by the magnitude of the force brought against them, and also by Simon’s sinister reputation, that they surrendered the place almost immediately.  But when the army was campaigning elsewhere, these burghers, growing bold again, attacked the garrison that had been left in the town and castle, and distinguished themselves by one of those treacherous massacres which were among the small incidents of that ruthless war.  When Simon reappeared in the Albigeois, the people of Ambialet, cowards again, laid down their arms.  The castle was soon afterwards the meeting-place of De Montfort and Raymond VI.; but the interview, which it was hoped would lead to peace, had no such result, and the war was carried on in Languedoc and Guyenne with renewed fury.

[Illustration:  AMBIALET.]

Ambialet was enjoying comparative freedom and self-government in an age when many a town was still in the midnight darkness of feudal servitude.  It had its communal liberties and organization before the eleventh century.  There is a very interesting charter in existence, dated 1136, by which Roger, Viscount of Beziers and Albi, recognises and confirms these liberties.  Although it opens in Latin, the body of the charter is in the Romance language.  It shows that the idiom of Southern Gaul in the twelfth century was a little nearer the Latin than that which is spoken now.  The document is full of curious information.  It tells us that the inhabitants of Ambialet were liable to be fined if they did not keep the street in front of their houses clean.  Perhaps the towns in the South of France were less foul in the twelfth century than most of them are now.  We learn, too, that the profits in connection with the most necessary trades were fixed in the interest of the greater number.  Thus, the butchers were required to take oath that they would reserve for their own profit no more than the head of the animal that they killed.  What sort of face would a butcher of to-day make if he were asked to work on such terms?  The tavern-keepers had to take oath that they would buy no wine outside of the boundaries of the viscounty of Ambialet, which shows what was thought in the twelfth century of the practice of purchasing in the cheapest market to the neglect of communal interests.  The price of wine, like that of bread, was fixed, and five worthies (prohomes) were appointed to examine weights and measures, and to confiscate those which were not just.  The concluding part of the charter confirms the right of the youth of Ambialet to their traditional festivals and merry-making:  ’E volem e auctreiam que lo Rei del Joven d’Ambilet puesco far sas festas, tener sos senescals e sos jutges, e sos sirvens e sos officials,’ etc.  The whole passage is worth giving in English, because historians tell us very little about the festive manners of the twelfth century: