In vain Count Raymond, the sovereign of the unfortunate Albigeois, endeavoured to defend them; he was crushed beneath the same anathema, and was obliged to fly before De Montfort. Subdued, a wanderer, and a proscribed heretic, the count was reduced to the most deplorable condition, and abandoned Toulouse to the conqueror. The Toulousians gave up their city very unwillingly. Suffering under the odious yoke, they recalled their ancient master. Montfort, informed of this revolution, hastened to the scene of action, came to the walls, and endeavoured to enter by the Nalbonnais Castle. But he there found intrepid warriors and impregnable fortifications. Finding his first attack, from which he had expected much, fail, he commenced the siege in form; he fought several bloody battles, made many terrible assaults, and spared neither fatigue nor stratagem for more than four months. But he made himself master of the place by means of a horrible piece of treachery, devised and executed by Bishop Foulquet. The latter proposed to all the inhabitants, in the name of the God of peace, to go forth and meet De Montfort, for the purpose of coming to terms. That atrocious commander received them at the head of his knights, and made prisoners of most of them. The war, however, continued with various success, and Toulouse was again in the hands of the inhabitants. Whilst besieging it, this scourge was removed by a death he merited. An enormous stone, cast from a mangonel, and aimed by a woman, struck him senseless to the earth. He was borne to his tent, and expired almost immediately. Thus, like Pyrrhus, perished the ever infamous Simon de Montfort, by an ignoble missile, launched by a woman. Count Raymond, who was very aged, shortly after died, _and the priests refused his body sepulture_: his coffin remained for many years outside the door of a church. His toleration was his principal crime in the eyes of his clerical persecutors; a great part of his misfortunes may be attributed to the weakness of his character, but far more to the attractions held out to unscrupulous adventurers by his wealth. When we come to the siege of Béziers, we shall again have to turn to this horrible page of history. SINOPE. A.C. 71. There is very little to relate of this siege; but the interest it has acquired by a recent melancholy event, and the contrast between Lucullus and the emperor of Russia, entitle it to a notice.