illed by a shower of stones, under the walls of the place, and left to
his son Amaury the inheritance of his war and his conquests, but not of
his vigorous genius and his warlike renown.

[Illustration: Death of De Montfort----104]

The struggle still dragged on for five years with varied fortune on each
side, but Amaury de Montfort was losing ground every day, and Raymond
VI., when he died in August, 1222, had recovered the greater part of his
dominions. His son, Raymond VII., continued the war for eighteen months
longer, with enough of popular favor and of success to make his enemies
despair of recovering their advantages; and, on the 14th of January,
1224, Amaury de Montfort, after having concluded with the Counts of
Toulouse and Foix a treaty which seemed to have only a provisional
character, "went forth," says the History of Languedoc, "with all the
French from Carcassonne, and left forever the country which his house had
possessed for nearly fourteen years." Scarcely had he arrived at the
court of Louis VIII., who had just succeeded his father, Philip Augustus,
when he ceded to the King of France his rights over the domains which the
crusaders had conquered by a deed conceived in these terms: "Know that we
give up to our Lord Louis, the illustrious King of the French, and to his
heirs forever, to dispose of according to their pleasure, all the
privileges and gifts that the Roman Church did grant unto our father
Simon of pious memory, in respect of the countship of Toulouse and other
districts in Albigeois; supposing that the pope do accomplish all the
demands made to him by the king through the Archbishop of Bourges, and
the Bishops of Langres and Chartres; else, be it known for certain that
we cede not to any one aught of all these domains."

Whilst this cruel war lasted Philip Augustus would not take any part in
it. Not that he had any leaning towards the Albigensian heretics on the
score of creed or religious liberty; but his sense of justice and
moderation was shocked at the violence employed against them, and he
had a repugnance to the idea of taking part in the devastation of the
beautiful southern provinces. He took it ill, moreover, that the pope
should arrogate to himself the right of despoiling of their dominions, on
the ground of heresy, princes who were vassals of the King of France;
and, without offering any formal opposition, he had no mind to give his
assent thereto. When Innocent III. called