translating and reading the Gospels to his more ignorant neighbours. His conduct was represented to the pope, he was obliged to fly from Lyons, and finally retired to Bohemia, where he probably introduced that spirit of Protestantism for which Huss afterwards died.

We turn now to the story of the Albigenses, entwined as it is in the lamentable and interesting one of Languedoc and Provence. But we must first describe the state of those pleasant provinces in which religion sprang up in a soil that might not appear congenial to it, and which yet lends it an additional interest. The account here given is chiefly, and briefly, extracted from Sismondi.

Languedoc, Provence, Catalonia, and the surrounding provinces which depended on the king of Aragon, were peopled by an industrious and intelligent race, addicted to commerce and the arts, and still more to poetry. They had formed the Provençal language, which, separating itself from the French, was distinguished by greater harmony, richness, and picturesqueness of expression. This language, studied by all the genius of the age, dedicated to politeness and song, appeared destined to become the first and most elegant of the languages of Europe. Those who professed it had renounced the name of Frenchmen for that of Provençals. They wished to form themselves into a distinct nation, and to separate absolutely from the French; to whom they were, indeed, inferior in the arts of war, but whom they greatly

excelled in all the attainments of civilisation. These people were far in advance of a barbarous age.

Raymond Bérenger, count of Barcelona, acquired the dominion of Provence in right of his wife, and introduced there that spirit of liberty and chivalry, that taste for the elegant arts and sciences, which the Arabians had brought to Spain, and which gave birth to the poetical spirit that shone out at once over Provence and all the south of Europe, like an electric flash in the midst of the most palpable darkness, illuminating all things with its brightness.

We must not, however, enter on a theme pleasing and romantic, but unsuited to our graver history-the troubadours of gay Provence, their songs and harps, and courts of gaiety and politeness. But knowledge has always brought in its train rebellion against superstition; and, therefore, Protestantism is, in a great degree, connected with the refinement and civilisation of Provence. A people had grown up, even among these gay troubadours, who exercised the privilege of reason, and dared to question the truth of what they were taught implicitly to believe. The numerous courts of the small princes aspired to be models of taste and politeness. They lived in festivity; their chief occupations were tournaments, courts of gaiety, and poetry, where verses were recited or sung, and prizes awarded. cities were numerous and flourishing; their forms of government nearly republican. They

The

had consuls chosen by the people, and possessed the privilege of forming communes, which rendered them nearly equal to the celebrated Italian republics with which they traded.

They had been obliged, by this commercial intercourse, to mix with both Moors and Jews, held by their fellow-catholics of the time in utter detestation, instead of being regarded with the compassion of Christian love. Bigotry, in consequence, prevailed to a less degree in civilised Provence, while their French neighbours were still subjected to its iron sway.

Among them, and beneath the shelter of their liberal-minded princes, the Protestants who denied "the sovereign authority of the pope, the efficacy of prayers for the dead, the doctrine of purgatory," and some other tenets of Rome, found protection, and multiplied to an extraordinary extent.

In the year 1147, and again in 1181, missionaries were sent by Rome to convert these heretics. We blame not the effort, so long as no other means are resorted to. It is the duty of all to endeavour to direct those whom they really believe to be in error into the right path. But these missionaries made no way among the people; their own pastors, who taught them from the Scriptures, received more attention.

At length, pope Innocent m. ascended the pontifical throne, and while his genius governed the political affairs of Europe, directed the arms of the crusaders against Constantinople, controlled or menaced the monarchs of Germany,

Spain, France, or Hungary, it inspected the spiritual state of Christendom, observed the growth of heresy, and put forth its energies to arrest the progress of that mental power which was inimical to the boundless sway of the mortal man whom his subjects could ignorantly dare to style "Our Lord God the Pope !"

Two Cistercian monks, armed with full authority, were sent to Languedoc; but, notwithstanding their violent proceedings, even to an abuse of their powers, they met with so little success, and found the number of heretics so vast, that it was determined still more strenuous measures should be taken.

Every true friend to the church was called on to deliver up even his brother to death, if he continued in opposition to it; they were forbidden to have any dealings with the heretics; "so that they, being in want of the necessaries of life, may be compelled to submit to the church."

Raymond, count of Toulouse, was the chief of the princes who refused to murder, or cause to be murdered, his unoffending subjects; and he was, therefore, accused of being himself infected by their heresy.

Dominic, the Spaniard, and the father of the Inquisition, and Francis d'Assise, the founder of the Franciscan order, at this time earned the title of Saint, conferred upon them by their church. Two and two, their barefooted preaching monks were sent out, to draw from the simple, and perhaps incautiously zealous people,

a statement of their doctrines, which were sometimes, perhaps, erroneously described, and at others wilfully misrepresented; gaining also, in this way, a knowledge of the most eminent of the Provençal heretics.

The true adherents of Rome were asked why they did not unite to exterminate their heretical The answer was, neighbours. 66 They are our friends; we live among them, and see the goodness of their lives." But a favourable opportunity for putting down by force what neither threats nor arguments could lessen, was offered at this juncture, by an interval of repose to the tumult caused in Europe by the crusades to the east for the recovery of the holy land, or of the holy sepulchre. There were many idle arms in France; and a crusade against the Albigenses was proposed, instead of one against the Turks. A council was held concerning them at a place named Albi, from which, it is most probable, the above name was given to the Protestants of Languedoc and Provence.

Count Raymond of Toulouse was one o those mild, but uncertain and undecided characters who, however friendly to truth they may be found, and, when truth meets no great opposition, are, in the event of a contest, more likely to injure, than to sustain, the cause to which they are attached. His was a struggle for the preservation of his own rights, and for his own dominions; but in that struggle were blended the spiritual interests, the lives, and