Vice and Virtue in Albi

On a glorious Spring morning in April, Caroline and I decided to meet up in the historic and monumental town of Albi, in the Tarn 'departement' just fifty miles north east of Toulouse. From Bardies it is an easy journey, less than two hours if you can avoid the early morning rush hour on the 'peripherique'. We had set our hearts on a long, leisurely, 'girly' lunch al fresco and a trip to the Musee Toulouse-Lautrec, which is housed in the stunning 14th century 'Palais de la Berbie'. This is not, as we had wrongly surmised, an old Berber Palace abandoned after the Moorish invasions but the Occitan nomenaclature for a Bishop's Palace ['Bisbia']. We were blessed. There were few tourists and parking adjacent to the Cathedrale de Sainte-Cecile was easy.

Albi in the sunshine gives no hint of its darker days. History is full of fascinating paradoxes and the location of the bulk of the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec [1864-1901] here is one of them. The legacy of that acute observer of the 'demi-monde', who lived life to the full and was never afraid to show it, now rests 'in memoriam' in the midst of one of the greatest medieval edifices ever created to demonstrate the power and pomp of the prelates who lived here. If ever there was a building designed to incur the shock and awe of the cowering and unwashed masses, then this is it. You really do feel like an insignificant speck of cosmic dust when you gaze up at the skyline from the shadows of the cobbled courtyard so far below. The sheer, unadulterated, brutal power of the church surrounds and seeks to obliterate you.

For this palace, begun in the late 13th century, like the fortress cathedral next to it, was designed to say 'never again' to those who dared to question existing doctrine and authority. The full might of the Catholic and apostolic church was to remain supreme in the wake of the testing challenges of the humble Cathars, whose beliefs in gnostic dualism directly challenged Roman dogma . Rome called on its most powerful warriors, led by the brutal Englishman, Simon de Montfort [1160- 1218], to exterminate the Albigensians, so named because Pope Innocent II believed that Albi was the centre of the heresy. After the sack of Beziers in 1209, when every man, woman and child was killed in the belief that 'God will know his own', until his death in 1218, he inculcated fear and loathing throughout the Languedoc.

Alongside these brutal campaigns, Papal Ordinances were passed which imposed new penalties for heresy. The monk Dominic Guzman [1170-1221] aka Saint Dominic [1234], a friend of de Montfort, was instrumental in the setting up of the Inquisition. Catharism was doomed. New methods of torture and new crimes were created. In 1233 Pope Gregory IX charged the Dominican Inquisition with the final solution, the absolute eradication of the Cathar faith. The origins of the modern police state were conceived in the war against the Albigensians [aka Cathars]. Here in Albi today we see its manifestation. I can think of no other House of God which so resembles a fortress and no other Bishop's Palace which so resembles a police headquarters. There is no power but Rome.

On a beautiful day like today though, with its pink bricked facade and Baldaquin dappled in sunshine, it's hard to think of such darkness, especially sitting in a nearby restaurant eating 'souris d'agneau' with a glass of Gaillac rose. I came to Albi with friends in 1989 but remember little, except for the cathedral and the pink brick and tiles of the Renaissance town houses in the the tiny maze of medieval streets that surround it. The merchants of Albi, I read, made their money from the cultivation of 'Isatis Tinctoria', a dark blue dye which we call 'woad'. Albi was the centre of this thriving trade. It is bigger and brighter than I remember, due I am sure, to a spate of municipal facelifts. It is undoubtedly one of the most perfect places in the Languedoc in which to spend a lazy day.

After lunch, we head to see the Lautrecs. I am beside myself with excitement, after my recent trip to Paris. I had not thought of myself as a great fan of his work but somehow he has got to me, 'de la coeur'. I suppose that one of the reasons for my hitherto indifference was the ubiquity of his poster images. He must have kept legions of printers in profit for well over a century and such familiarity has devalued our experience. His paintings are a revelation, now hung here in his birthplace because the directors of various Paris museums disdainfully rejected his parents' generous offer of all the remaining works from his studio after his death. Paris's loss is Albi's gain. The Office de Tourisme must be rubbing its hands in glee, for the museum now houses over a thousand works and documents and has become the largest and most important public collection in the world dedicated to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Edouard Vuillard's [1868- 1940] portrait of him, brightly dressed in a crimson shirt and sunflower yellow 'pantalons', with a red and white neckscarf and jaunty hat, illustrates the pathos of his life, the cheery soul in the pain racked and crippled body. In complete contrast we see his own portrait of his tall, lean and athletic father riding a stallion with a falcon ascending on his left wrist. The contrast could not be more acute. Poor pitiful Henri, with his congenitally stunted little legs, has no choice but to cower in his studio painting an exciting world to which he can but aspire. Unable to participate in most of the activities enjoyed by his peers, the young Henri immerses himself in his art. When his mother takes him to Paris in 1882 and he settles in Montmartre, he finds the two things that he can participate in, booze and sex.

In his paintings we see the sensitivity of the alcoholic. He paints the women of the decadent and theatrical life of 'fin de siecle' Paris with little sentimentality but a great deal of love, affection and admiration. We look at his paintings and we sense that he knows their pain, and occasional joy, as he knows his own. He observes them acutely but we know that he knows them as well as he knows himself. He is of them, and one of them, despite being of aristocratic stock and from a different world. From his exquisite depiction of the boredom and monotony of the women in the salon at Moulins Street to the classical mastery of 'The Milliner', we see works of great contrast.

One of my favourites is 'Doctor Tapie de Celeyran', reminiscent of German Expressionists. We know his women so well, Yvette Guilbert, La Goulou, Jane Avril, La Mome Fromage, who are named, and those who remain un-named but forever etched in our consciousness. Their lives may have seemed to be mere 'demi-monde' in 'fin de siecle' Paris but, in posterity, they have real place and presence. He has served them well. Even the men he treats with respect, although it has to be said that he has created them as two dimensional beings, in complete contrast with his women. I particularly love the bland, beige Englishman at the Moulin Rouge. The one exception, of course, is Oscar Wilde, lonely, corpulent and red faced, far away in Paris in the Musee d'Orsay.

Henri de Toulouse Lautrec died from complications due to alcoholism and syphilis on 9th September 1901, aged 36. In his own short life he documented the lives of others for posterity. They were lives of vice and virtue, not considered worthy enough in their time for the grand museums of Paris. His parents, the Comte and Comtesse de Toulouse-Lautrec, who lived lives as far removed from the 'demi-monde' as the Bishop of Albi, wished to preserve their son's work and his last wishes. With the help of Gabriel Tapie de Celeyran, their nephew and Henri's first cousin, and his friend, Maurice Joyant, the legacy was eventually secured and the exhibition galleries were created and inaugurated on 30th July 1922. Today, visitors and fans arrive every year in their thousands to see the collection. It is a good reason to visit this splendid town. But whilst you while away carefree moments amongst these paintings, drawings and prints, spare a few moments for the poor souls who believed in the simpler values of the Albigensians. Vice and virtue coexist here, but sometimes it's so very hard to decide just who were the saints and who were the sinners.