Cévennes Mountains (France); France -- Description and travel
Adhelmar (1087-98), who died at Antioch as a Crusader, was succeeded
by Ponce de Tournon, who was an assassin. Bertrand de Chalençon's
hands were also stained by blood; he exasperated his flock to madness
by his exactions, heavily fining widows who remarried, and levying
exorbitant fees on burials. When Innocent III. proclaimed a holy war
against the Albigenses, and promised pardon for all sins to such as
should outrage, rob, and murder these heretics, Bertrand headed an army
of Crusaders, composed of the riff-raff of Velay, Auvergne, and the
Gévaudan, and marched south. The citizens of one town at his approach,
terrified at the prospect presented to them, fired their city and fled
to the dens and caves of the earth. They were premature. Bertrand was
more greedy of gold than of blood, and he made the towns as he passed
buy exemption from destruction, and pocketed the money himself, to
the rage and resentment of his followers. But they had full scope for
their brutal instincts at Béziers on June 22nd, 1209, when, at the
most moderate calculation, 20,000 persons, men, women, and children,
indiscriminately Catholics and heretics, were butchered, and the papal
legate looking on, is reported to have said, smiling, "Kill all; God
will know His own!"
Bernard de Montaigu (1237-48), to enforce recognition of his
seigneurial rights, subjected the city to an interdict, and
excommunicated the flock he was set to feed.
William de la Roue (1263-82) had appointed De Rochebaron as his
bailiff. This man fell in love with the beautiful wife of a butcher
in the town, lured her within the precincts of the ecclesiastical
fortifications, and outraged her. The guild of the butchers complained
to the prelate, who scoffed at the deputation, and refused to reprimand
his bailiff. The city was in commotion. When a party of the prelate's
men-at-arms returned from an expedition, after harrying the peasantry
in the country, and were laden with the spoils, the people rose. The
tocsin sounded. The butchers came down with their cleavers. There
was fighting in the streets. The troopers were despoiled of their
plunder, and were obliged to take refuge within the walls of the
bishop's fortress. William de la Roue was furious. He sent down the
obnoxious bailiff with all the force he could muster to chastise the
citizens. But they were surrounded by the enraged populace, and driven
to take refuge in the Franciscan convent. The butchers with their
choppers hewed down the door and slew the provost and six sergeants. De
Rochebaron fled up the tower. The butchers pursued, caught him hiding
among the bells, flung him down, and his mangled body was hewn to
pieces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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