Count Raymond hastened to Toulouse; he caused the ban of excommunication, with the hard terms of his absolution, to be publicly read aloud; the citizens were indignant, and declared that they would rather submit to the greatest extremities than accept such shameful conditions. As the news spread from town to town, the same enthusiasm prevailed throughout his dominions. The character of the war was now completely changed. It was evident to all, that the crusaders were determined to conquer the provinces for the purpose of converting them into dependencies of the See of Rome; and the provinces were equally determined to resist the crusaders as base hypocrites, and to cast off the cruel and usurping tyranny of Rome. The professedly religious purposes of the crusade had degenerated into a war of universal carnage and plunder. The whole nation was thus in a state of general insurrection against the dominant church as against a foreign invader.
War was now proclaimed; but the combatants were unequal. Raymond seems to have been a gentle, kindly, indolent monarch; much loved by his people; and unambitious, save for the pleasures and gratifications of this life. There is no evidence that he was the least inclined to the Albigensian religion, but professedly a true Roman Catholic. On the other hand, Simon de Montfort, the great general of Rome, was considered the most daring and skilful military leader of his day, and the sworn champion of the papacy. He was regular in the exercises of his religion, and heard mass daily. "But," observes one, "even with Simon's better qualities were combined some of the vices which not uncommonly seek their sanctification from high religious profession—a vast ambition, a daring unscrupulousness as to the means of pursuing his objects, a ruthless indifference to human suffering, and an excessive and undisguised rapacity." At the head of a new host of crusaders, to execute the sentence of the church, and to win the noble prize of Raymond's dominions, he marched through the devoted land. Slaughter, rapine, and the most savage barbarities, such as may not be described, tracked his every step. Heretics, or those suspected of heresy, wherever they were found, were compelled by the legate Arnold and De Montfort to ascend vast piles of burning fagots, while the monks reveled in their sufferings and mocked the shrieks of burning women.
The whole country, as the papal army advanced, became the scene of the most wanton cruelties: they destroyed vineyards and growing crops, burnt villages and farmhouses, slaughtered unarmed peasants, women, and children; they spread desolation over the whole land, and then spoke of their sanctified zeal for religion. The exasperated people retaliated—nor need we wonder—and a savage war was waged on both sides. But details must be left to the civil historian. Having placed the real motives and objects of the pope in this unparalleled outrage on humanity and religion, in as clear a light as brevity would allow, we will now only note a few of the principal engagements in this great struggle, which brought it to a close, and which manifest yet more fully the character of Simon and the monks of Citeaux, under the direction and sanction of the pontiff.