It ought to be added, that the battle of Muret was a fatal blow to Raimon’s cause, from which it never recovered. For years he continued the fight; but it was a struggle against fate, a hope against hope. A different issue of that day might have changed the development of France. It might also have given new and lasting vitality to the Reformation of the thirteenth century. CHAPTER XXIII. FOLQUET OF MARSEILLES. The question remains to be asked,—which side did the troubadours take in this struggle? Did they prove themselves to be men of mettle in a contest in which their own literary existence was at stake no less than the freedom of their country? Both these questions can, with a very few exceptions, be answered in their favour; as a class, they stood to the cause of their natural friend and protector; and it must be remembered that that cause at the time was identical with religious toleration and opposition to the tyranny of Rome. With the theological side of the contest the troubadours, however, did not concern themselves much; it was their duty and joy to lash the vices of the priests with their satire, and to defend their country and their beautiful language against French intrusion; the subtleties of dualism and doketism they wisely avoided. It is true that the great Peire Cardinal once ventured to speak on the mooted point of purgatory and eternal punishment; but we shall presently see how untheological, or, which is the same, how purely human, was his interest in the subject. It seems, indeed, doubtful whether many of the troubadours espoused the opinions of their Albigeois countrymen. Of some of the fiercest antagonists of the priests we know the contrary, and of one troubadour only, Aimeric de Pegulhan, we are told parenthetically that he died in Italy, ‘en eretgia segon c’om ditz’—‘a heretic, as people say.’ Of the few troubadours prominently mentioned on the side of the Pope, one, Uc de St. Cyr, lived chiefly in Italy; another, Perdigon, had to pay dearly for his apostasy. When, after the battle of Muret, he rejoiced in the misfortune of his benefactor, the noble Peter of Aragon, society seems to have laid its interdict on him, and he had to hide his shame in a convent, where he died. Of much greater importance than either is the celebrated Folquet of Marseilles, whose name, as Bishop of Toulouse, and as one of the most zealous persecutors of his heretical countrymen, has more than once been mentioned in these pages. The life and character of this man are a psychological problem of deepest interest; his career was varied and inconsistent in itself—so inconsistent that the identity of troubadour and bishop has been doubted. But there is no reason for such a doubt, historical or psychological, as we shall presently see.