ever chose to take them, the
wealth and possessions of the offender. So thoroughly was he seconded by
the preaching of the monks, that half a million of men, it is affirmed,
took up arms.

[Sidenote: and disciplines him.] For the count there remained nothing
but to submit. He surrendered up his strong places, was compelled to
acknowledge the crimes alleged against him, and the justice of his
punishment. He swore that he would no longer protect heretics. Stripped
naked to his middle, with a rope round his neck, he was led to the
altar, and there scourged. But the immense army that had assembled was
not to be satisfied by these inflictions on an individual, though the
pope might be. They had come for blood and plunder, and blood and
plunder they must have. Then followed such scenes of horror as the sun
had never looked on before. The army was officered by Roman and French
prelates; bishops were its generals, an archdeacon its engineer.
[Sidenote: Atrocities of the Crusaders in the South of France.] It was
the Abbot Arnold, the legate of the pope, who, at the capture of
Beziers, was inquired of by a soldier, more merciful or more weary of
murder than himself, how he should distinguish and save the Catholic
from the heretic. "Kill them all," he exclaimed; "God will know his
own." At the Church of St. Mary Magdalene 7000 persons were massacred,
the infuriated Crusaders being excited to madness by the wicked
assertion that these wretches had been guilty of the blasphemy of
saying, in their merriment, "S. Mariam Magdalenam fuisse concubinam
Christi." It was of no use for them to protest their innocence. In the
town twenty thousand were slaughtered, and the place then fired, to be
left a monument of papal vengeance. At the massacre of Lavaur 400 people
were burned in one pile; it is remarked that "they made a wonderful
blaze, and went to burn everlastingly in hell." Language has no powers
to express the atrocities that took place at the capture of the
different towns. Ecclesiastical vengeance rioted in luxury. The soil was
steeped in the blood of men--the air polluted by their burning.
[Sidenote: Institution of the Inquisition.] From the reek of murdered
women, mutilated children, and ruined cities, the Inquisition, that
infernal institution, arose. Its projectors intended it not only to put
an end to public teaching, but even to private thought. In the midst of
these awful events, Innocent was called to another tribunal to ren