On the other hand, special districts such as Toulouse, showed real courage and devotion. The crusaders often found much difficulty in maintaining a force adequate to conduct their operations after the first energy of the invasion had spent itself, and had the Count of Toulouse been an energetic and vigorous character, he might have been able to reverse the ultimate issue of the crusade. But, like many other petty lords his chief desire was to be left alone and he was at heart as little interested in the claims of Rome as in the attractions of heresy. His townspeople thought otherwise and the latter half of the _Chanson de la Croisade_ reflects their hopes and fears and describes their struggles with a sympathy that often reaches the height of epic splendour. Similarly, certain troubadours were by no means absorbed in the practice of their art or the pursuit of their intrigues. Bernard Sicart de Marvejols has left us a vigorous satire against the crusaders who came for plunder, and the clergy who drove them on. The greatest poet of this calamitous time is Peire Cardenal. His work falls within the years 1210 and 1230. The short notice that we have of him says that he belonged to Puy Notre Dame in Velay, that he was the son of a noble and was intended for an ecclesiastical career: when he was of age, he was attracted by the pleasures of the world, became a troubadour and [85] went from court to court, accompanied by a _joglar_: he was especially favoured by King Jaime I. of Aragon and died at the age of nearly a hundred years. He was no singer of love and the three of his _chansos_ that remain are inspired by the misogyny that we have noted in the case of Marcabrun. Peire Cardenal's strength lay in the moral _sirventes_: he was a fiery soul, aroused to wrath by the sight of injustice and immorality and the special objects of his animosity are the Roman Catholic clergy and the high nobles. "The clergy call themselves shepherds and are murderers under a show of saintliness: when I look upon their dress I remember Isengrin (the wolf in the romance of Reynard, the Fox) who wished one day to break into the sheep-fold: but for fear of the dogs he dressed himself in a sheepskin and then devoured as many as he would. Kings and emperors, dukes, counts and knights used to rule the world; now the priests have the power which they have gained by robbery and treachery, by hypocrisy, force and preaching." "Eagles and vultures smell not the carrion so readily as priests and preachers smell out the rich: a rich man is their friend and should a sickness strike him down, he must make them presents to the loss of his relations. Frenchmen and priests are reputed bad and rightly so: usurers [86] and traitors possess the whole world, for with deceit have they so confounded the world that there is no class to whom their doctrine is unknown." Peire inveighs against the disgraces of particular orders; the