Let us observe further, that in publishing crusades against Frederick II. and against his son, Innocent granted greater indulgences to them than to the expeditions into Palestine. The pope, said the French nobles, extends his own sovereignty by crusades against the Christians, and leaves our sovereign the task of fighting and suffering for the faith. St. Louis was then in the Holy Land, just released from his captivity. His mother, Queen Blanche, caused the property of the pope’s crusaders against Conrade to be seized: let the pope, said she, maintain those who are in his service, and let them begone never to return.²⁴⁴ Thus did the Guelph crusade miscarry in France, in spite of the exertions of the ‘pious preachers’ and ‘pious minors,’ the zealous servants of the Holy See. But from the accession of Gregory IX. Italy and Germany never ceased to be torn by the factions of Guelph, and Ghibeline, which assumed more and more their original direction, the latter against the pope, the former against the emperor, and especially against the house of Swabia. ²⁴⁵ Matt. Paris, p. 713,—Velly’s History of France, vol. v. p. 102—100. Alexander IV. who succeeded Innocent in 1254, continued to contend with Manfred, summoned him, excommunicated him, and designed him for the victim of a crusade, which did not, however, take place. The pope succeeded only in extorting from the king of England, Henry III. fifty thousand pounds sterling. Henry had made a vow to go into Palestine; this vow was commuted into a stipulated contribution, destined to the support of the war against Manfred. To obtain such a sum, Alexander promised the crown of Naples to prince Edward, son of Henry; which did not, however, prevent his continuing the negociation with Louis IX. and his brother Charles of Anjou. But Alexander was not sufficiently favoured by circumstances, and was too little endowed with energetic qualifications, to obtain much success; he could scarcely keep his ground in the midst of his own domains: a sedition of the Romans compelled him to withdraw to Viterbo, and his seven years reign produced no important result, unless we consider as such the establishment of the inquisition in the bosom of France. We are concerned we cannot conceal, that St Louis had solicited as a favour such an institution. It had become from the time of Innocent III. much consolidated: in 1229, a council at Thoulouse had decreed, that the bishops should depute in each parish one clergyman, and two laymen, for the purpose of seeking out heretics, denouncing them to the prelates appointed to try them, and delivering them to the officers charged with their punishment. Gregory IX. in 1233, had invested the Dominicans, or brother preachers, with these inquisitorial functions; the church was unquestionably enriched by this new power, and St. Louis had the misfortune of not preserving his subjects from it. He paid two enormous tributes to the ignorance of his