Cathartic Angels in the Languedoc

![]() ![]() ![]() Lorrie’s Angel Gallery, Alets-les-Bains, Languedoc-Roussillon
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If you are also a reader of French Property Insider, then you know that on Thursday, I trained down to Carcassonne to assist one of our clients in signing the “Acte de Vente” (final deed) on a house in a nearby town — the town of Couiza. It could be that you’ve never heard of any of these towns. Even Carcassonne, with a population of about 48,000, may not have been on your radar. This part of France doesn’t get too much attention from Americans who have centered their visits to France on Paris, the Riviera, Provence and Normandy. The region, Languedoc-Roussillon, is well-regarded by those who have second homes in France — primarily the British, for its warm weather, sunny days, beautiful landscape and casual lifestyle. The fields of grapes and sunflowers are abundant. The landscape is a little rockier than Provence, but beautiful nonetheless and the old stone villages are picture perfectly stunning. This is the country’s largest wine-producing region with 700,000 acres of vines responsible for more than one-third of France’s total wine production and more than the entire United States. T Property here is less expensive than its Provencal counterpart. The home our client has purchased is a four bedroom/two bath home on two levels with two kitchens (one on each level) and a large living room surrounded by 4,000 square meters of land purchased for under 200,000! The property is the kind one lives in, although rentals could be possible during the summer season, particularly if it were to be equipped with a pool (at present, it has a large patio, but a pool would be possible). The views from the living room of the hills are impressive and life here is serene. Languedoc-Roussillon has an interesting history with its government having been created in the 16th-century. It covers an area of approximately 16,490 square miles between the Rhône and the Garonne Rivers. Couiza is a small commune of only about 1,200 residents at the foothills of the Pyrenees, on the road between Limoux, going towards Carcassonne and Quillan and Perpignan. “The Château de Couiza,” a 16th-century castle built by the Dukes of Joyeuse is now a hotel and restaurant (Les Ducs de Joyeuse).” (Wikipedia.org)
Limoux is also well known for “Blanquette,” the oldest sparkling wine in the world, first produced in Limoux in 1531 by the monks at the abbey in Saint-Hilaire. Why it’s not more well known is a mystery, although over the course of the weekend, many mysteries of the region became more apparent. We tasted our fair share of Blanquette’s fine bubbles along with a very memorable meal. When Chef Jean-Luc Desmoineaux came out to greet us after having enjoyed the “repas,” we gladly accepted a tour of his beautiful kitchen as he glowed with pride, rightly so.
Our client has a particular affinity with an artist in this town and with the region in general. This is one of the main reasons she settled on Couiza. The artist, named Lorrie Coffey, is an Irish woman whose personal story “can inspire, uplift, and sometimes bring comfort to others and give them hope.” At a young age she suffered an athletic injury that changed the course of her life. At the bottom of despair, believable or not, she claims to have had an unexplainable experience — a vision of an angel that gave her the inner strength to renew her excitement about life. Since that time, Lorrie has wanted to share her experience and help people.
I visited with Lorrie, her husband, her children…and her angels. The angel paintings are beautiful and the sanctuary is serene and meditative. To earn a living, Lorrie has created a boutique to sell books, cards, candles and gifts, but she doesn’t sell the paintings. Then Lorrie showed me her newest endeavor in a medium she’s never worked in before until now — a series of sculptures in clay — busts of seven women. At present, five of them sit together in a small room on two tables, one after another. She uncovered them from their damp cloth protectors, and I gasped!
I know this makes no sense. My mathematician and scientific friends will tell you I’ve gone nuts. My spiritual friends will rejoice in learning I’ve discovered something they understood long ago. I will confess that the night before I awoke in the middle of the night with all the windows of the old house in Limoux open, saw a bright midnight blue sky and felt a strange chill come over my body in spite of the intense heat. It was if I was shaking internally. I realized I had been dreaming about spiritual or alien kinds of beings and felt as if I had been possessed. It took a long time before I was calm enough to doze off again, but sensed that something really different had taken place — no ordinary dream or nightmare — not one of the usual kind, but it wasn’t frightening. My client said, after telling her of the experience, “Now you understand why I am here. This region is filled with spirituality — the kind I am drawn to study and understand.” For myself, after 42 hours there, I will never be the same. And if you don’t believe me, look what David Yoder had to say in the New York Times about “The Besieged and the Beautiful in Languedoc” (Published: May 6, 2010, nytimes.com) A la prochaine…
Director of The Adrian Leeds Group, LLC (with Lorrie)
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