The absence of the inquisitors from Toulouse made no difference in the good work, for their duties were assumed by their prior, Pons de Saint-Gilles. Under what authority he acted is not stated, but we find him, in conjunction with another friar, trying and condemning a certain Arnaud Sancier, who was burned, in spite of his protests to the last that he was a good Catholic, causing great agitation in the city, but no tumultuous uprising.[13] The terror which Pelisson boasts that these proceedings spread through the land was probably owing not only to the evidence they afforded of an organized system of persecution, but also to their introduction of a much more effective method of prosecution than had heretofore been known. The “heretic,” so called, was the perfected teacher who disdained to deny his faith, and his burning was accepted by all as a matter of course, as also was that of the “credens,” or believer, who was defiantly contumacious and persisted in admitting and adhering to his creed. Hitherto, however, the believer who professed orthodoxy seems generally to have escaped, in the imperfection of the judicial means of proving his guilt. The friars, trained in the subtleties of disputation and learned in both civil and canon law, were specially fitted for the detection of this particularly dangerous secret misbelief, and their persistence in worrying their victims to the death was well calculated to spread alarm, not only among the guilty, but among the innocent. How reasonable were the fears inspired by the speedy informality of the justice accorded to the heretic is well illustrated by a case occurring in 1234. When the canonization of St. Dominic was announced in Toulouse it was celebrated in a solemn mass performed by Bishop Raymond in the Dominican convent. St. Dominic, however, desired to mark the occasion with some more edifying manifestation of his peculiar functions, and caused word to be brought to the bishop, as the latter was leaving the church for the refectory to partake of a meal, that a woman had just been hereticated in a house hard by, in the Rue de l’Olmet sec. The bishop, with the prior and some others, hurried thither. It was the house of Peitavin Borsier, the general messenger of the heretics of Toulouse, whose mother-in-law lay dying of fever. So sudden was the entrance of the intruders that the woman’s friends could only tell her “the bishop is coming,” and she, who expected a visit from the heretic bishop, was easily led on by Raymond to make a full declaration of her heresy and to pledge herself to be steadfast in it. Then, revealing himself, he ordered her to recant, and, on her refusal, he summoned the viguier, condemned her as a heretic, and had the satisfaction of seeing the dying creature carried off on her bed and burned at the place of execution. Borsier and his colleague, Bernard Aldric of Drémil, were captured, and betrayed many of their friends; and then Raymond and the