Having obtained from the “consuls” of Toulouse a promise, however hollow, of obedient persecution, the legates turned their attention to Count Raymond. They invited the Archbishop of Narbonne, the Primate of Languedoc, to join with them in demanding from the Count not only banishment of heretics and confiscation of their goods but also the dismissal of the mercenary troops who, as we have seen, were near-brigands on active service and brigands pure and simple at all other times. The Archbishop refused. Accustomed throughout a long life full of ease and riches to see heresy all about him, he had probably long forgotten to be shocked at it. As to the “brigands,” he probably made allowances, as the legates did not, for the fact that mercenaries were the only troops possible to an overlord like the Count of Toulouse whose feudal vassals were almost certain to be either unwarlike or disobedient—if not both at once. Knowing his man and Languedoc in general as he did, he must have thought it useless and silly for the legates even to make the attempt. Very likely he was alarmed at such activity shown by papal legates in his territory and afraid lest his own position might be threatened and his own sloth and unworthiness be thrown in his teeth or denounced to the Pope by this meddlesome pair of Cistercians from his own province, who might better have stayed at home in their abbey. He refused to go with them and would hardly even lend them a horse for their trip. The bishop of Beziers, who had been asked to be of the party, also refused, so the legates proceeded alone. As for Raymond, we have already seen him readier to promise than to perform in the case of the monks of St. Gilles. Now he would not even promise. Even de Castelnau despaired. He wrote to the Pope telling of his failure, and asking to be relieved from duty as legate in order to return to his abbey. Innocent held him to his work, reminding him that heaven would reward him not according to his success, but according to his labours. However, it was probably de Castelnau’s letter which persuaded the Pope to broaden the scope of the mission. He now took the radical step of depriving the Languedocian bishops of jurisdiction in cases of heresy and conferred it on his legates. On top of this, he went even further and empowered the legates to remove any of the clergy from their benefices should they seem unworthy to hold them, and denied to the condemned the right of appeal to Rome and of delay in executing the sentence. From the standpoint of the canon law this was revolutionary; the grant of these wide powers to the legates marks the second stage in the preliminaries of the Crusade. Gradually, the seriousness of the situation was being understood in Rome. Only the clear belief that the higher clergy of Languedoc must be drastically purged of evil-livers, and of those who were slothful and lukewarm in prosecuting heresy, before anything else could be accomplished would justify such measures.