ount
of Toulouse, the Abbot of Citeaux, a legate of the pope, assembled the
principal chiefs of the crusaders that they might choose one amongst them
as lord and governor of their conquests. The offer was made,
successively, to Eudes, Duke of Burgundy, to Peter de Courtenay, Count of
Nevers, and to Walter de Chatilion, Count of St. Paul; but they all three
declined, saying that they had sufficient domains of their own without
usurping those of the Viscount of Beziers, to whom, in their opinion,
they had already caused enough loss. The legate, somewhat embarrassed,
it is said, proposed to appoint two bishops and four knights, who, in
concert with him, should choose a new master for the conquered
territories. The proposal was agreed to, and, after some moments of
hesitation, Simon de Montfort, being elected by this committee, accepted
the proffered domains, and took imdiate possession of them on publication
of a charter conceived as follows: "Simon, Lord of Montfort, Earl of
Leicester, Viscount of Beziers and Carcassonne. The Lord having
delivered into my hands the lands of the heretics, an unbelieving people,
that is to say, whatsoever He hath thought fit to take from them by the
hand of the crusaders, His servants, I have accepted humbly and devoutly
this charge and administration, with confidence in His aid." The pope
wrote to him forthwith to confirm him in hereditary possession of his new
dominions, at the same time expressing to him a hope that, in concert
with the legates, he would continue to carry out the extirpation of the
heretics. The dispossessed Viscount, Raymond Roger, having been put in
prison by his conqueror in a tower of Carcassonne itself, died there at
the end of three months, of disease according to some, and a violent
death according to others; but the latter appears to be a groundless
suspicion, for it was not to cowardly and secret crimes that Simon de
Montfort was inclined.

From this time forth the war in Southern France changed character, or,
rather, it assumed a double character; with the war of religion was
openly joined a war of conquest; it was no longer merely against the
Albigensians and their heresies, it was against the native princes of
Southern France and their domains that the crusade was prosecuted. Simon
de Montfort was eminently qualified to direct and accomplish this twofold
design: sincerely fanatical and passionately ambitious; of a valor that
knew no fatigue; handsome a