ded with every thing, and to exhort the citizens valiantly to defend their lives. He had then shut himself up in Carcassonne, a city built upon a rock partly surrounded by the river Aude, and whose two suburbs were themselves encircled by walls and ditches. The citizens of Beziers felt themselves intimidated, when they knew that their young viscount quitted them for a place of greater strength; their inquietude redoubled when they saw the crusaders arrive, whose three bodies united under their walls after the middle of July 1209. They had been preceded by Reginald of Montpeyroux bishop of Beziers, who after having visited the legate, and delivered to him a list of those, amongst his flock, whom he suspected of heresy, and whom he wished to see consigned to the flames, returned to his parishioners, to represent the dangers to which they were exposed, and to exhort them to surrender their fellow citizens to the avengers of the faith, rather than to draw upon themselves, and upon their wives and children, the wrath of heaven and the church. “Tell the legate," replied the citizens, whom he had assembled in the cathedral of St. Nicaise, "that our city is good and strong, that our Lord will not fail to succour us in our great necessities, and that, rather than commit the baseness demanded of us, we would eat our own children." Nevertheless, there was no heart so bold as not to tremble, when the pilgrims were encamped under

their walls;" and so great was the assemblage both of tents and pavilions, that it appeared as if all the world was collected there; at which those of the city began to be greatly astonished, for they thought they were only fables, what their bishop had come to tell them, and advise them.'

The citizens of Beziers, though astonished, were not discouraged: whilst their enemies were still occupied in tracing their camp, they made a sally, and attacked them at unawares. But the crusaders were still more terrible, compared with the inhabitants of the south, by their fanaticism and boldness, than by their numbers. The infantry alone sufficed to repulse the citizens with great loss. At this instant, all the battalions of the besiegers, precipitating themselves upon them at the same time, pursued them so eagerly that they entered the gates with them, and found themselves masters of the city before they had even formed their plan of attack. The knights, learning that they had triumphed without fighting, inquired of the legate, Arnold Amalric, abbot of Citeaux, how they should distinguish the catholics from the heretics, who made them this much celebrated reply: "Kill them all; the Lord will know well those who are his."

2 Historia de los faicts de Tolosa, p. 9, 10. Historia Albigens. Petri Val. Cern. cap. xv, p. 570. Præclara Francor. facinora: apud Duchesne, tom. v, p. 765. Bernardi Guidonis Vita Innocentii III, p. 481. apud Muratorii, tom. iii, Script. Ital.

8 Cæsar Heisterbachiensis, lib. v, cap. 21. In Bibliotheca Patrum Cister

The fixed population of Beziers did not, perhaps, exceed fifteen thousand persons; but all the inhabitants of the country, of the open villages, and of the castles which had not been judged capable of defence, had taken refuge in this city, which was regarded as exceedingly strong; and even those who had remained to guard the strong castles, had, for the most part, sent their wives and children to Beziers. This whole multitude, at the moment when the crusaders became masters of the gates, took refuge in the churches; the great cathedral of Saint Nicaise contained the greater number; the canons, clothed with their choral habits, surrounded the altar, and sounded the bells as if to express their prayers to the furious assailants; but these supplications of brass were as little heard as those of the human voice. The bells ceased not to sound, till, of that immense multitude, which had taken refuge in the church, the last had been massacred. Neither were those spared who had sought an asylum in the other churches; seven thousand dead bodies were counted in that of the Magdalen alone. When the crusaders had massacred the last living creature in Beziers, and had pillaged the houses of all that they thought worth carrying off, they set fire to the city, in every part at once, and reduced it to a vast funereal pile. Not a house

ciensium, tom. ii, p. 139. Raynaldi Annal. Eccles. 1209, § xxii, p. 186. Hist. de Languedoc, liv. XXI, ch. lvii, p. 169.

remained standing, not one human being alive. Historians differ as to the number of victims. The abbot of Citeaux, feeling some shame for the butchery which he had ordered, in his letter to Innocent III reduces it to fifteen thousand, others make it amount to sixty.*

The terror inspired by the massacre at Beziers, caused all the country places to be deserted. None appeared strong enough to resist an army, which, in a single day, had taken and destroyed the capital. The inhabitants preferred taking refuge in the woods and mountains, to waiting for such enemies, within the enclosure of walls, which might serve them for a prison. As there was not a knight in all France whose dwelling was not fortified, the number of castles, in the two dioceses of Beziers and Carcassonne, was immense; but the crusaders found more than a hundred of them deserted. They still advanced, however, unsatiated with blood, and on the 1st of August arrived before Carcassonne. That city was then entirely built on the right of the Aude; the young viscount had augmented its fortifications, and it was defended by a numerous garrison. On the following day an attack was made upon

4 Hist. gén. de Languedoc, liv. XXI, ch. lvii, p. 169. Historia de los faicts d'armas de Tolosa, p. 11. Chronicon Guillelmi de Nangis, p. 488. Guillelmus Armoricus, p. 92. Philippidos, lib. viii, p. 220. Innocentii III Epist. lib. xii. Ep. 108. Chron. de St. Denys, p. 403. Roberti Altissiodorens. tom. xviii, p. 276. Bernard Itier of Limoges, a contemporary, makes the number of the slain 38,000: Chronicon, tom. xviii, p. 227, and Alberic, monk of the three fountains, 60,000: Ibid. p. 775.

one of the suburbs, and after a combat of two hours, during which Raymond Roger on one side, and count Simon de Montfort on the other, gave proofs of extraordinary valour, it was taken. The assailants then proceeded to the attack of the second suburb, but were repulsed with loss. For eight days the besieged continued to defend it with success; they at last evacuated it, and having set it on fire, they abandoned it to their enemies, and retired into the city.5

King Peter II of Aragon, whom the viscount of Beziers had acknowledged as his lord, beheld with chagrin the oppression of that young prince, his nephew. He came to the camp of the crusaders, he addressed himself to the count of Toulouse, his brother-in-law, whom he saw compelled to follow and second the enemies of his country; he offered himself as mediator between him, the duke of Burgundy, and the legate, on one side, and the viscount on the other. Before they entered on any conditions, the abbot Arnold of Citeaux, who wished to obtain some information as to the state of the besieged, engaged the King of Aragon to enter himself into the city, to confer with Raymond Roger. The young viscount, after giving his lively thanks, said to him, "If you wish to arrange for me any adjustment, in the form and manner which shall appear to you fitting, I will

5 Historia de los faicts de Tolosa, p. 12. Petri Val. Cern. Hist. Albigens. cap. xvi, p. 571. Hist. gén. de Languedoc, liv. XXI, ch. lxxix, p. 171.