On June 18, 1209, the humiliating ceremony of his public penance took place at St. Gilles, on its bluff over the Rhône delta. The town was the seat of Raymond’s remote ancestors, from which they had gradually extended their power through four centuries. Its great romanesque church had been built by his grandfather. A great throng filled the square before the church, crowding, no doubt, upon the broad flight of steps that rises to the façade with its wealth of sculpture and its three round-arched bays. Before the central door, the excommunicate Count swore upon relics of Christ, and of various saints, to obey the Pope and the legates in everything. Milo then put his stole about the penitent’s neck, and using it like a halter, drew him along, naked to the waist, and stooping forward so that he might the better be beaten with rods as he walked the whole length of the church. Before the high altar he was absolved. Then came a hitch in the proceedings. It had been planned that he should leave the church by the door through which he had come, but the crowd had packed the whole place so densely that their humiliated lord with his shoulders all bloody had to be gotten out by way of the crypt; past the tomb of de Castelnau which stood there—an unexpected change of plan which added still another touch of drama to the vivid scene. Readers of English history will be reminded of the similar penance of Henry II for the murder of Becket. Two differences, however, should be noted. De Castelnau (unlike Thomas of Canterbury) was never canonized, and Raymond’s penance (unlike Henry’s) did not improve his political position in the least. Within six days, before his lacerated shoulders had ceased to smart, the crusading army marched south from its mobilization point at Lyons. Raymond was to learn that, like Ulysses in the Cyclops’ cave, he had obtained only the privilege of being eaten last.