the native princes of Southern France and the foreign conquerors.  The primitive, religious character of the crusade wore off more and more; worldly ambition and the spirit of conquest became more and more predominant; and the question lay far less between catholics and heretics than between the old and new masters of the country, between the independence of the southern people and the triumph of warriors come from the north of France, that is to say, between two different races, civilizations, and languages.  Raymond vi. and his son recovered thenceforth certain supports and opportunities of which hitherto the accusation of heresy and the judgments of the court of Rome had robbed them; their neighboring allies and their secret or intimidated partisans took fresh courage; the fortune of battle became shifty; successes and reverses were shared by both sides; and not only many small places and castles, but the largest towns, Toulouse amongst others, fell into the hands of each party alternately.  Innocent iii.’s successor in the Holy See, Pope Honorius iii., though at first very pronounced in his opposition to the Albigensians, had less ability, less perseverance, and less influence than his predecessor.  Finally, on the 20th of June, 1218, Simon de Montfort, who had been for nine months unsuccessfully besieging Toulouse, which had again come into the possession of Raymond vi., was killed by a shower of stones, under the walls of the place, and left to his son Amaury the inheritance of his war and his conquests, but not of his vigorous genius and his warlike renown.

[Illustration:  Death of De Montfort——­104]

The struggle still dragged on for five years with varied fortune on each side, but Amaury de Montfort was losing ground every day, and Raymond vi., when he died in August, 1222, had recovered the greater part of his dominions.  His son, Raymond VII., continued the war for eighteen months longer, with enough of popular favor and of success to make his enemies despair of recovering their advantages; and, on the 14th of January, 1224, Amaury de Montfort, after having concluded with the Counts of Toulouse and Foix a treaty which seemed to have only a provisional character, “went forth,” says the History of Languedoc, “with all the French from Carcassonne, and left forever the country which his house had possessed for nearly fourteen years.”  Scarcely had he arrived at the court of Louis VIII., who had just succeeded his father, Philip Augustus, when he ceded to the King of France his rights over the domains which the crusaders had conquered by a deed conceived in these terms:  “Know that we give up to our Lord Louis, the illustrious King of the French, and to his heirs forever, to dispose of according to their pleasure, all the privileges and gifts that the Roman Church did grant unto our father Simon of pious memory, in respect of the countship of Toulouse and other districts in Albigeois; supposing that the pope do accomplish all the demands made to him by the king through the Archbishop of Bourges, and the Bishops of Langres and Chartres; else, be it known for certain that we cede not to any one aught of all these domains.”