The condition of the people of Languedoc and the surrounding country, from this time, began rapidly to decline. Placed between two great powers whose rivalry resulted in frequent acts of hostility, the inhabitants attached themselves first to the cause of one and then to that of another, according to circumstances, and were by each alternately protected and deserted, betrayed and sold. From the time of the twelfth century, the people of the south enjoyed no tranquillity, except when the kings of France and England were at war. "We rejoice," said the troubadours in their songs, "when peace is broken between the Easterlings and Tornes," under which names they described the French and English. They possessed an early civilisation; but they appear to have been too much devoted to the pursuits of pleasure and the dreams of romance to be fitted for self-government. In addition to the disturbances which they suffered from without, they were engaged in perpetual quarrels amongst themselves. They were fond of war, but rather for the excitements it afforded than for the purposes of ambition. They loved the pomp and splendour of the tented field--the armour flashing in the sun--the turmoil and the struggle, the honour and reward. At a word from a fair lady, they were ready to fly off to Palestine, to engage in a quarrel about which they cared little, or were equally willing to risk their lives in hazardous and foolhardy achievements at home. They were a people in whom the gifts of imagination, and a taste for the beautiful in art and nature, were not restrained by prudence. Actuated by no spirit of union or foresight, they were content to bask carelessly in the passing sunshine, regardless of the future. The peace between Henry and the King of France lasted only one month. The queen, Constance, died without leaving a son, and Louis, anxious to obtain an inheritor of his throne, contracted a union within three weeks afterwards with Adelais, niece of King Stephen and sister of the Count of Blois. By this alliance with his enemies, Henry perceived that his own connection with the French king was endangered, and having secretly obtained the authority of the Pope, he caused the marriage of his son Henry, who was seven years old, and the daughter of Louis, to be immediately solemnised. Henry, then, according to the terms of the treaty, obtained the dowry of the princess from the knights Templars, who were not prepared to resist at once the authority of the Pope and the power of the English king. Louis immediately declared war, and banished the Templars from his kingdom. Henry contented himself with defending his territories from the attacks made upon them until peace was once more concluded, through the intervention of the Pope.