The numbers were signifigant enough to be exterminated as a direct threat to the Catholic church in their hundreds of thousands by the HRC.
www.cathar.info/
From 1208, a war of terror was waged against the indigenous population and their rulers:
Raymond VI of Toulouse,
Raymond-Roger Trencavel,
Raymond Roger of Foix in the first generation and
Raymond VII of Toulouse,
Raymond Trencavel II, and
Roger Bernard II of Foix in the second generation. During this
period an estimated 500,000 Languedoc men women and children were massacred - Catholics as well as Cathars. The
Counts of Toulouse and their
allies were dispossessed and humiliated, and their lands annexed to France. Educated and tolerant Languedoc rulers were replaced by relative barbarians; Dominic Guzmán (later
Saint Dominic) founded the Dominican Order and soon afterwards the
Inquisition, manned by his Dominicans, was established explicitly to wipe out the last vestiges of resistance. Persecutions of
Languedoc Jews and other minorities were initiated; the culture of the
troubadours was lost as their cultured patrons were reduced to wandering refugees known as
faidits. Their characteristic concept of "
paratge", a whole sophisticated world-view, was almost destroyed, leaving us a pale imitation in our idea of chivalry. Lay learning was discouraged and the reading of the bible became a capital crime. Tithes were enforced. The Languedoc started its long economic decline to become the poorest region in France; and the language of the area,
Occitan, began its descent from the foremost literary language in Europe to a regional dialect, disparaged by the French as a patois.
Would Jesus do that?
). Les did the same thing. He challenged this thing to show him incidents in history like the burning bush nonsense and arrange it so he could retain the memory of what he'd seen. He said if that was done he'd willingly leap with both feet into faith. Nothing resulted from that either. 
