lles, at Arles, and at Lavaur, and presided over by the pope's
legates, proclaimed the excommunication of Raymond VI., and the cession
of his dominions to Simon de Montfort, who took possession of them for
himself and his comrades. Nor were the pope's legates without their
share in the conquest; Arnauld Amaury, Abbot of Citeaux, became
Archbishop of Narbonne; and Abbot Foulques of Marseilles, celebrated in
his youth as a gallant troubadour, was Bishop of Toulouse and the most
ardent of the crusaders. When these conquerors heard that the pope had
given a kind reception to Raymond VI. and his young son, and lent a
favorable ear to their complaints, they sent haughty warnings to Innocent
III., giving him to understand that the work was all over, and that, if
he meddled, Simon de Montfort and his warriors might probably not bow to
his decisions. Don Pedro II., king of Aragon, had strongly supported
before Innocent III. the claims of the Count of Toulouse and of the
southern princes his allies. "He cajoled the lord pope," says the
prejudiced chronicler of these events, the monk Peter of Vaulx-Cernay,
"so far as to persuade him that the cause of the faith was achieved
against the heretics, they being put to distant flight and completely
driven from the Albigensian country, and that accordingly it was
necessary for him to revoke altogether the indulgence be had granted to
the crusaders. . . . The sovereign pontiff, too credulously listening
to the perfidious suggestions of the said king, readily assented to his
demands, and wrote to the Count of Montfort, with orders and commands to
restore without delay to the Counts of Comminges and of Foix, and to
Gaston of Beam, very wicked and abandoned people, the lands which, by
just judgment of God and by the aid of the crusaders, he at last had
conquered." But, in spite of his desire to do justice, Innocent III.,
studying policy rather than moderation, did not care to enter upon a
struggle against the agents, ecclesiastical and laic, whom he had let
loose upon Southern France. In November, 1215, the fourth Lateran
council met at Rome; and the Count of Toulouse, his son, and the Count of
Foix brought their claims before it. "It is quite true," says Peter of
Vaulx-Cernay, "that they found there--and, what is worse, amongst the
prelates--certain folk who opposed the cause of the faith, and labored
for the restoration of the said counts; but the counsel of Ahitophel did
not prevai