Innocent, incensed to fury by the murder of Castelnau, seized the occasion to prosecute the designs of his cruel bigotry, and summoned the counts, barons, and knights of the four provinces of the southern parts of France, to invade the territories of Count Raymond, authorising them to seize the property of the heretics. As the same indulgences were promised to those engaging in this war, as had been assured to the crusaders against the Saracens in the Holy Land, an army of _fifty thousand_ cross-bearers was soon assembled, and placed for service, during the period of forty days, under the direction of Arnald Almeric, abbot of Citeaux. The Pope gave directions regarding this crusade:--“We counsel you, with the apostle Paul, to employ guile with regard to the count; for in this case it ought to be called prudence. We must attack separately, those who are separated from unity. Leave, for a time, the count of Thoulouse, employing towards him a wise dissimulation, that the other heretics may the more easily be defeated, and that afterwards we may crush him, when he shall be left alone.” Raymond and his nephew, Roger, count of Beziers, waited upon Arnald, to avert the impending storm; but to no purpose. Raymond submitted to the terrible power, and joined the army that was marching against his own subjects and those of his nephew; but he first performed the dreadful penance appointed for him on account of the murder of Castelnau. He was made to swear upon the host, as the body of Christ, and upon the relics of the saints, that he would _obey the Pope_, and the holy Roman church, and pursue the Albigenses, _with fire and sword_, till they were extirpated. Having taken this oath, he was ordered _to strip himself naked, from head to foot_, with only a linen cloth around his waist; the legate threw a priest’s stole round his neck, and leading him by it into the church, nine times round the pretended martyr’s grave, he inflicted the discipline of the church upon the naked shoulders of the humbled prince. He then granted him absolution, on his taking another oath, inviolably to maintain all the rights, privileges, immunities, and liberties of the church and the clergy! Count Roger offered terms of reconciliation; but the legate rejected his proposals, and intimated that no mercy would be shown to him. The city of Beziers was taken; and the inhabitants, who had crowded into the churches, were barbarously massacred; so that _seven thousand_ corpses were said to have been found in the church of St. Magdalen. Some were desirous of sparing the Catholics who might be among the heretics, and they applied to the legate for that purpose; but, in a rage, he replied, “_Kill them all; the Lord knoweth them that are His!_”