Brave, impetuous, sensual, vacillating, and insincere, such was Raymond VI., Count of Toulouse, the representative of the most polished and dissolute state in Europe. The political organization of the various cities and provinces composing the County of Toulouse presented a strange anomaly. Some were, in all but name, republican; their magistrates, under the title of consuls, administered the affairs of government, and were elected by the public voice of the people. The civil regulations of others partook rather of the nature of feudal tenures in which the most oppressive privileges had been relaxed or entirely discharged. But neither the feeble copy of the institutions of ancient Rome nor the barbarous laws of mediæval tyranny were sufficient to compel the obedience of such a heterogeneous population. The authority of the elective magistracy was frequently defied. The fealty of the great vassals was but nominal. The jurisdiction of the suzerain was, under various, and sometimes under frivolous, pretexts, questioned or ignored. There was no organized military power to enforce the mandates of the ruling authority. Enervated by pleasure, the people of Languedoc and Provence passed their existence in a constant round of intellectual diversions and refined sensuality. The martial sports of the chase and the tourney did little but recall the profession of arms, once the only occupation worthy of the dignity of the mediæval cavalier. Thus, broken up into semi-independent communities, destitute of military resources, and incapable of systematic defence or united action, the power of the Count of Toulouse was ready to crumble at the approach of the first resolute aggressor. The civilization represented by that power lacked the indispensable essentials of every permanent government,--loyalty and religion. Want of centralization, and a multiplicity of rulers, weakened the patriotic attachment of the people, and discouraged the growth of an enlightened and healthy public sentiment. National pride could not exist when there was no royal personage to whom all could appeal, no common country to exalt and defend. In addition to these serious impediments to durability and progress was added an absolute want of religious feeling. Numerous causes had combined to produce this condition. Comparisons of many forms of faith had exposed their defects and inconsistencies, and led to a general rejection of them all. The Crusaders had familiarized all Europe, and especially France, with the manners and religion of the Mussulmans. Hundreds of enterprising merchants had assumed the cross, much less for the piety it was presumed to indicate and the sacred privileges it conferred, than for the worldly advantages to be procured by traffic with distant, and otherwise inaccessible, regions. Their glowing reports of Oriental civilization had dissipated the remaining prejudices of a people whose intercourse with the Moslem