The end is finally in sight.  We have the opportunity to defeat the God of Darkness and emerge victorious from this place.  I am writing this down at the urging of the other elders in the event that Satan is ever again able to trap parfaits—that is, pure souls—in earthly bodies in order to corrupt them with evil pleasures.  We are the last of the Good Christians and this is the story of our struggle. 

In the early days we were followers of the Roman Catholic Church.  But corruption ran rife within that institution.  Monks sworn to poverty were among the richest men in the land.  It seemed that the Church was more interested in taking wealth from the faithful than in converting the infidel.  As popular sentiment rose against the Church, Catharism emerged as an alternative and began to take hold.  The leaders of Catharism taught that the Old Testament was wrong: God did not create the Earth and make man out of clay.  God created only perfect creatures.  Therefore Satan could not be a creation of God.  And why would God not simply destroy him?  In order to be allowed to exist Satan must be on an equal footing with God.  Opposed to the benevolent God of Light he is a malevolent God of Darkness who takes perfect souls and traps them on this most imperfect world that he created for the purpose of corrupting them.  Furthermore, procreation is itself a manifestation of this evil work and the Sacrament of Marriage should be abandoned.  Baptism, too, because it is performed using water which is a material thing of this world, cannot be useful.  And there is no point in confessing sins to another being who is also a corrupt soul.  The only sacrament necessary is that of Consolamentum—final absolution of all sins to repurify the soul prior to death. 

“Heresy!” came the cry from Rome.  In 1207 Pope Innocent III declared a crusade against the Cathars of Languedoc in southern France.  Interestingly enough my grandfather Simon IV de Montfort l'Amaury led the way.  He would understand even less than my father what his grandson was doing here among these "heretics".  But I will explain that in due time. 

My grandfather had been disinherited from his uncle's estates in England and was left with only a minor holding in France.  He had participated in the Fourth Crusade but was disillusioned when Constantinople became the object of attack instead of Jerusalem.  Returning to France he was offered vast tracks of land in the south if he would join the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars.  He soon captured the towns of Servian and Béziers.  The slaughter of the people of Béziers, Catholic and Cathar alike, horrified everyone.  Apparently, the papal legate Abbot Arnaud-Amaury was heard to cry out, “Kill them all!  God will recognize His own!”  This widespread and indiscriminate murder would be repeated again and again. 

The crusaders continued to take town after town including Carcassonne, Castelnaudary, Fanjeaux, Albi, and even Montréal in the far south.  In Minerve 140 Cathars were burned at the stake.  It was only the beginning.  My grandfather went on to win one victory after another until 1218 when he was killed at the siege of Toulouse. 

My grandfather's death left my uncle, Amaury de Montfort, my father's eldest brother, in charge of the crusaders.  Prince Louis of France assisted him at the urging of the Pope but he never had the success that his father had enjoyed.  At Castelnaudary, which had been recaptured, his younger brother Guy de Montfort was killed.  His death was a great blow to my father as the two had been very close. 

Things may have eventually come to a stalemate had it not been for the institution of the Inquisition by Pope Gregory IX.  In 1235 inquisitors at Cordes were thrown to their death down a 100 foot well.  In 1243 Raymond VII de Toulouse led a force from Montségur against inquisitors in Avignonet.  This brought retaliation directly from Prince Louis who was now King Louis IX.  When Montségur was captured my father brought me to see the fate of the heretics from "Satan's synagogue".  My nine-year-old eyes watched in horror as 210 Cathars were burned to death at the base of the mountain.  But my father's point was lost upon me.  Those people were singing!  They truly believed that they were being freed from the earthly bodies in which the Devil had trapped them.  They went joyfully into the fire!  It was something I shall never forget and it stands as the one event that changed my life utterly and made me become one of them. 

The end may have come for the Cathars had it not been for events far away in Egypt.  Five thousand crusaders were defeated near Herbiya causing the Pope to call for another crusade.  The only European monarch who could possibly lead it was King Louis IX who dropped his attacks against Cathars to go instead to the Holy Land.  In 1249 this army too was entirely wiped out while attacking the Muslim stronghold of Egypt.  In 1261 yet another crusading army was destroyed in Palestine, this time by Mameluks who continued to take cities and towns all the way to Antioch.  By 1267 King Louis was once again headed for the Holy Land but this time he would not return to France.  Illness claimed him in the summer of 1270. 

With the death of King Louis IX and the defeat of Catholic armies all over the East attacks against Catharism ceased.  The power of the Pope dwindled to the point that only one European monarch bothered to attend the Council at Lyons in 1274.  No one would answer the call to another crusade; instead people began to pay attention to the Cathar creed that killing in the name of the Church went against the teaching of Christ.  Catharism spread like wildfire engulfing the whole of France, Spain and Portugal eventually making its way to England, Germany, Greece, and even Italy itself, once the very heart of Catholicism. 

Which brings us to the present time, the year 1320.  I am 85 years old now and will soon escape this earthly presence.  Not a single child has been born in over thirty years as our followers have embraced the belief that procreation is the Devil's work.  I have the satisfaction of looking upon the last generation of people to be trapped on this earth.  One day soon we shall all be free to resume the perfect existence that God intended for us and then final victory shall be ours.