Count Raimond's degrading penance.

Whipped on his naked shoulders by the Pope's legate.

§ 70.-In the spring of the year 1209, the crusading army began to be put in motion; the campaign was limited to forty days. Some authors have computed it at three, and others at five hundred thousand men; and this immense body precipitated themselves upon Languedoc. When count Raimond learned that these terrible bands of fanatics were about to move, and that they were all directed towards his states, he was struck with terror, for he had placed himself in their power, and consented to purchase his absolution from the hands of the Pope's legate, by the most humiliating concessions. He was ordered to repair to the church that he might receive absolution from the Pope's legate. But before this was granted, he was compelled to take a solemn oath upon the Corpus Domini, that is the consecrated host, and upon the relics of the saints, that he would obey the Pope and the holy Roman church so long as he lived, that he would pursue the Albigenses with fire and sword, till they were totally extirpated, and subjected to obedience to the Pope. Having taken this oath at the door of the church, he was ordered by the Legate to strip himself naked, and humbly submit to the penance imposed on him for the death of the monk Peter Castlenau. Count Raimond protested against this humiliating penance, solemnly asserting that he had not been privy to the murder of the monk. But his protestations were in vain; the vast army of the crusaders was at his gates, and he had no resource but unqualified submission to the popish tyrants who now held him in their grasp. On the 18th of June, therefore, the Count "having stripped himself naked from head to foot," says Bower, "with only a linen cloth around his waist for decency's sake, the Legate threw a priest's stole around his neck, and leading him by it into the church nine times around the pretended martyr's grave," he inflicted the discipline of the church upon the naked shoulders of the humbled prince with the bundle of rods that he held in his hand. The Legate, at length, granted him the dear-bought absolution, after obliging him to renew all the oaths he had taken relative to the extirpation of heretics, obedience to the Pope, &c., with the addition of another, in which he promised inviolably to maintain all the rights, privileges, immunities, and liberties of the church and clergy. (See Engraving.)

After perusing the above account of the punishment of Count Raimond, for refusing to join with these popish bloodhounds, in the extermination of the heretics, the reader will be prepared to appreciate the assertion sometimes made by papists, even in our own day, viz. that the Catholic church has never persecuted (!!) but that the heretics who have suffered death for their opinions, have suffered according to the laws of the countries where they resided.

After the submission of his uncle Roger, the viscount of Beziers, according to the old chronicle of Thoulouse, applied to the Pope's

* History of the Popes, in vita Innocentii III. Petri Vallis, History of Languedoc, book xxi., p. 162.

Inhuman treatment of the inhabitants of Beziers, by the papal Legate.

legate, and offered to make some humiliating concessions, but being angrily repelled, he prepared to defend himself to the best of his ability. He had chiefly calculated on the defence of his two great cities, Beziers and Carcassone, and he had divided between them his principal forces. After visiting Beziers, to assure himself that the place was well supplied with everything necessary for the defence of their lives, he retired to Carcassone, a city built upon a rock, and partly surrounded by the river Aude, and whose two suburbs were themselves surrounded by walls and ditches, and there shut himself up. About the middle of July, 1209, the crusading army arrived under the walls of Beziers, in three bodies. They had been preceded by the bishop of the place, 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 into the city to represent to his flock the dangers to which they were exposed, exhorting them to surrender their heretical fellow-citizens to the avengers of their faith, rather than draw upon themselves and their 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 succor 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 crusaders were encamped under their walls; " and so great was the assemblage of tents and pavilions," says one of their historians," 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 which their bishop had come to tell them and advise them."*

§71. 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 unawares. But the crusaders were still more terrible for their fanaticism and boldness, than for their numbers; they repulsed the citizens with great loss. After this, they entered the city, and found themselves masters of it, before they had even formed their plan of attack. The knights learning that they had triumphed without fighting, applied to the pope's legate, Arnold Amalric, to know how they should distinguish the Catholics from the heretics; to which he made this reply66 KILL THEM ALL; THE LORD WILL KNOW WELL THOSE THat are his !" TUEZ LES TOUS, DIEU CONNOIT CEUX QUI SONT A LUI!'

Though the stated population of Beziers was not over fifteen thousand persons, yet the influx of the people from the surrounding districts, especially women and children, was so large, that no less than sixty thousand persons were in the city when it was taken, and in this vast number, not one person was spared alive. The ter

* Petri Vallensis, Cern. Hist. Albig., cap. xv., p. 570.

Sixty thousand killed.

