Geographically, his position was strong. Of the two centres of his power, Beziers and Carcassonne, Beziers preserved his communication with the east, and, when war broke out, would help to cut off Toulouse from the Rhône valley. Carcassonne was the capital strategic point of the whole theatre of war, commanding as it did the main Narbonne-Toulouse road from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. All considerable west-bound traffic headed for Toulouse coming from as far north as Belfort or Dijon would naturally pass under the walls of Carcassonne. To do otherwise meant either a vast circuit by Limoges or a struggle with the mountains of Auvergne. Similarly, the main route to Toulouse from the south was, and is, around the Mediterranean end of the Pyrenees, north to Narbonne and west by Carcassonne. A man starting from as far west as Saragossa, or in winter from far to the west of that point, would normally travel thus. An alternative route existed by way of the Cerdagne: once over that pass a road led north-east to Perpignan, and north-west by the Puymorens to Foix and Pamiers. Its grades were steep, but traffic could use it well enough at most seasons of the year. De Montfort’s garrison at Pamiers, one of the strongholds occupied during the panic caused by the great crusading army, threatened the Cerdagne route. Should he gain Foix, he could close it almost altogether. From Albi, the fourth of his main strongholds, he could threaten Toulouse from the north-east, and, perhaps, operate in the Agen and the Cahors districts. Nevertheless, as he considered his position, he had military and political difficulties enough to appal a weaker man. His military resources were small. The crusading army had scattered to their homes, leaving him with a mere remnant of about four thousand five-hundred effectives, mostly Burgundians and Germans. The crusading leaders had sworn to come and help him at need, but none knew better than he how slight was the chance of their willingness or even of their power to do so. Indeed, one is forced to believe that so hard-headed a zealot asked for the promise more to keep their goodwill by emphasizing his humility and comparative weakness than for any other reason. He could count only upon such crusaders as might chance to come from time to time for a forty days’ tour of duty, and, permanently, upon those whom he was able to pay or to attach to himself by gifts of lands and castles. Moreover, he knew that many of his new southern vassals were bitterly hostile to him, and he himself had alienated moderate opinion by sailing very close to the wind of dishonour in accepting this new viscounty, won by massacre, and made vacant for him (as many believed and whispered) by poison.