himself, in the discharge of the seemingly incongruous duties of his new profession, one of the most talented soldiers of the age. The shrewd and politic Philip Augustus, while anxious to secure for the Crown of France the substantial benefits certain to result from the conquest and spoliation of the great feudatories of the South, yet unwilling to share the ignominy attaching to the undertaking, promoted it in secret, but refused to openly employ the resources of his kingdom in such a cause. The French nobility also, for the most part, held aloof; but the names of the Duke of Burgundy and the Counts of Nevers and St. Pol have come down to us as instruments of the apostolic wrath which extirpated the Albigensian heresy. Of all the leaders, spiritual or secular, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, was the most zealous and distinguished. An English adventurer, of ancient and illustrious lineage, he had long followed the exciting career of a soldier of fortune, and had won a high reputation for courage and military capacity among the Christian warriors who contended with the infidel in the wars of the Holy Land. In his political and social relations, De Montfort was a man of exceptional probity, courtesy, and honor; but in matters that involved the maintenance of ecclesiastical supremacy, he was a monster of savage brutality, a remorseless persecutor, an incarnate fiend. His bravery, his fanaticism, and his talents for war early secured for him the admiration of the clergy, whose influence eventually raised him to the supreme command of the motley host which their exhortations had assembled. The infamy of the Albigensian crusade is inseparably associated with his name, which has descended to posterity as the synonym of all that is merciless, base, and treacherous in the history of religious persecution. Attendant upon their feudal lords were long retinues of vassals, resplendent in sumptuous armor and gaudy liveries, and the sturdy yeomanry, now beginning to assert their importance in the mailed armies of Europe. The promise of booty and glory, of pardon for past offences and of immunity for future crimes, had, as in former Crusades, drawn from every quarter the dregs of the city and the camp, the footpad and the outlaw, the merciless slaves of rapine, lust, and superstition. This mob was for the most part unarmed, but many were provided with scythes and other implements of husbandry, impotent against the armor of the knight, but amply sufficient for the destruction of those whom age, infirmity, or the disadvantages of sex rendered incapable of defence. Confident in their immense superiority in numbers, this fanatical and disorderly rabble swept like a tornado over the smiling and fertile territory of the Rhone. The authority of the Count of Toulouse, who, incapacitated from hostile action by his humiliating compact with the Pope, was forced to aid the invaders, had been assumed by his nephew, Raymond Roger. The latter, relying