THE MASSACRE OF AVIGNONET. 35 been one of the conditions on which his suspicious relations with Trencavel had been condoned. In fact, he made some show of be- sieging it during the same year^ but success would have been most damaging to the plans which he was nursing, and his efforts can scarce have been more than a cover for mihtary preparations des- tined to a far different object. The French army, after the sup- pression of the rising, also laid siege to Montsegur, but were un- able to effect its reduction.* On Ascension night, 1242, while Pierre CeUa was tranquilly winding up his work at Montauban, the world was startled with the news that a holocaust of the terrible inquisitors had been made at Avignonet, a little town about twelve leagues from Toulouse. The stern Guillem Arnaud and the courteous Etienne de Saint- Thibery were making, hke their colleague Pierre Cella, a circuit through the district subjected to their mercy. Some of their sen- tences which have been preserved show that in J^ovember, 1241, they were laboring at Lavaur and at Saint-Paul de Caujoux, and in the spring of 1242 they came to Avignonet.f Eaymond d'Al- faro was its bailli for the count, who was his uncle through his mother, Guillemetta, a natural daughter of Eaymond YI. When he heard that the inquisitors and their assistants were coming he lost no time in preparing for their destruction. A swift messen- ger was despatched to the heretics of Montsegur, and in answer to his summons Pierre Koger of Mirepoix, with a number of knights and their retainers, started at once. They halted in the forest of Gaiac, near Avignonet, where food was brought them, and they were joined by about thirty armed men of the vicinage, who wait- ed with them till after nightfall. Had this plot failed, d'Alfaro had arranged another for an ambuscade on the road to Castelnau- dary, and the fact that so extensive a conspiracy could be organ- ized on the spot, without finding a traitor to betray it, shows how general was the hate that had been earned by the cruel work of the Inquisition. Not less significant is the fact that on their re- turn to Montsegur the murderers were hospitably entertained at the Chateau de Saint-Fehx by a priest who was cognizant of their bloody deed. The victims came unsuspectingly to the trap. There were
- Pelisso Chron. pp. 49-50. - Coll. DoatTxXII. 316-~17, 234,228 -Schmidt
Cathares I. 315, 324. t Coll. Doat, XXI. 153, 155, 158. '
