Les chevaliers cathares [English translation]

The cathar knights1

cry softly

on the side of the highway2

When the night falls

Like one last insult

Like one last torment

Amidst the tumult

Dressed in concrete

The smog of the cars

The pebbles from the children

Their eyes on the torture fields3

And the trashcans in front

It must be someone from beyond the Loire4

Who traced the blueprints5

He forgot on the robe

The blood stains6

They were sculpted in the stone

That broke their bodies

Their faces in the dust

Of their ancient treasure

On the big stele of light

Tell of their death too7

The cathar knights

Still think of it

No matter the toughts of those who decide

Of the past and the present8

They only have seven centuries of History

They are still alive

I still hear the clash of weapons

And I still often see

Flammes creeping up the walls9

And giant mass graves

The cathar knights

cry softly

on the side of the highway

When the night falls

Like one last insult

Like one last torment

Amidst the tumult

Dressed in concrete

1. Catharism was a Christian dualist movement that thrived in some areas of Southern Europe, particularly northern Italy, northern Spain and southern France, former Occitania and Catalonia, between the 12th and 14th centuries. Cathar beliefs varied between communities because Catharism was initially taught by ascetic priests who had few set guidelines. The Cathars were a direct challenge to the Catholic Church, renouncing its practices and dismissing it outright as the Church of Satan.2. The song refers to the Cathar knights monument, that is located right next to the A9 highway, near Narbonne. Not only this monument is considered a brutalist eyesore, it is also historically incorrect, since cathars were pacifists and never had warriors among them.3. In 1215, the bishops of the Catholic Church decided at the Fourth Council of the Lateran to declare all Cathar to be heretics. The ones that refused to convert would be burned at the stake.

On 16 March 1244, a large and symbolically important massacre took place, where over 200 Cathar Perfects were burnt in an enormous pyre at the prat dels cremats ("field of the burned") near Montségur.

The archbishop of Narbonne decreed during the 1235 Council of Narbonne : chastisements against laymen suspected of sympathy with Cathars.

The last known Cathar perfectus in the Languedoc, Guillaume Bélibaste, was executed in the autumn of 1321. 4. The Loire river, in medieval times the frontier between the kingdom of France (northern France) and the kingdom of Occitania (southern France) is still considered today a cultural frontier. People on each side, while all french for centuries, have different accents and culture. A bitter resentment still animate the soul of the south over it's lost independance.5. Motivated by his contempt, Cabrel fails here, since the monument was conceived by Jacques Tissinier, painter and sculptor born in Molandier, in the neighboring departement of Aude, therefore a local, not a northerner6. The monument is indeed absolutely cryptic and makes no mention of the violent history of the Albigensian Crusade.7. A stone stele devoid of anything but a list of historical figures names lies at the foot of the monument. One could think any mention of the massacres perpetrated by the french royalty and church was duly eliminated to avoid any criticism and association with independantist movements.8. A reference to the bashing of local cultures still imposed by the central power of France.

Any attempt to tell the real History of the country, and not the cleansed myth hammered in schools, is met with contempt, mockery and accusations of separatism.9. Much of the southern cities were burned and sacked during the crusade. Almost all of the cathars died at the stake, the local noblety was assassinated or imprisonned, and furthermore much of the local culture and language was destroyed by persecutions