inhabitants, for the guarantee of their obedience; and for this purpose, he laboured with activity, on the one hand, to augment the fortifications of the Narbonnese castle, and on the other, to ruin those of the city and its suburbs. Whilst these two works were going on, he set out, in the month of April, for the court of Philip Augustus, to receive, from that monarch, the investiture of the fiefs which the crusaders had conquered. During all his journey he was received and honoured as the champion of the faith; the most pious formed processions to meet him, and thought themselves happy if they could touch his garments. Philip, who was then at Pont-de-l'Arche, gave him the most favourable reception, invested him with the dukedom of Narbonne, the countship of Toulouse, and the viscountships of Beziers and Carcassonne, and acknowledged him for his vassal and liegeman. Raymond VI had, however, received the absolution of the church, and was reconciled to it; but though he was cousin-german to the king of France, brother-in-law to the emperor Frederic and the king of England, father-in-law to Sancho king of Navarre, and uncle to the kings of Castille and Aragon, he saw himself abandoned by them all; or at least, if the king of England con

4 Guill. de Podio Laur. cap. xxvi, p. 681. Hist. de Languedoc, liv. XXII, ch. cii, p. 284.

5 Petri Val. Cern. Hist. Albigens, cap. lxxxiii, p. 659. Hist. de Languedoc, liv. XXII, ch. ciii, p. 285. Preuves, ibid. p. 252 seq.

tinued to show him some attachment, he could not render him any assistance."

A part of Provence, which the house of Toulouse possessed under the title of marquisate, had been reserved by the council of Lateran to Raymond VI and his son. Those two princes, returning by Marseilles from that assembly, began by causing the Provençals to acknowledge their authority. They found their ancient subjects much more zealous for their cause, since they had experienced the exactions and arrogance of the count of Montfort and his Frenchmen. The council of Lateran had put an end to the crusade against the Albigenses. No more indulgences were preached, the pious were no longer invited to repair to the South, in order to massacre heretics already extirpated. Simon de Montfort was reduced to his own forces, or to the mercenaries whom he could enroll. Marseilles, Tarascon, and Avignon, had declared for the two Raymonds, and the younger, on taking leave of Innocent III, had received from this old pope, a sort of acquiescence in his attempting to recover his heritage by force. Raymond VII, by the aid of the Provençals, formed an army, with which he commenced his operations against Montfort; he began by the taking of Beaucaire, whose inhabitants opened their gates to

6 Guill. de Podio Laur. cap. xxvii, p. 682. Hist. gén. de Languedoc, liv. XXIII, ch. i, ii, p. 287, 288.

him, whilst his father passed into Aragon, to seek for new succours.7

Raymond VII, though master of the city of Beaucaire, had not possession of the castle, where a French garrison still defended itself. He undertook the siege without suffering himself to be discouraged by the approach of Montfort, at the head of considerable forces. He was then only nineteen years of age, and he defended the city into which he had entered against that illustrious captain, whilst, before his eyes, he took the castle which Montfort came to relieve. In this double siege, signalised by actions of great valour, the Provençals made use of Greek fire, the composition of which they had learned in the Holy Land.

Raymond VI had, on his side, raised an army in Aragon and Catalonia, and was approaching Toulouse, which had already declared openly in his favour. But, Simon de Montfort, who was thus attacked on two opposite frontiers, so that his enemies could not communicate together without great difficulty and loss of time, profited by this circumstance to conclude a truce with Raymond VII, and hastened to the defence of his capital. Raymond VI had not force sufficient to make head against him, and retired towards the

7 Guill. de Podio Laurentii, cap. xxvii, p. 682. Hist. gén. de Languedoc, lib. XXIII, ch. i, ii, p. 287,288.

8 Historia de los faicts de Tolosa, p. 63 et seq. Petri Vall. Cern. Hist. Albigens. cap. lxxxiii, p. 659. Guill. de Podio, cap. xxviii, p. 682. Hist. de Languedoc, liv. xxiii, p. 291.

mountains. The Toulousians, terrified at the attachment they had shown to their ancient lord, sought pardon of Montfort. All the lords of the army supported their solicitations; they advised him to exact the fifth, or the fourth of their moveable goods, and to content himself with this pecuniary punishment, which would fill his treasury, and give him the power of besieging Beaucaire anew. But Simon would listen to no other counsels than those of the ferocious Fouquet, bishop of Toulouse, a prelate who knew no pleasure but that of shedding the blood of his flock. "And then," says the old historian of Toulouse, “spoke the bishop of Toulouse, and thus he said, and made him to understand, that he should do and finish what he had already determined against the Toulousians, assuring him that they would not love him ever so little except by force, and exhorting him to leave them nothing, if once he was within their city, but to take both goods and people as much as he could have and hold, for know, my lord, added he, that, if you do thus, it will be late before you repent of it."9

To preach ferocity, was not all the labour of the bishop Fouquet; he took upon himself, besides, to facilitate, by perfidy, the execution of his counsels. He entered the city as a messenger of peace; "In order that I may, said he to the count, make all the people come out to meet you,

9 Historia de los faicts de Tolosa, p. 78.

that you may seize and take them, which you could not do in the city." In fact he solicited his flock to apply, by successive deputations, of men, women, and children, to the count de Montfort, assuring them that this was the only means of appeasing him, and disarming his anger. The most considerable persons in the city thought they could not refuse to credit their pastor, who swore by the name of that God whom he was commissioned to preach to them, that his ardent charity alone dictated the advice which he had given for their welfare, Nevertheless, as the citizens of Toulouse arrived successively before Simon de Montfort, he loaded them with chains. Already more than eighty of them were in irons, when a citizen, whom they were going to treat in the same way, escaped from their hands and called his fellow-citizens to arms. The crowds who were proceeding from the gates to humble themselves before the count, fled back to the city; but rage soon succeeded to terror: they armed themselves, barricaded all the straits, and awaited the attack of Montfort. Already had his soldiers entered the less populous parts of the city. "Directed by the bishop," says our historian, "they had already pillaged and plundered the greater part of the said city, and violated women and girls in such numbers, that it was sad to see all the ill which the said bishop had done, in so short a time, to Toulouse." But, indignation redoubling