Crusade Against the Grail - Rennes-le-Chateau Research and ...

132 PART THREE
force but through the prayer of the holy rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a
rosary that was the invention of Domingo de Guzman.
This has nothing to do with the truth. Through the chronicles of Guillermo de
Tudela and Pierre de Vaux-Cernay, both enthusiastic members of the crusade, let's
accompany the soldiers of Christ in Occitania, and penetrate the wildest Pyrenean
vales and the darkest caves where only death reigned. . . .
Despite its obvious religious motives, and the fact that the Vatican sponsored
it, the crusade against the Albigenses was fundamentally a war between northern
and southern France. The nobles of the north were burning to complete the
unification of the country, a task initiated seven hundred years before by Clovis I,
France's first king. And the people of the south, both Catholics and heretics,
unanimously opposed such an invasion, despite the multiple venalities of which
their own nobility and cities were capable. There was no religious hatred between
the Catholics and the heretics in the Midi. Heretics and Catholics (naturally, I am
not referring to the clergy) lived side by side in peace. Very rarely did orthodox
Occitanians give any help to the crusaders (here again, we are dealing with
laymen). It would have been logical for Occitania's Catholics to receive the
crusaders as liberators from the domination or tyranny of some hated enemy belief,
but this was not the case. For the Occitanians, secular tolerance had become a
custom, and the love of the land was stronger than religious contradictions.
The young Raimon-Roger of the House of Trencavel, Viscount of Beziers and
Carcassonne, rode to meet the crusaders. He tried to avoid disaster for his two
towns, but he had to return without achieving his goal. In Beziers, his subjects
surrounded him:
"Is there any hope?"
"Fight to the death! God be with you!"
And he continued galloping toward Carcassonne.
Beziers awaited the arrival of the crusaders. 21 A dragon belching fire and
destruction was coming closer in a deafening march. . . .
An aged priest asked to enter the city. It was Reginald de Montpeyroux, the
bishop who had joined the crusade. The bells called the faithful to the cathedral,
which was constructed in the Romanesque style by master Gervasi.