From whatever source it came, the new and radical proposition was not easily accepted by the legates. Perhaps they feared ridicule, perhaps insults and bodily harm if they went about unprotected. At any rate they balked, suggested that they would follow if someone set the example, and ended by imitating Diego when he himself put in practice what he had just preached. With this decision begins the third and last stage of the preliminaries of the Crusade. The preaching apostolate was destined to be continued while the Crusade itself was going on, and was to grow into the great Dominican order. The idea of voluntary poverty in the service of others was to electrify Christendom and remain as a permanent force in the world. Promptly, the new plan of action once decided on, the legates, Diego, and Dominic, went at it vigorously. Arnaut, who had to return to Citeaux to preside at the approaching chapter general of his Order, departed thither on foot. Meanwhile de Castelnau and Raoul, with the two Spaniards and the other clergy attached to the legation, divided themselves by threes and fours and went here and there throughout the country. Barefoot, begging their bread and carrying with them only staff and breviary, they preached and debated publicly against the heretical “Perfect.” We hear of these formal “theological tournaments,” as it were, lasting a week at Servian near Beziers, for a fortnight at Beziers itself, at Carcassonne for eight days. Certainly there was no lack of energy. Unfortunately, the effort produced no commensurate result. Peter de Vaux-Cernay says that at Servian the people were so moved by the debate that they would have expelled the heretics had it not been for the opposition of the local lord, and that they escorted the missionaries in triumph along the road when they left the town. But at Beziers there was so much hostile feeling among the inhabitants that Diego and Raoul advised de Castelnau to flee for his life. Evidently it was not altogether without reason that the legates had hesitated to dismiss their armed guards. At Carcassonne we hear of a miracle but no conversions. In the neighbourhood Dominic vehemently reproved certain peasants, possibly Catharists, who were reaping on St. John’s Day. One of them, in reply, threatened the saint, when suddenly he and his companions found the sheaves which they held in their hands red, as with blood. At Verfeil, where St. Bernard had been jeered at sixty years before, the debate is said to have gone completely in favour of the Catholics, without impressing the people in any way. Clearly, although the new tactics had made a certain impression, especially upon the lower classes, there was to be no rapid progress.