Raimond-Roger Trencavel Mural

The Rue de la Citadelle, besides being a historic street, is home to one of Béziers’ major historical murals, dedicated to Raimond-Roger Trencavel. To see it, turn around and look at the wall in front of you. Thanks to the trompe-l’œil by artist Patrick Commecy, the windows appear to open, the balconies seem to stand out in relief, and the Middle Ages almost leap from the wall. On the first floor, the armoured knight stepping forward with a sword in hand is Raimond-Roger Trencavel. At the end of the twelfth century, he was the powerful viscount of Albi, Carcassonne and Béziers. Young, Catholic and tolerant toward the Cathars living on his lands, he found himself on the front line when Pope Innocent III launched the crusade against the Albigensians. In 1209, the crusader army descended from the North: Béziers was taken and sacked on 22 July, in a massacre that became infamous. Trencavel withdrew to Carcassonne and tried to negotiate, but after a two-week siege he was captured and died in captivity at just twenty-four. This mural portrays that powerful yet tragic figure: a lord symbolically opening the city’s doors, though ultimately unable to save it.