cumstances. He was only ten years of age when the fair patrimony of Alby, Bezieres, Carcassonne, and Limous, devolved on him at his father's death; and those who governed for him during a long minority, not only favoured the persons, but appear to have heartily appreciated the doctrines of the Albigenses. The young count was now four and twenty; with all the generous ardour of that age fairly enlisted on behalf of those whom Rome had now doomed to utter destruction; and surely he was not himself very far from the kingdom of God. The great day will reveal whether he attained to it, through the "much tribulation" that he was destined to endure for the cause, which grace was not given him to identify himself with, in spiritual as he did in temporal matters. He certainly stands out in very bright and beautiful contrast to his unhappy uncle.

At Aubenaz, enthroned in all the gaudy pomp of sacerdotal vicegerency, sat the inflated Arnold; and around him were assembled those whose pitiable distinction it was, to be nominated chiefs in this unholy war. The two counts sought an audience, and were received with studied scorn and contumely by the legate, who scarcely deigned to give ear to their protestations of unshaken allegiance to the papacy. The charge of holding any opinions by Rome branded as heretical, they both repelled; demanding a fair trial to clear them from this aspersion, and also of the false accusation of having been accessory to the death of Castelnau. But the only reply that they could elicit from Arnold was, a refusal to interfere, with a haughty intimation, that if they sought any mitigation of impending punishment they must carry their submission to Rome.

The terms of that submission were well understood

by the kinsmen, who retired to canvas the subject, on which they so differed as to part in mutual wrath. The Count of Beziers saw with indignation that his uncle was prepared to purchase such peace and safety as might be gained by the unqualified surrender of his poor inoffensive Christian dependents into the hand of their sanguinary foes: that he was willing to become himself the executioner of every murderous decree against them, and by force of arms to compel the nobles around, including Raymond Roger himself, into a like course of purveying human victims for the shambles of Innocent III. He protested that, rather than see the crusading army enter the province of Toulouse, he would turn his hand against his next of kin ; and by the most zealous execution of all their behests, conciliate the dreaded ecclesiastics, in whose hands the fate of princes was placed. He resolved to appeal for assistance in carrying out this plan, to Philip Augustus of France, who was his cousin; and to Otho of Germany; while his lowliest, most unreserved submission should be laid, by fitting ambassadors, at the footstool of the papal throne. To the young, generous, and partially enlightened Beziers, this sounded as the language of dastardly fear, and cruel treachery: and the more so as it directly menaced, not only the subjects of the Count of Toulouse, but his own, and the whole body of the so-called heretics throughout the region. He, therefore, avowed his determination of putting his territories into a state of defence, and of faithfully preserving what was committed to his charge; and they took their several ways, with feelings and purposes as dissimilar as those of any two men could be who still outwardly wore the same badge of allegiance to the See of Rome.

It is difficult to decide what was the real temper of mind of the young count, on the important subject of religion. Probably he had no fixed views, no serious impressions as yet, concerning it. Born and reared in the very lap of Provençal refinement, nurtured by poetry and romance, and full of the spirit of chivalry, apart from all the stern fanaticism that had rendered it too generally a sanguinary scourge of the helpless, a hideous engine in the hands of ecclesistical tyranny, the youthful noble had looked forward to the time when he should in his own person become the mild and impartial ruler of a loving people; the fearless defender of his own rights and their's; the patron of literature and art; the promoter of a generous liberality, which he had learned to admire in the guardians of his long minority. All this he might be without giving religion any prominent place in his regards: he might deem it right, consistent, and expedient, to worship externally where and as his long line of ancestors had worshipped; at the same time readily according to other men their own free choice in the same matter. He was lord of the temporalities of a wide domain; and he found another power claiming supremacy in spiritual things, including a very substantial proportion of worldly wealth, by long custom and by general consent, secured to them as the remuneration of their sacerdotal labours. With this order of things he did not feel himself disposed to interfere; and we must regard his professions of unshaken fidelity to the papacy, as a simple avowal of such acquiescence in the laws of his country. Here he drew the line: he would be the servant of Rome just so far; but to do her savage bidding in the slaughter or even the abandonment of his innocent people; to stain his knightly honour with perfidy so deep, and to pur

We can

chase the continued enjoyment of his princely birthright, at the price of permitting a horde of ruffians to riot in the bloodshed of his subjects, and the plunder of his land, far from the bosom of Raymond Roger, was a thought so base as this! His honest profession of spiritual allegiance had been spurned: his demand for a fair investigation into the matter of a murder with which he was not even remotely connected, was denied ; and he was insultingly told to repair to the chief ecclesiastic at Rome, in the character of a criminal suing for a commutation of his sentence. We may very well enter into the feelings with which the young chieftain quitted the presence of the legate, and subsequently parted in anger from his cowed and dishonoured kinsman, without enrolling him among the persecuted saints on whom the war was about to burst. conceive him in the honest pride of an authority never by him abused, summoning around him his knights, and burgesses, and the bold youths who had grown up with him in the peaceful luxury of his court; representing to them the contumacious wrong that he had suffered at the hands of the pope's representative; and kindling their indignation by the recital of its effect on Raymond of Toulouse; whose defection from the cause of justice and independence, only roused to a higher pitch their determination, unflinchingly to uphold it. The result was, an immediate application of all hands, to the work of fortifying the various towns and castles within his dominions; and a bold resolve to be beforehand with the Count of Toulouse in warlike demonstrations of their intended line of conduct.

Military ardour, attachment to their young lord, love of justice, impatience of oppression, and the scorn that the ecclesiastics had generally brought on their order,

combined with a feeling of generous sympathy and respect for their Albigensic compatriots, no doubt formed the chief ingredients in the devotedness of Raymond Roger's followers to the cause that he had so manfully espoused: but mingled with these there were the real objects of this Satanic war, the children of God, who served him in the gospel of his Son. These wrought with their neighbours on the ramparts, and the walls; and aided in every defensive work; but they did it in the spirit of the Jews who laboured under Nehemiah upon the rising bulwarks of Jerusalem. Though they used every means to strengthen those earthly defences, the hope of their hearts spoke but one language, "The God of heaven, he will prosper us. Though they furbished the shield, and sharpened the spear, and made fast the rivets of knightly mail, yet they trusted in none of these, nor in the fidelity of the noble Count himself to their cause: they sheltered themselves behind the shield of faith; the weapon which alone they knew to be mighty was the word of God, precious fragments of which they possessed, and each in itself a sharp sword, sufficient to hold the enemy their souls at bay. The whole armour of God secured them from shafts that aimed to wound their immortal spirits; what they might suffer at the hands of those who had power to kill the body was to them no matter of deep concern, they feared only Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell; and knowing the great love of God that had not spared his own Son, but delivered him up as a ransom for them, they also were filled with the perfect love that casteth out all tormenting fear. They had two main objects of prayerful interest: their own perseverance unto death in the profession of a true faith, and the fate of their still unconverted but

of