ere two recreant troubadours, Izarn, who leaves us his
version of the fall of Provence, and Folquet, now Bishop of Toulouse,
who is so cruel, so bitter, so treacherous in the cause of Christ that
one enjoys hearing him called by the troubadour nickname "Bishop of
Devils." More terrible than Folquet, because more sincere, was one
Domingo, canon of Osma, a man of almost puritanic habits of mind, famous
in history as the founder of the order of _Fratres Predicatores_, the
Dominican Preaching Friars, and of an institution not less well
known--the Inquisition. The military leader who really broke the back of
the resistance in Provence was Simon de Montfort. The siege and capture
of Beziers, where a number of those accused of heresy had taken refuge,
will serve to show in what spirit the whole war was conducted. When
Beziers was taken the soldiers asked Abbot Arnold, of Citeaux, who
represented the Church of Mercy: "How shall we distinguish the faithful
from the heretics among the people of the town?" The priest answered:
_Caedite eos, novit enim Dominus qui sunt ejus_: "Kill them all, for the
Lord will know His own." In this spirit the Albigensian war continued,
with occasional respites, for more than thirty years. Over the land of
the troubadours brooded the menacing figure of the Inquisition; and fair
women no less than men knew the sinister meaning of "_La Question_" the
inquisition by torture, by scores of devices of ingenious cruelty, of
which the "rack" and the iron "boot" are best remembered. The brilliant
life of the south was extinguished. We hear the piteous wail of the fast
disappearing singers: "Oh! Toulouse and Provence, land of Agen, Beziers,
and Carcassonne; as I have seen you, and as I see you now!"

While Provencal literature was thus perishing miserably, that of France
was gradually unfolding; and we find here and there some _grande dame_
named as a patroness of literature. Most of them are but names, yet we
find that the Countess Marie de Champagne, Queen Eleanor's daughter,
encouraged the great _trouvere_ Chrestien de Troies. She made him
introduce into his romances the notions of love and chivalry fostered in
the Courts of Love, and gave him the theme of his romance of _Lancelot_,
or _Le conte de la Charrette_ (about 1170). For Blanche de Navarre was
made a prose translation of saints' lives. A poet named Menessier
completed, about 1220, for the Countess Jeanne de Flandre a poem on
Perceval and his search