Paul Deschamps visited the castle in February 1927 . Since Rey had visited in the 19th century a village of 500 people had been established within the castle . Renewed inhabitation had damaged the site : underground vaults had been used as rubbish tips and in some places the battlements had been destroyed . Deschamps and fellow architect François Anus attempted to clear some of the detritus ; General Maurice Gamelin assigned 60 Alawite soldiers to help . Deschamps left in March 1927 , and work resumed when he returned two years later . The culmination of Deschamp 's work at the castle was the publication of Les Châteaux des Croisés en Terre Sainte I : le Crac des Chevaliers in 1934 , with detailed plans by Anus . The survey have been widely praised , described as " brilliant and exhaustive " by military historian D. J. Cathcart King in 1949 and " perhaps the finest account of the archaeology and history of a single medieval castle ever written " by historian Hugh Kennedy in 1994 .