At this time Southern France was the garden of reform. Here the eloquence of Abelard, the patriotism of Arnold and the statesmanship of Frederick wielded a mighty influence. Like seeds falling into good ground, they brought forth much fruit. Already Arnold had been burned at the stake and his {68} ashes thrown on the waves of the Tiber. He has thus become the heritage, as it were, of every nation whose shores are washed by the tides of the sea. Seven centuries have rolled by since then, yet the memory of Arnold of Brescia is ever green; the principles for which he lived and died are now incorporated in every constitutional government on the globe. In no land were his principles more prevalent than in Southern France, and on it Innocent determined to vent his rage. In looking around for a suitable pretext that would rouse the masses and excite them to religious frenzy, he soon discovered the object for which he sought. It was Raymond, earl of Toulouse, who had so far turned Mahometan that he had no less than three wives in emulation of his Saracen neighbors beyond the Pyrenees. An investigation of the domestic life of Raymond, would have shown it to have been far more honorable than that of the popes, themselves. Raymond was therefore arrested on the charge of heresy, of harboring heretics and placing offices of trust in the hands of worthy Jews. His subjects were indignant, for Raymond, it would seem, was a wise and good ruler and much loved by his people. In the disputes that ensued the pope's ambassador was accidentally killed. Innocent considered this a sufficient reason for sending into the earl's dominion an army of nearly five hundred thousand men. There was no alternative for the earl but to submit. He surrendered up his strong places, and even acknowledged the justice of his punishment. He was publicly stripped naked to the waist, and, with a rope around his neck, led to the altar of the cathedral and there scourged. But the humiliation and scourging of the earl was not sufficient to satisfy the soldiery. They had come for blood and plunder, and blood and plunder they must have. Then followed such a scene of horror as tongue or pen cannot describe. The army was officered by Roman and French prelates. Bishops were its generals and an archdeacon its engineer. The pope's ambassador was the commander-in-chief, who, when asked by a subordinate officer at the battle of Beziers, how the Catholics might be distinguished from the misbelievers {69} and saved, replied: "Kill them all, God will know His own in the resurrection." In the church of St. Mary Magdalene, seven thousand persons were massacred. In the city twenty thousand more were slaughtered. The place was then fired and left as a monument of priestly vengeance. [Image: Dungeon of the Inquisition.]