Another benefit derived from the crusades was, the application of their names to many other leagues formed or fomented by the Roman Church. Innocent III. is the inventor of this artifice, which evinces an abundant acquaintance with the means of leading minds astray by the illusion of words: he applied to the service of his serious political designs, the enormous power of a word which, for the period of one hundred and ten years, had the effect of exciting through Europe the most blind and restless enthusiasm. He preached therefore a crusade against England when he had determined on dethroning John; a crusade against the Hungarians when he affected to become the arbiter of their intestine dissentions; a crusade against a king of Norway, whom also he wished to depose; but above all, a crusade against the Albigenses, a sect extended through the entire south of France. Raymond VI. Count of Tholouse, because he protected the Albigenses his subjects, was excommunicated as the abettor of heresy; and, one of the legates, who excited these troubles, having received a mortal wound, the states of the count, accused without any proof of the assassination, were declared vacant, and the prize of the first crusader who possessed himself of them. In vain Raymond humbled himself to degradation: in vain he had-the more culpable weakness to take up the cross himself against his own subjects; Simon de Montford obtained these wretched provinces, purchased by torrents of blood, with which he had inundated them. Raymond took refuge with his brother-in-law, Peter II. king of Arragon, who, after useless intercession with Innocent, took arms against Simon de Montford, and perished at the battle of Muret, in 1213. Two years afterwards the pope in the midst of a Lateran Council, definitely deposed Raymond, granting him a moderate pension, and bestowed his states on Simon, whom they dared to name Maccabeus, and who died in 1218 at the siege of Thou-louse. We do not mean to exculpate the Albigenses altogether, sometimes also denominated Vaudois, because there are numbers residing in the valleys of Piedmont, and often Good-men, from the regularity of their manners; but, to exterminate thousands of worthy men, because they were deceived, and to dethrone him who ruled them, because he did not persecute them speedily enough, such excessive severity unveils the character and displays the power of Innocent III.²²⁸ ²²⁸ Velly’s Hist, of France, vol. 3, p. 430, 468.