Rob Kleiss, my evening host, also lived above his Abelard bookstore for more than a decade. Its former home now houses a plethora of much-loved books in various stages of battery, waiting to be restored or shipped; he lives opposite in a building that he bought in 2017 and transformed into a bed and breakfast for book lovers. My loft-like bedroom on the second floor was flooded with light, illuminating the leather-bound books atop the fireplace and on the built-in bookshelves in the nooks and crannies. Antique caricatures decorated the bathroom walls, and from the window I could see the aptly named Chapters restaurant, always bustling at 9 p.m. At the other end of the room, a cozy chair was placed in front of a window revealing the Black Mountain in the distance, the sky flooded with starlight.
These views are part of what brought Englishman Adrian Mold to Montolieu. After more than a decade within the union of the small local wine appellation Cabardès, known for its unique combination of Mediterranean and Atlantic grape varieties, Mold opened his wine cellar in 2011. “I have a very regular and loyal local clientele “, he said. said. “In general, booksellers like wine.”
The village is wedged between two rivers, the Dure and the Alzeau, which, according to Mold, “give it a lot of energy”. Indeed, the power of water made it a textile center in the 19th century, and at one point, six paper mills dotted the banks of the Dure. The village of Brousses-et-Villaret, a 15-minute drive away, with a population of 300, is home to the last one still operating in all of Occitania, and the day after my stay in Abélard, I headed for the fog-shrouded hills . and walked along the swollen river to the mill, where Sabine Durand-Hayes was waiting for him.
Durand-Hayes is part of the seventh generation of the Chaïla family, which has produced paper and then cardboard here since 1877. When his grandfather retired in 1981, it seemed that the family trade was going to be lost, until that Braibant’s widow implores Durand-Hayes’ uncle. , André Durand, to take up the torch, which he did in 1994. Today, Durand-Hayes is responsible for several administrative tasks at the mill, joking that she works “in paperwork, but not in the same way gender “. She knows her family’s ancestral trade well enough to lead enriching guided tours, which the mill offers in addition to frequent papermaking workshops.