he Day of Judgment, but also advocated that, living, they should know
the hell of Inquisition. Partisans of the Catholic Faith were solemnly
consecrated "Crusaders" by Pope Innocent III, and wore the cross in
these Wars of Extermination as they had worn it in the Holy Wars of
Palestine. In 1209 their army advanced against Beziers, and from out
their Councils the leaders sent the Bishop of the city to admonish his
flock.

All the inhabitants were summoned to meet him, and they gathered in the
choir and transepts of the Cathedral,--the only parts which were
finished at that time. One can imagine the anxious citizens crowding
into the church, the coming of the angered prelate, whose state and
frown were well calculated to intimidate the wavering, and the tense
silence as he passed, with grave blessing, to the altar. In a few words,
he advised them of their peril, spiritual and material; he told them he
knew well who was true and who false to the Church, that he had, in
written list, the very names of the heretics they seemed to harbour.
Then he begged them to deliver those traitors into his hands, and their
city to the Legate of the Holy Father. In fewer words came their answer;
"Venerable Father, all that are here are Christians, and we see amongst
us only our brethren." Such words were a refusal, a heinous sin, and
dread must have been written on every face, as without a word or sign of
blessing, the outraged Bishop swept from the church and returned to the
camp of their enemy.

The Crusaders' Councils were stormy; for some of the nobles wished to
save the Catholics, others cried out for the extermination of the whole
rebellious place, and finally the choleric Legate, Armand-Amaury, Abbot
of Citeaux, could stand it no longer, and cried out fiercely, "Kill them
all! God will know His own." The words of their Legate were final, the
army attacked the city, and--as Henri Martin finely writes,--"neither
funeral tollings nor bell-ringings, nor Canons in all their priestly
robes could avail, all were put to the sword; not one was saved, and it
was the saddest pity ever seen or heard." The city was pillaged, was
fired, was devastated and burned "till no living thing remained."

"No living thing remained" to tell the awful tale, and yet with time and
industry, a new and forgetful Beziers has risen to all its old prestige
and many times its former size; the Cathedral alone was left, and its
most memorable tale to our day is not