In Languedoc the way for the Inquisition had been well prepared by the Albigensian Crusade: yet even so it was far from smooth. The zealous proceedings of Guillem Arnaud and his assistants provoked the bitterest popular resistance.[333] An assistant, Ferrer, was expelled from Narbonne; Arnaud himself from Toulouse. But his unconquerable spirit, assisted by Gregory IX’s support, triumphed over popular hatred. Particularly in 1241 and 1242 the inquisitors were exceedingly active, so much so that in desperation certain Cathari set upon Arnaud and several others and did them to death. Not by such means could the Inquisition be worsted. The Count of Toulouse, who had been planning to reassert his independence, was forced to become completely reconciled to the papacy, and as an outward and visible sign of submission to take up arms against his own subjects by besieging the last fortress of Catharism in the land, the fortress of Montségur. The fall of Montségur and the holocaust of heretics which followed it, together with improved organization, enabled the Inquisition to make better headway. A new difficulty, however, arose in 1290 in the shape of strong protests against the alleged cruelties and injustices of two inquisitors, Nicholas d’Abbeville and Fulk de Saint-Georges. The complaint that Nicholas had condemned the innocent and wrung false confessions by cruelty was laid before Philip IV. There was particularly strong feeling aroused by the posthumous proceedings taken against a noted citizen of Carcassonne, a great friend of the Franciscans, named Fabri, who was accused of having been hereticated on his death-bed. The defence of Fabri’s memory was undertaken by a remarkable man, a Franciscan, named Bernard Délicieux. The inquisitors represented Délicieux as a deliberate adversary of their tribunal; but when in 1301 Philip sent two representatives into Languedoc to inquire into the causes of trouble, they called to their assistance the resolute Franciscan, who suggested the suspension of the inquisitors pending investigation. The case was argued out before the King, who came to the conclusion that the complaint had been justified, that the inquisitors had been guilty of grave excesses, of lawless exactions and the manipulation of evidence, and took the unprecedented step of removing both Nicholas d’Abbeville and Fulk de Saint-Georges. At the same time he deprived the inquisitors of the right to make arbitrary arrests. Philip’s attitude towards the activities of the tribunal in Languedoc was not based upon principle, but was dependent upon the varying circumstances of his quarrel with Boniface VIII. Thus when, as at this time, French king and pontiff were quarrelling, it was demonstrated that the Inquisition in France existed only on sufferance and that its peculiar privileges, derived from the papacy, automatically ceased during such disagreement. On the other hand, in 1304, when a reconciliation between the combatants had been effected,