On the appearance of the old Count and his son beneath the broken-down walls of Toulouse with a large army, fear gave way to the enthusiastic joy with which the people welcomed back the Raymonds to the palace and the dominions of their ancestors. Many of the nobles of Languedoc raised troops and threw themselves into the city. Simon and his son, Guy, hurried to the spot, but were ignominiously repulsed. The bishop of Toulouse and the wife of Simon sought help in France. A new crusade was preached, but De Montfort could not keep an army more than forty days; numbers flocked to the Raymonds. The siege lasted nine months; it was the scene of many a fierce encounter. In the spring of 1218, De Montfort came against Toulouse with a fresh company of one hundred thousand crusaders. "You are about to conquer the city," said the lying spirit, "to break into the houses, out of which no single soul, neither man nor woman, shall escape alive; not one shall be spared in church, in sanctuary, in hospital!"
Such were the counsels of Rome, but God had decreed otherwise. When kneeling at high mass, a shout announced that the besieged had made a sally; instantly springing to his feet, Simon placed himself at the head of his veterans and hastened to the place of attack. But little did he think it was for the last time; at that moment he was wounded by an arrow from the city walls; this evidently troubled him in spirit; he retired a few paces, when a fragment of a rock, thrown from a machine struck him on the head and severed it from his body. As the lifeless trunk lay on the ground, his admirers dared to reproach God with his death, and to arraign the divine justice. But there we must leave them: Simon is before God, and has learned his eternal doom.
The siege was raised, the besieging army was entirely defeated. The bell was tolled to call the citizens to offer thanksgivings in tumults of exultation. Raymond was hailed as their lawful and now undisputed sovereign; and again the standard of the house of St. Gilles waved above the palace and the ramparts of Toulouse.