tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post6372568601294231701..comments2023-11-02T05:13:52.277-05:00Comments on Letter From Graceyland: A Soft Landing in FranceJoe Graceyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05532199335265219824noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-70061759707418380772011-05-22T23:55:31.188-05:002011-05-22T23:55:31.188-05:00OK Joe
I found it. This is great stuff. Next th...OK Joe<br /><br />I found it. This is great stuff. Next thing we know you'll be hanging out with R Crumb and producing 78's <br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />Nick Spitzer<br />American RoutesAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-43119423144595500182010-11-29T08:23:14.618-06:002010-11-29T08:23:14.618-06:00Great to see you blogging again.
Maybe this will ...Great to see you blogging again.<br /><br />Maybe this will be covered in the next blog post, but is it a pain for Americans to buy property in France? And how on earth did you find out about this place?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-32335149139595463312010-11-28T09:10:21.960-06:002010-11-28T09:10:21.960-06:00Love this, and wonderful photo, looking forward to...Love this, and wonderful photo, looking forward to more. Congrats on being able to live in such a beautiful, historic place.BobiDalehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11809311269464320260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-17652672976452922072010-11-28T09:08:48.161-06:002010-11-28T09:08:48.161-06:00Love this, beautiful country and positive story. ...Love this, beautiful country and positive story. Sure hope there is more coming soonBobiDalehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11809311269464320260noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-435973749452451136.post-84626185299741997552010-11-28T08:10:55.361-06:002010-11-28T08:10:55.361-06:00Ahem. The Cathars weren't exactly protestants....Ahem. The Cathars weren't exactly protestants. Or, rather, Protestants. What they were were heretics. That's not as negative an assessment as it sounds: it simply means that they were (very much) at odds with the way the Church wanted things run in Rome. In English, their belief system was called the Albigensian Heresy, because it was centered in Albi, although some of the more dramatic moments happened in Béziers and Carcassonne. Personally, I find the Cathar belief system (everything evil is the result of mankind, we're all doomed because we're sinners from birth) very much at odds with the beautiful countryside it grew up in, and its practice (priests were called perfects, and were absolute dictators of their congregations, with literally the power of life or death over individuals: when it was your time to die, the perfect would tell you, and then you had to stop eating and drinking until you died, although this usually only occurred when it was obvious someone was terminal -- but sometimes it was a way to dispose of enemies). On the one hand, what happened to them was horrible. On the other hand, I don't think the movement had much of a future. <br /><br />Protestantism is quite another matter, and it was centuries later, in the wake of Martin Luther. For that, you want to look up Wars of Religion. And yes, all around here they had immense power. To this day there are tons of Protestant churches: you can tell them because they're built in the style of a classical temple, with pillars, and no steeple. Louis XIV and the Pope ganged up on them, and if you ever come down here, I can show you exactly how that affected the local architecture. The star-fort in the center of town (now a high-school, appropriately enough) is just the most obvious example. <br /><br />After the Revolution, the French finally got their shit together about religion down here and started fighting about things that made sense, like wine prices.Ed Wardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12846657618234700638noreply@blogger.com