For a long time the holy see seemed not alive to the importance of this sect. It was Pope Innocent III who first perceived its dangerous tendency, and who took certain steps for its destruction. He issued interdicts against such princes as should favour them, and offered the spoil of the heretic to whoever should subdue and slay him. The principal lord of the south of France was at that time Raymond VI, count of Toulouse; and he at least tolerated the Albigenses, as those primitive reformers were called, aware of their moral purity and sincere devotion. Peter of Castelnau, the pope’s legate, reproached the count of Toulouse with his want of zeal, and was indignant at his forbearance to extirpate the new opinions by fire and sword. The legate used no measured language; he not only excommunicated Raymond, but insulted him in his court, and then took his departure. The count of Toulouse expressed his indignant feelings before his followers as Henry II did after the insolence of Thomas à Becket, and with the same fatal effect. On the day after, Peter of Castelnau fell under the dagger of a gentleman of the count, in a hostelry on the Rhone, where he had stopped. [Illustration: AN OFFICER OF THE KING’S HOUSEHOLD, THIRTEENTH CENTURY] Pope Innocent was driven to transports of rage on learning the assassination of his legate. He not only excommunicated the count of Toulouse, but promulgated a crusade against him. He called on all the nobles of France, on its princes, and its prelates, to join in the “holy” war, to assume the cross, as being engaged against infidels. And the same privileges and indulgences were granted to the crusader of this civil war, that previously were bestowed on those who embarked fortune and life in the perilous attempt to rescue the Holy Land from the Saracen. Spoil, wealth, and honour in this world, together with certain salvation in the next, were now offered at too cheap a rate to be refused. Crowds of adventurers flocked to the standard; and a formidable army was assembled at Lyons in the spring of 1209, under the command of the legate commander, Amalric, abbot of Cîteaux. The pope at the same time created a new ecclesiastical militia for the destruction of heresy. The order of St. Dominic, or of the friars inquisitors, was instituted; and these infernal missionaries were let loose in couples upon the hapless Languedoc, like bloodhounds, to scent their prey and then devour it. [Sidenote: [1209-1217 A.D.]]