of the heretics and the political dethronement of the princes who were their accomplices or protectors; but the application of the principles slipped out of his own hands. Three local councils assembled in 1210, 1212, and 1213, at St. Gilles, at Arles, and at Lavaur, and presided over by the pope’s legates, proclaimed the excommunication of Raymond VI., and the cession of his dominions to Simon de Montfort, who took possession of them for himself and his comrades. Nor were the pope’s legates without their share in the conquest; Arnauld Amaury, Abbot of Citeaux, became Archbishop of Narbonne; and Abbot Foulques of Marseilles, celebrated in his youth as a gallant troubadour, was Bishop of Toulouse and the most ardent of the crusaders. When these conquerors heard that the pope had given a kind reception to Raymond VI. and his young son, and lent a favorable ear to their complaints, they sent haughty warnings to Innocent III., giving him to understand that the work was all over, and that, if he meddled, Simon de Montfort and his warriors might probably not bow to his decisions. Don Pedro II., king of Aragon, had strongly supported before Innocent III. the claims of the Count of Toulouse and of the southern princes his allies. “He cajoled the lord pope,” says the prejudiced chronicler of these events, the monk Peter of Vaulx-Cernay, “so far as to persuade him that the cause of the faith was achieved against the heretics, they being put to distant flight and completely driven from the Albigensian country, and that accordingly it was necessary for him to revoke altogether the indulgence be had granted to the crusaders. … The sovereign pontiff, too credulously listening to the perfidious suggestions of the said king, readily assented to his demands, and wrote to the Count of Montfort, with orders and commands to restore without delay to the Counts of Comminges and of Foix, and to Gaston of Beam, very wicked and abandoned people, the lands which, by just judgment of God and by the aid of the crusaders, he at last had conquered.” But, in spite of his desire to do justice, Innocent III., studying policy rather than moderation, did not care to enter upon a struggle against the agents, ecclesiastical and laic, whom he had let loose upon Southern France. In November, 1215, the fourth Lateran council met at Rome; and the Count of Toulouse, his son, and the Count of Foix brought their claims before it. “It is quite true,” says Peter of Vaulx-Cernay, “that they found there—and, what is worse, amongst the prelates—certain folk who opposed the cause of the faith, and labored for the restoration of the said counts; but the counsel of Ahitophel did not prevail, for the lord pope, in agreement with the greater and saner part of the council, decreed that the city of Toulouse and other territories conquered by the crusaders should be ceded to the Count of Montfort, who, more than any other, had borne himself right valiantly and loyally in the holy enterprise; and, as for the domains which Count Raymond possessed in Provence, the sovereign pontiff decided that they should be reserved to him, in order to make provision, either with part or even the whole, for the son of this count, provided always that, by sure signs of fealty and good behavior, he should show himself worthy of compassion.”
This last inclination towards compassion on the part of the pope in favor of the young Count Raymond, “provided he showed himself worthy of it,” remained as fruitless as the remonstrances addressed to his legates; for on the 17th of July, 1216, seven months after the Lateran council, Innocent III. died, leaving Simon de Montfort and his comrades in possession of all they had taken, and the war still raging between the native princes of Southern France and the foreign conquerors. The primitive, religious character of the crusade wore off more and more; worldly ambition and the spirit of conquest became more and more predominant; and the question lay far less between catholics and heretics than between the old and new masters of the country, between the independence of the southern people and the triumph of warriors come from the north of France, that is to say, between two different races, civilizations, and languages. Raymond VI. and his son recovered thenceforth certain supports and opportunities of which hitherto the accusation of heresy and the judgments of the court of Rome had robbed them; their neighboring allies and their secret or intimidated partisans took fresh courage; the fortune of battle became shifty; successes and reverses were shared by both sides; and not only many small places and castles, but the largest towns, Toulouse amongst others, fell into the hands of each party alternately. Innocent III.‘s successor in the Holy See, Pope Honorius III., though at first very pronounced in his opposition to the Albigensians, had less ability, less perseverance, and less influence than his predecessor. Finally, on the 20th of June, 1218, Simon de Montfort, who had been for nine months unsuccessfully besieging Toulouse, which had again come into the possession of Raymond VI., was killed by a shower of stones, under the walls of the place, and left to his son Amaury the inheritance of his war and his conquests, but not of his vigorous genius and his warlike renown.
The struggle still dragged on for five years with varied fortune on each side, but Amaury de Montfort was losing ground every day, and Raymond VI., when he died in August, 1222, had recovered the greater part of his dominions. His son, Raymond VII., continued the war for eighteen months longer, with enough of popular favor and of success to make his enemies despair of recovering their advantages; and, on the 14th of January, 1224, Amaury de Montfort, after having concluded with the Counts of Toulouse and Foix a treaty which seemed to have only a provisional character, “went forth,” says the History of Languedoc, “with all the French from Carcassonne, and left forever the country which his house had possessed for nearly fourteen years.” Scarcely had he arrived at the court of Louis VIII., who had just succeeded his father, Philip Augustus, when he ceded to the King of France his rights over the domains which the crusaders had conquered by a deed conceived in these terms: “Know that we give up to our Lord Louis, the illustrious King of the French, and to his heirs forever, to dispose of according to their pleasure, all the privileges and gifts that the Roman Church did grant unto our father Simon of pious memory, in respect of the countship of Toulouse and other districts in Albigeois; supposing that the pope do accomplish all the demands made to him by the king through the Archbishop of Bourges, and the Bishops of Langres and Chartres; else, be it known for certain that we cede not to any one aught of all these domains.”
Whilst this cruel war lasted Philip Augustus would not take any part in it. Not that he had any leaning towards the Albigensian heretics on the score of creed or religious liberty; but his sense of justice and moderation was shocked at the violence employed against them, and he had a repugnance to the idea of taking part in the devastation of the beautiful southern provinces. He took it ill, moreover, that the pope should arrogate to himself the right of despoiling of their dominions, on the ground of heresy, princes who were vassals of the King of France; and, without offering any formal opposition, he had no mind to give his assent thereto. When Innocent III. called upon him to co-operate in the crusade, Philip answered, “that he had at his flanks two huge and terrible lions, the Emperor Otho, and King John of England, who were working with all their might to bring trouble upon the kingdom of France; that, consequently, he had no inclination at all to leave France, or even to send his son; but it seemed to him enough, for the present, if he allowed his barons to march against the disturbers of peace and of the faith in the province of Narbonne.” In 1213, when Simon de Montfort had gained the battle of Muret, Philip allowed Prince Louis to go and look on when possession was taken of Toulouse by the crusaders; but when Louis came back and reported to his father, “in the presence of the princes and barons who were, for the most part, relatives and allies of Count Raymond, the great havoc committed by Count Simon in the city after surrender, the king withdrew to his apartments without any ado beyond saying to those present, ‘Sirs, I have yet hope that before very long Count de Montfort and his brother Guy will die at their work, for God is just, and will suffer these counts to perish thereat, because their quarrel is unjust.’ ” Nevertheless, at a little later period, when the crusade was at its greatest heat, Philip, on the pope’s repeated entreaty, authorized his son to take part in it with such lords as might be willing to accompany him; but he ordered that the expedition should not start before the spring, and, on the occurrence of some fresh incident, he had it further put off until the following year. He received visits from Count Raymond VI., and openly testified good will towards him. When Simon de Montfort was decisively victorious, and in possession of the places wrested from Raymond, Philip Augustus recognized accomplished facts, and received the new Count of Toulouse as his vassal; but when, after the death of Simon de Montfort and Innocent III., the
