The beginnings of the attempt to extirpate heresy north of the Loire are associated with the hated name of Robert le Bugre who, armed with a somewhat vague authority from Gregory IX, is found active from the year 1233 in La Charité, Péronne, Cambrai, Douai, Lille, his aim—it has been said—‘not to convert but to burn.’[338] He aroused the jealousy of the bishops, who informed the Pope that heresy was non-existent in their provinces. The results of Robert’s enthusiastic labours convinced Gregory that the episcopal assurances had been misleading, that heresy was in reality rampant, so that he entrusted his delegate with a special commission and ordered the bishops to support him. Thus fully recognized, the inquisitor traversed Flanders, Champagne, Burgundy in a passion of religious energy, finding many victims and producing widespread consternation. But his career was a short one: found guilty of numerous excesses, he was deprived of his commission and relegated to prison. After this we do not hear of holocausts. There was, in reality, little heresy in northern France, and the Dominicans, to whom the scouring of heretics in the country was entrusted, had not a great deal to do. Their labours, however, received the whole-hearted support of Louis IX, who liberally supplied them with money; their tribunal was well organized, the officers vigilant. The first _auto-da-fé_ recorded to have taken place in Paris occurred in May, 1310, when a woman called Marguerite la Porète was the principal victim. She had written a book, the thesis of which was that the sanctified soul could without sin satisfy all the cravings of the flesh. Her followers would appear to have been the chief prey of French inquisitors in the latter part of the century. There are illustrations during this period of the efficacy of the Inquisition even against powerful personages, most notably perhaps Hugh Aubryot, _prévôt_ of Paris[339] and builder of the Bastille, who, incurring the animosity of the University of Paris, found himself brought up on a flimsy charge and condemned to perpetual imprisonment; but in France the Inquisition did not rest on very secure foundations. It might be useful when heresy was rife and the proceedings of inquisitorial confiscations brought money into the royal exchequer; but success in coping with heresy, that is to say efficiency on the part of the tribunal, rendered it no longer an object of solicitude to the crown.[340]