CHAP. V.

Affairs of the Albigenses from the Death of Louis VIII, 1226, to the Peace of Paris, 1229; and its final ratification, 1242.

AT the death of Louis VIII, the monarchy which had been raised to a high degree of power, by the skill and good fortune of Philip Augustus, appeared in danger of falling into that state of turbulent anarchy from which he had with difficulty rescued it. He had obtained great advantages over his vassals, which his son, during his short reign, had not had time to lose; but those vassals had still the consciousness of their strength, and the love of that independence of which they had been so recently deprived. To keep them in their obedience a high degree of energy was required in the depositaries of the royal authority, and that authority was confided in a woman and a child.

Louis VIII had married on the 23rd of May, 1200, Blanche, daughter of Alphonso IX of Castille; he had eleven children by her, five of whom survived him. Blanche was born, according to Bollandus, in 1188, and most probably three or

6 Bollandus, 30 Mai, p. 291.

four years sooner, so that she was, at the death of her husband, at least thirty-eight years of age. Louis, the eldest of her sons, born the 25th of April, 1215, was, at that time, eleven years and a half; Robert, the eldest of his other three sons, was ten years; Alphonso, the second, seven; the youngest, Charles, was only six, and the daughter, Elizabeth, was only two years old.

Blanche was a Spaniard, and possessed of the qualities common to her nation, the qualities peculiar to great minds. She was handsome; her heart was ardent and tender; religion partly occupied it, but love was not excluded; and her deportment, especially towards the king of Narvarre, and the pope's legate, gave some colour of probability to the reports which her enemies circulated against her. Jealous of her authority, jealous of the affections of those whom she loved, even when she married her sons, she was still watchful to prevent their wives obtaining an ascendancy over them which might interfere with her own; she had, besides, inspired them with a high idea of her prudence and capacity. She possessed their love, but that love was mingled with fear, and even when she placed them on the throne; she did not accustom them to relax in their obedience. Although she was herself, probably, destitute of a literary education, which was in those times rarely given even to men, she comprehended the advantage of useful studies,

and surrounded her sons with those who were the most capable of teaching them all that was then known. She gave to the masters whom she chose an authority, over the princes, as absolute as they could have had over the children of a citizen; and as the ferula was then the only system of education known to the pedants, "so, as the blessed king himself used to say, the aforesaid master flogged him many times to teach him things of discipline." But above all, Blanche endeavoured to inspire her children with the same religious sentiments by which she herself was actuated; and the education which she gave them constantly tended to the developement of that piety, and that ardent faith, which was the spring of all their actions.

1227. Blanche, at the same time that she had to contend with her great barons, for the sovereign authority, and to maintain her relations with the king of England, found herself charged with the war which her husband, according to the exhortation of the holy see, had, in the preceding year, carried on against the Albigenses. But, although the army of Louis VIII had been almost destroyed there by sickness, the regent had no reason to fear the vengeance of the inhabitants of the countship of Toulouse, to whom, under the pretence of their attachment to heresy, so much evil had been done. They were crushed under the weight

Vie de St. Louis par le confesseur de la reine Marguerite, ch. ii, p. 301.

of long-protracted calamities, and desired nothing so much as a short season of repose. The cardinal, Romano di Sant. Angelo, had full authority. from the pope to regulate the ecclesiastical government of the conquered country. In the beginning of January, he gave judgment upon the demand. made by the citizens of Avignon, to be reconciled to the church. He prohibited them from affording any succours to the count of Toulouse, or any asylum to the heretics. He condemned them to a fine of a thousand marks of silver to the church, and of six thousand to the army of the crusaders. He commanded them to demolish their walls, their ramparts, and their towers, without the liberty of rebuilding them, unless they should obtain permission from the king of France and the church. On these conditions he was willing to free them from the excommunication which they had incurred; but, at the same time, he destined the money that he had extorted from them, to fortifying the castle of Saint André, on the other side of the Rhone, which was intended to keep them in obedience.

During lent, in the same year, Peter, archbishop. of Narbonne, presided at a council in his episcopal city, the canons of which, to the number of twenty, were all intended to redouble the rigours of persecution against the Jews and the heretics, the count of Toulouse, the count of Foix, and the viscount of Beziers, and to augment the authority

8 Hist. gén, du Languedoc, xxiv, ch. xxix, p. 364.

of the ecclesiastics. It was there ordered, that a testament should not be held valid, unless it was signed in the presence of the curate; and that, in each parish, assistants to the inquisitors, under the name of synodical witnesses, should be instituted for the discovery of those whose faith might be suspected.9

In spite of the discouragement of his subjects, the abandonment of his allies, and the accumulation of sacerdotal hatred, the count of Toulouse endeavoured to profit by the retreat of the crusaders, to attack Humbert de Beaujeu, whom Louis VIII had, at his departure, left as his lieutenant of the province. He could only take from him the castle of Haute-Rive, four leagues from Toulouse, which he had attacked during the winter; but, this event was sufficient to excite the French clergy to make the court of Rome resound with their clamours. They accused the queen of continuing to raise the tenths of the ecclesiastical benefices, granted for five years to her husband, without, at the same time, continuing the war against the heretics, which alone could render this exaction legitimate. They even obtained an order from Gregory IX, who had succeeded in the pontificate to Honorius III, to suspend the payment. The cardinal of Sant. Angelo, who was

9 Hist. de Languedoc, liv. xxiv. ch. xxxii, p. 365. Concilia generalia Labbei, tom xi, p. 304.

1 Guill. de Podio Laurentii, cap. xxxvii, p. 689.

2 Raynaldi Ann. Eccles. 1227, art. 56.