Vile treachery of the Legate toward the count of Beziers.

rified and defenceless women with their babes, as well as many of the men, took refuge in the churches, but they afforded no protection from these blood-thirsty popish zealots. Thousands were slain in the churches, and the blood of the murdered victims, slain by the HOLY WARRIORS, drenched the very altars, and flowed in crimson torrents through the streets. When the crusaders had massacred the last living creature in Beziers, and had pillaged the houses of all they thought worth carrying off, they set fire to the city, in every part at once, and reduced it to a vast funeral pile. Not a house remained standing, not one human being was left alive. The Pope's legate, perhaps, feeling some shame for the butchery which he had ordered, in his letter to Innocent III., reduces it to fifteen thousand, though Velly, Mezeray, and other historians make it amount to sixty thousand.*

$72.-Roger, the young count of Beziers, shut himself up in the other chief city of his dominions, Carcassone, which was much better fortified than Beziers, and defended it to the utmost, against the attacks of the ferocious abbot of Citeaux, the papal legate. The crusaders had many times endeavored to storm the city, but without success, and not seeing, as they had been taught to expect, a miracle wrought in their favor, the perfidious abbot, seeing some tokens of discouragement, resorted to a mean and dishonorable trick to get his adversary in his power. The Legate insinuated himself into the graces of one of the officers of his army, telling him that it lay in his power to render the church a signal instance of kindness, and that if he would undertake it, beside the rewards he should receive in heaven, he should be amply recompensed on earth. The object was to get access to the earl of Beziers, professing himself to be his kinsman and friend, assuring him that he had something to communicate of the last importance to his interests; and having thus far succeeded, he was to prevail upon him to accompany him to the Legate, for the purpose of negotiating a peace, under a pledge that he should be safely conducted back again to the city. The officer played his part so dexterously, that the Earl imprudently consented to accompany him. At their interview, the latter submitted to the Legate the propriety of exercising a little more lenity and moderation toward his subjects, as a procedure that might have the happiest tendency in reclaiming the Albigenses into the pale of the church of Rome. The Legate replied that the inhabitants of Carcassone might exercise their own pleasure; but that it was now unnecessary for the Earl to trouble himself any further about them, as he was himself a prisoner until Carcassone was taken, and his subjects had better learned their duty! The Earl was not a little astonished at this information; he protested that he was betrayed, and that faith was violated: for that the gentleman, by whose entreaties he had been prevailed upon to meet the Legate, had pledged

"Soixante mille habitans passèrent par le fil de l'epée. Velly, iii., 441 Il y fut tués plus de soixante milles personnes." Mezeray, ii., 609. Edgar, 226

Escape of the people of Carcassone from the popish butchers.

himself by oaths and execrations to conduct him back in safety to Carcassone. But appeals, remonstrances, or entreaties, were of no avail; Roger was looked upon as a heretic, and it was already the doctrine of Rome that no faith should be kept with heretics; in spite of his appeals, therefore, he was committed to the custody of the duke of Burgundy, "and, having been thrown into prison, died soon after, not without exciting strong suspicions of being poisoned." Pope Innocent III., indeed, admits in one of his epistles, that this young and brave earl or count of Beziers died a violent death.*

§ 73.-No sooner had the inhabitants of Carcassone received the intelligence of the Earl's confinement, than they burst into tears, and were seized with such terror, that they thought of nothing but how to escape the danger they were placed in; but, blockaded as they were on all sides, and the trenches filled with men, all human probability of escape vanished from their eyes. A report, however, was circulated, that there was a vault or subterraneous passage somewhere in the city, which led to the castle of Cabaret, a distance of about three leagues from Carcassone, and that if the mouth or entry thereof could be found, Providence had provided for them a way of escape. All the inhabitants of the city, except those who kept watch upon the ramparts, immediately commenced the search, and success rewarded their labor. The entrance of the cavern was found, and at the beginning of the night they all began their journey through it, carrying with them only as much food as was deemed necessary to serve them for a few days. "It was a dismal and sorrowful sight," says our historian, "to witness their removal and departure, accompanied with sighs, tears, and lamentations, at the thoughts of quitting their habitations and all their worldly possessions, and betaking themselves to the uncertain event of saving themselves by flight: parents leading their children, and the more robust supporting decrepit old persons; and especially to hear the affecting lamentations of the women." They, however, arrived the following day at the castle, from whence they dispersed themselves through different parts of the country, some proceeding to Arragon, some to Catalonia, others to Thoulouse, and the cities belonging to their party, wherever God in his providence opened a door for their admission.

The awful silence which reigned in the solitary city, excited no little surprise on the following day, among the pilgrims. At first they suspected a stratagem to draw them into an ambuscade; but on mounting the walls and entering the town, they cried out, "the Albigenses have fled!" The Legate issued a proclamation, that no person should seize or carry off any of the plunder-that it should all be carried to the great church of Carcassone, whence it was disposed of for the benefit of the pilgrims, and the proceeds distributed among them in rewards according to their deserts.

The limits of this work will not allow of the detail of the sangui

* Innocentii III. Epist., lib. x., 5 epist., 212.