Many Catholics were fully persuaded that this pretended love of purity was merely a cloak to hide the grossest immorality. But while we may admit that many of "the Perfected" did actually violate their promise of absolute chastity, we must acknowledge that, as a general rule, they did resist temptation, and preferred death to what they considered impurity. Many who feared that they might give way in a moment of weakness to the temptations of a corrupt nature, sought relief in suicide, which was called the _endura_. There were two forms for the sick heretic, suffocation and fasting. The candidate for death was asked whether he desired to be a martyr or a confessor. If he chose to be a martyr, they placed a handkerchief or a pillow over his mouth, until he died of suffocation. If he preferred to be a confessor, he remained without food or drink, until he died of starvation. The Cathari believed that "the Believers," who asked for the _consolamentum_ during sickness, would not keep the laws of their new faith, if they happened to get well. Therefore, to safeguard them against apostasy, they were strongly urged to make their salvation certain by the _endura_. A manuscript of the Register of the Inquisition of Carcassonne, for instance, tells us of a Catharan minister who compelled a sick woman to undergo the _endura_, after he had conferred upon her the Holy Spirit. He forbade any one "to give her the least nourishment"... and as a matter of fact no food or drink was given her that night or the following day, lest perchance she might be deprived of the benefit of the _consolamentum_. One of "the Perfected," named Raymond Belhot, congratulated a mother whose daughter he had just "consoled," and ordered her not to give the sick girl anything to eat or drink until he returned, even though she requested it. "If she asks me for it," said the mother, "I will not have the heart to refuse her." "You must refuse her," said "the good man," "or else cause great injury to her soul." From that moment the girl neither ate nor drank; in fact she did not ask for any nourishment. She died the next Saturday. About the middle of the thirteenth century, when the Cathari began to give the consolamentum to infants, they were often cruel enough to make them undergo the _endura_. "One would think," says an historian of the time, "that the world had gone back to those hateful days when unnatural mothers sacrificed their children to Moloch." It sometimes happened that the parents of "the consoled" withstood more or less openly the cruelty of "the Perfected." When this happened, some of "the Perfected" remained in the house of the sick person, to see that their murderous prescriptions were obeyed to the letter. Or if this was impossible, they had "the consoled" taken to the house of some friend, where they could readily carry out their policy of starvation.