Now a great deal of abuse has been poured on the Inquisition, and its crimes have been vastly exaggerated. Gieseler speaks of the bloodthirsty Inquisition as a "monster raging with most frightful fury in Southern France,"--strong language for so calm an historian. But we ask, was it not necessary that such a system, destructive of life, should be put down? That the fautors of this atrocious self-murdering should be summarily dealt with, when they persuaded mothers to let their children perish on their sick-beds, men to pine themselves to death, and women to swallow broken glass, to tear their bowels, when their health began to amend? We have got the Acts of the Inquisition at Toulouse during sixteen years that it "raged with frightful fury," _i.e._, between 1307 and 1323. The whole number of cases reported is 932; but it is obvious that the same individual might, and in fact did, often reappear before the Inquisition more than once in the course of sixteen years. Having confessed some connection with heresy, he was sentenced to wear a little cross, or tongue of red cloth, let into the garments, or simply to wear a cross round the neck, or to make a pilgrimage to a certain church, or to use certain prayers; of such sentences 174 are recorded. If the person condemned to do this disobeyed, he was put in prison for a while; there were 218 such cases. If he escaped from prison, or ran away from the country, he was condemned as a fugitive; there were 38 of these. Some of the leaders of the heresy who had caused the death of many persons, and incorrigible heretics who had broken out of prison, were condemned to death; there were 40 fautors of heresy sentenced--twenty-nine Albigenses, seven Waldenses, and four Beghards; thirty-two of these were men, and eight were women. Among the sentences recorded are 113 remissions of penances, 139 discharges from prison, and 90 sentences of heresy pronounced against persons deceased.[23] [23] A large number of the sentences--all the most important--are translated and published in Maitland's Tracts and Documents, together with many of the letters, bulls, edicts, and controversial writings on the Albigenses.