This article has nothing to do with agrarian issues, but it is about Languedoc, the region I spent a year studying in for my masters degree. I lived in the capital of Languedoc, Montpellier, but I took a number of trips with my now-wife to other areas of the region, including Carcassonne, the cartoonish overly-reconstructed medieval city that the author talks about.
A few corrections to the article:
If you do go to southwestern France, watch out for cassoulet. The author says most towns have delicious cassoulet. I guess it tastes alright, but this regional specialty dish of beans, duck, and pig sausage left me up all night once vacating my entrails in various ways. I reeked for more than a day afterward as my pores slowly secreted distilled pig essence, and I had violent rash and allergies for maybe a week.
The Cathars (or Albigensians) weren't just a puritanical Christian sect. I would in fact count them as a different religion altogether. They had a Manichean worldview whereby all flesh and worldly existence was evil, meaning for example that they regarded suicide as an honorable act. I don't think many modern-day Cathar aficionados are that into the religion, but rather the heroic resistance that they offered to Europe's first real politico-religious coalition, as the author points out. Also, people in Languedoc are committed to preserving their unique language and culture, and the Cathars are a real historical legacy that differentiates Languedoc from the rest of France.
Anyway, I enjoyed seeing a nice treatment of a beautiful and underappreciated area of France. The images of Spring's warmth and the growing seasonal tide of tourists also made me miss the temperate latitudes in general. Here in my part of Colombia there's a dry season and a wet season, but the temperature stays the same year-round, so we don't get to enjoy the first crocuses coming up after a long winter, or the giddiness of planting a summer garden, etc. I sure don't miss the long, bleak Chicago winters, but I do miss the slow, majestic change from season to season.
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