to find such elements into the Arms of a small village lost in the Albigian region, far away from Scotland and from Flanders? Next question: Who designed this “Actual blazon” and according to what historical background? The designer must know far more than the simple history of the village and/or of the region.

The castle of Ambialet was called “Trencavel”, the name of the first members of this viscountal family that lived in it around the middle of the XIth century. At the end the XIIth century, the viscounty of Ambialet assured the Trencavel the control of a territory that spread from Camarès to Quill via Cabrespine and Saint Felix - Lauragais.

The lineage of the Viscounts of Albi starts with Bernard Ist who died in 918. His son Ato Ist (+942) x Diafroniz assured the continuity of the Lineage. This family was linked to the Counts of Barcelona as soon as 1001, the date Ramon Borrell (+1017) married Ermessen de Carcassonne. There is, therefore, no surprise to see the Bels established in the Albigensian and Barcelona regions.

At the time of the Crusade against the Albigenses, Simon IV of Montfort (1175 - 25 June 1218), lord of Montfort-l'Amaury in France and the 5th Earl of Leicester in England, seized Ambialet and convened there, in 1210, the Count of Toulouse Raymond VI. Simon died at the Siege of Toulouse in 1218. Some ten years later (in 1229), the Treaty of Meaux made pass this fief in the ship of Castres assigned to the family of Montfort, before re-joining the Crown of France at the death of Alphonse of Poitiers in 1271. In 1388, the ship went over to the family Castelperses.

It is in anno 1762 that the Baronial Family de Lormet bought it. They kept it until the French Revolution. So, our Bels ancestors did not only settle in Albi where we still search for their castle, attacked in 1312, but they also settled in Ambels where they were known as Bels and most probably also in Ambialet where they were known as Baron de Lormet (from 1762 until 1789).

And here comes new coincidences:

The barony, I brought back to Life in anno 1995, is the one of L’Ormier. From there comes the title “Baron de L’Ormier”. As seen previously in this Essay, this barony belonged to the Bels of the region of Mouscron (Flanders).

We know that the fief of Ambialet belonged, from 1762 until the Revolution, to the Barons de Lormet. Was the patronymic of these Barons de Lormet… also Bels, as in Ambels?

There is only a very small phonetic and orthographic difference between:

• Baron de L´Ormier.
• Baron de Lormet.   (Found in texts referring to the local Baron of Ambialet).
• Baron de Lolmière. (L´Holmière, in a text describing the village of Ambialet).

«…La porte de l’Holmière protège le village en cas de crue et permet d’accéder à la rive droite en empruntant la passerelle... » or:

«…The door of l´Holmière protects the village in case of raw and permits to reach the right strand by taking the footbridge...”.

L´Holmière becomes phonetically “Lolmière” which is too close to “L’Ormier” to have happened by pure coincidence. In addition to that, I did not find a single other place in France that is called Lormier, Lormet nor l´Holmière.

Does this baronial name come from Flanders? Something might speak for it: The discovery of the name “de l´Orme” in Flanders, around the year 1792.

In anno 1782, there were some deep political changes in Europe. Ten years later, some 34.000 Austrians soldiers made a siege of Lille and bombed it for ten days. Lille used to be a Flemish city called Ryssel in Flemish. I found, in a very rare document, that in that year 1792 and consecutive to the seat of Lille, the Knight Order of Mont-Réal was allowed to help the wounded civil population. However, one year later, the same Order was condemned by an Ordinance of the Parliament of Paris. Reason: Unknown.

At about five kilometers, Southeast of Lille, there is a small village called “Lezennes” from where beautiful white calcareous building stones were extracted. This quarry was already in use, with certainty, during the VIth century. The quarry, today abandoned, has several hundreds of kilometers long underground corridors. It is in there that some 30 Knights of the Order of Mont-Réal hid, in 1792, for better days to come.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of names were carved into the walls. They were the names of people who fled to hide for aggressors of any kind and of any time (for a span of more than 1400 years). The latest aggressors were the Gestapo. The Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei = Secret State Police - Nazi Germany until 1945) was under the overall administration of the SS (Schutzstaffel) but was administrated by the RSHA (Reichssicherheitshauptamt).

At a corner of one of those countless labyrinths are some inscriptions that turned out to be very interesting for my Essay. There, around a carving of the Order’s Cross of the Order of Mont-Réal, are written some names: Pierre Levasseur, J. Paoli, Auguste de Vi..ay, Paul Le Mai and N. de l´Orme. Source: A. Girond-Flandres.

Fra. Dr Enrico Paust Freiherr von Lipstadt, Knight of the Order of Mont-Réal, wishing to have a picture of these engravings, asked me to intervene. I contacted Professor Michel Dubois, from the Laboratoire de Génie Civil et géo-Environnement, UFR des Sciences de la Terre, at the University of Lille (France-Nord). Here, some of his latest answers, translated into English:

“…Good evening, for now, nothing new. The friend with whom I explore the quarries also does not know this inscription. Back in my good village of Lezennes, I consulted the dissertation written by students about thirty years ago, with a census of many inscriptions. Unfortunately, the listing you are looking for is not listed. I am very sorry. It is not excluded that it will be rediscovered one day, I will speak to the few people (very rare, I must say) who know the place. I know a place where the date 1792 is mentioned, I will take a closer look at it, in case.”.

