In their march down the valley of the Rhône, with its glare and white dust, they were met at Valence by Raymond of Toulouse himself. Without hesitation, virtually on the morrow of his humiliating penance at St. Gilles, with the welts of the monkish lash unhealed on his back, this man, against whom the Crusade was principally directed, himself took the Cross and joined the army which had mustered to destroy him. Following out Innocent’s plan of “divide et impera” (divide and conquer) he was permitted to join the army, which continued on its march. Of course the Crusade was, officially, aimed at the heretics of the south, and Raymond, with all his shiftiness, was no heretic. Protestant historians have blamed the Churchmen in charge of the policy of the Crusade for duplicity in this matter. Of course, Raymond’s submission was accepted merely because it was temporarily convenient for them not to have him for an open enemy, although it was intended in the long run to ruin him altogether. Still I confess that I cannot see that severe condemnation is justified. He had played fast and loose too often. Where the army crossed the Rhône we are not told; possibly at Orange or Avignon, but more probably from Tarascon to Beaucaire, where the main Roman crossing had been. Once across the Rhône, it took up again the old road by Nismes into Spain which so many armies had followed since Hannibal. At Montpellier, Raymond Roger Trencavel, Viscount of Beziers and Carcassonne, and nephew to Raymond of Toulouse, came to meet the chiefs of the Crusade, as his uncle had already come to them at Valence, to make his peace. He was refused a hearing. It was necessary that the great army should not disband without striking terror into the heretical south and giving some, at least, of its feudal lordships into the hands of proved and zealous Catholics. Otherwise the effort involved in organizing the expedition would have been wasted. Accordingly, for Raymond Roger to plead his own personal orthodoxy and claim that only irresponsible subordinates had favoured heresy, was not to the point. The “Chanson” says that Raymond of Toulouse, with his usual shortsighted cunning, suggested an attack on his nephew, with whom he had recently quarrelled. It would have been so like the wretched Count of Toulouse to have done so, that we may accept the story. Raymond Roger hurried back from Montpellier to his own lands. Why the Crusaders, after once having had him in their power, let him go in peace to organize resistance against them is not clear. Perhaps he had come in under some sort of guarantee like the modern flag of truce, and was therefore protected by the highly developed military courtesy of the day, which had grown up around the idea of knighthood.