The Pope, long aware of the insults offered to his dignity and of the evils which threatened the faith of Rome, had frequently condemned in unmeasured terms the conditions which imperilled the existence of all religion in the South of France. Ecclesiastical fulminations, however, possessed no terrors for the blithe and careless inhabitants of Provence and Languedoc. The Papal bulls only furnished another amusing theme for the sarcasm of the poet. Interdicts, elsewhere so potent, in that land, alone of all those subject to Christian authority, were treated with derision. The pretensions of the legate of the Apostolic See were ridiculed in his very presence, and even the Holy Father himself was not able to escape the raillery and censure of those whom experience had made acquainted with the shocking venality and license of the Roman court. Every vestige of moral influence upon which rested public consideration for the clergy had disappeared. The churches were all but deserted. Latin, the language of the altar, had been discarded for the Langue d’Oc, the idiom of the skeptical and the dissolute. In many parishes bells had ceased to announce the hour of worship, for no one heeded them. The priest, intent on his pleasures, was only too ready to abandon the duties enjoined by his calling, especially when there were few to listen and still fewer to contribute. The revenues of the Church, greatly diminished, were diverted into channels entirely foreign to the purpose for which they had nominally been collected. Some were appropriated by the nobles, whose vassals had been presented to livings. Vast sums were squandered by licentious prelates in vices whose enormity appalled every sincere Christian. The greatest profits which enured to the benefit of the clergy were derived from the uncanonical and prohibited practices of simony and usury. No effort was made to conceal the existence of these abuses, and the ecclesiastical residence was generally recognized as the head-quarters of brokerage in bills and benefices.