“…The quarries of Lezennes are now divided into 2 parts, following the filling under a major road. I have access to one of the parts, the other however does not have easy access. But because this part is managed by the city of Lille, I forwarded the purpose of your research to the inspector of this part. Maybe he saw something. I keep you informed of the outcome of my investigation…”. Source: Email Michel Dubois, dated 21, 27 and 29 Sept. 2017 à 09:08.

“…I have activated the contacts I have about careers, to pass your inscriptions search. I went down twice in areas where I knew inscriptions from the late eighteenth century. There are currently few people who frequent these places. None of my contacts are aware of the inscriptions. But it is a real labyrinth, more than 70 ha with thousands of inscriptions more or less readable or visible. For the time being, I do not have good news for you. If I come to discover or hear about, any inscription nearing your description, I will keep you informed. Cordially…”. Source: Email Michel Dubois. Friday 13, 2017.

There is no doubt that the professor is really collaborating to locate these inscriptions. I am waiting for the results of “their” research, which will definitively take some time.

So did I, miraculously, discover the long-searched toponym “de l´Orme”. Where? In Flanders, of course! However, since then, the toponym seems to have disappeared again without a trace. In the South of France, in Malaucène, some 40 km east of the city of Orange, I found a restaurant called “Le Pont de l´Orme”. The patronymic “Delorme”, which may indicate the same origin of the name, is rather well known in France!

There is a French word “Ormier” that is a synonym for “Ormeau”. The latest is a word used since the XIIth century to describe a Jung Elm tree. The word “Ormeau” comes from “Orme” which, in its turn, comes from the Latin word “Ulmus”. These words describe an Elm tree.

In the French written language, there is a grammatical particularity called the “Elision”. That word comes from ”Elider” (in English to elide) which means:

“…To make an elision (replacing a letter by an apostrophe) when the final letter of a word is a vowel and when the first letter of the following word starts with a vowel…”.

So will the article “le” before the noun “Ormier” (or any other vowel such as, a, e, i, o, u and other words such as, ou, au, en, in, etc.) become “l´Ormier”. In the spoken language, however, will this elision not be heard, and the word will simply sound like “Lormier”.

So is very frequently the letter “L”, we find here in front of the word “Ormier” and that makes it “L’Ormier”, voluntarily used without the apostrophe of the “Elision”. In this process, the contraction changed an elided word into a whole word… As it sounds!

Another example: La porte “de le” aéroport (Airport) is grammatically wrong. After the requested elision, it will become - La porte de “l’” aéroport - and subsequently and phonetically - La porte de “laéroport”.

In English, the same phenomenon occurs: "During "a" annual meeting" becomes "during "an" annual meeting", which sounds like "ananual"! Clearly, " - La porte de l'Holmière protège -" refers to a gate located near a young elm tree, where, in the Middle Ages, the lords rendered justice (sic).

The correct word in this sentence should have been: “La porte de L’Ormier (Lormier) protège… making the Lords of the place, Baron de L’Ormier or de Lormier. There are no other alternatives.

For info: I wrote in my book “Seigneur et Chevalier”, anno 1996, what follows:

“…Alas, as we saw previously, a Grand Master of the Order of the Temple, the Flemish Gérard de Ridefort (Gerhard de Sterke Ridder), will modify, by his mistakes and imprudence, the course of history.

July 14, 1187, Saladin gets the surrender of Jerusalem and makes the aforesaid Grand Master prisoner together with Guy of Lusignan and Raymond III of Tripoli. As a direct consequence of it, a part of the Order of the Temple folds back to Europe.

The following year, in 1188, Gérard of Ridefort is dismissed of his function of Grand Master of the Order of SION that he accumulated, as his predecessors, with the one of Grand Master of the Order of the Temple. Reasons were his responsibilities in the fall of Jerusalem and his suspected behaviour with Saladin.

The dismissal of Gérard of Ridefort had for consequence the separation of the Order of Sion and the Order of the Temple symbolized by the “Rupture of the Elm" in Gisors, August 15, 1188.

The Elm was previously a tree to the foot of which one gave the justice, from where the expression: "Wait me under the elm" or: "We will meet us again before the judge". King Saint Louis, as for him, gave back his justice to the foot of an oak“.

Note: The English language gives quite another and unexpected sense to this sentence: “You may wait for me until doomsday“ (ref: Harraps-Shorters Bordas Dictionary) what has absolutely nothing to do with its historical meaning… !”.

If the patronym “Lormier” is concentrated in the South of France (Bouches du Rhône et Midi-Pyrénées), the toponym «de l´Ormier» is found nowhere in France.

The Bels (and phonetic variants) of the Albigian region may be heirs of the Bels from the southwest of France who, according to the latest new discoveries, went down there coming from Flanders at the time of a Count of Barcelona’s marriage with the Count of Flanders` daughter, or in even earlier, ranging from the Merovingians to the Carolingians time and of course later at the time of the Templar knights and the crusades against the Cathars. I will develop these themes in the subsequent sub-chapters.