In Simone Weil's two essays on the Languedoc, written in Marseille shortly before her forced departure from France, one can sense the outlines of a vast counter-narrative to European modernity. Here, the Renaissance begins not in 14th-century Italy but in 13th-century Occitania. The idea of progress never happened, and the Middle Ages, against the claims of a power-hungry papacy, managed to preserve its best, a culture based on the pillars of beauty and grace. In my talk I will focus on two aspects which together form the main framework of Weil's vision of what was once possible but never came to pass. The first is an eclectic spirituality that combines Christian, Platonic, Orphic, Manichaean and Buddhist elements, resulting in what might be called a tragic dualism. The second is what concretises this, namely a dialectic of violence and love. Its emblematic figure is none other than the slave.