Talk, talk?

Yesterday I started to tell you about my adventures in Toulouse and started off my "Toulouse photo album". I included this photograph taken on the rear corner of the Capitole building, home of the Mairie de Toulouse, as I was walking down from the metro exit.  At the time of writing I was puzzled by the apparent duplication which also happens with the street signs affixed to buildings. Some more information came to my attention afterwards which I thought of great interest and I added a second copy of the photograph to the album which explains the reason. Until the holy war to exterminate the Cathars, a novel called "Labyrinth" by Kate Moss gives an excellent introduction into this part of French history as she weaves fact and fiction into a very readable tale, France was basically two countries, the king in the north and the various counts in the south. As I will show later in this adventure there were two economic regions too with taxes and duties, at different rates, collected separately in north and south.





The Counts in the south largely adopted or at the least tolerated the Cathar religion. Baron de Montford and his armies marched south with the blessing of the Pope in order to wipe out the heretics. It was really a land grab increasing the wealth of the king. The Counts of Toulouse, Foix and many other regions were killed in battle or put to death. Aulos where I am currently living is part of this southern domain and the whole area is still united by the language of Occitan. It is also an official language of the Catalonia region of Spain. It is believed that some 100,000 people are actively speaking the language in southern France. Unfortunately, as there is no official support it is doubtful as to whether the language will survive.

So now you know