enemy had been seen during the day, but now, in full view of the enemy so that their own numbers could be closely estimated, the Crusaders crossed the bridge over the Garonne and entered the place unopposed. The lack of opposition surprised de Montfort, Antony says. Under mediæval conditions, Muret was naturally strong. The general shape of the town is a right triangle with a short base. The Garonne flows north-east along the perpendicular of the triangle; the winding Louge flows in a general direction east along the hypotenuse and falls into the Garonne at the apex of the triangle where the castle then stood. Adjoining the castle was the old town or “bourg.” The new town or “ville” occupied the space between the “bourg” and the base of the triangle. The road from Toulouse crossed the Louge on a bridge and entered the “ville” by the Toulouse Gate which was pierced in the wall of the northern hypotenuse side near the north-west corner. The Sales Gate opened through the wall of the base near the right angle. On the eastern side, a roadway ran along the Garonne bank under the wall from the south corner of the town past the bridge over the Garonne to the bridge of St. Sernin, which crossed the mouth of the Louge under the walls of the castle, at the apex of the triangle. At the right angle, i.e., the south corner of the town, an outwork or chatelet protected the Sales Gate and the entrance leading to the road along the Garonne bank. The defences of the castle were strong, those of the “bourg” less so, and those of the “ville” were weak. The Garonne at Muret is unfordable, about a hundred and fifty yards wide, and flows rapidly between steep banks averaging over thirty feet high and nearly forty feet just below the mouth of the Louge. The Louge is a good sized brook between fifteen and twenty-five feet across; fordable in all seasons, except just at its mouth, but a first-class military obstacle because of the height and steepness of its banks, nearly forty feet, as we have seen, at its mouth, and over fifteen just above the town. Half a mile up, its banks are low and gentle and it is no obstacle at all. From a point about three-quarters of a mile west of the town a low ridge runs a little east of north. This ridge (called near the town “the Hill of Perramon”) is not over fifty feet high and of a very easy slope. Between it and the Garonne the ground is quite flat. About a mile north of the town lies a slight marshy depression called in the local dialect “Les Pesquies,” i.e., the fish-pond or fishery, and from this patch of swamp a tiny rivulet runs east to the Garonne, between banks all of ten feet high and fully thirty degrees in slope at the top—an obstacle impossible for charging cavalry.