This murder formed one of the principal reasons for the great crusade which the Church was determined to go on with, though the Count’s submission had deprived it of the official excuse. The passions of the bigoted and the mercenary were successfully appealed to, and the most appalling campaign in history was begun under the furious stimulation of the Papal Legates. It was proposed to the inhabitants of Bezier that if the chief heretics were expelled or given up the town would be spared. To the special honour of the Catholic inhabitants, who lived in entire peace with their heretical fellow townsmen, the two parties made common cause and refused the terms, whereupon the town was stormed in July, 1209, and about 20,000 of the people massacred. In August Carcassonne, a fortress of immense strength, was surrendered to the crusading army commanded by the elder Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. By the end of the autumn 500 towns and castles had been wrested from the grasp of the heretics; and, considering their task almost completed, several of the leaders withdrew, and the army was reduced to a small force obliged to maintain itself by partizan fighting. In the spring de Montfort was reinforced and captured many more towns, the inhabitants being offered the choice of submission to Rome or the stake. Hundreds of obscure enthusiasts embraced the heroic alternative, often cheerfully leaping into the flames of their own accord. At Lavaur in May, 1211, as many as 400 heretics are said to have been burnt in one vast pyre, and the moral sensibilities of the age may be estimated from the statement that this dreadful spectacle caused great rejoicing among the Crusaders. The slackness of Count Raymond in persecuting his subjects was not pleasing to the Church, and he was summoned to purge himself from the suspicion of favouring heresy, and to submit unreservedly to the Pope’s demands. He presented himself in the Church of St. Gilles, Toulouse, with his guarantees in the confident hope of full reconciliation, and was then told that, having neglected to fulfil his promises to extirpate heresy, his submission could not be received. The facts that the promises had been forced from him, and that it was beyond his power to give them full effect, were not taken into account. Raymond’s bitter tears, instead of arousing pity, were regarded as further proof of his depravity, and renewed abasement led only to the infliction of harsher terms. His capital city, Toulouse, was besieged in 1211, but offered so vigorous a resistance that the Crusaders received a serious check, and a fresh excommunication was hurled at the unfortunate Raymond for “persecuting” the soldiers of the Cross. The military abilities of de Montfort, however, won so many successes as to arouse the alarm of Pedro, King of Aragon; and the Pope, remembering that Raymond had never been tried and condemned, began to suspect that there