Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/68

g2 LANGUEDOC. ited knights, hQfaidits, and the heretics had sought to estabUsh among the mountains some stronghold where they could feel safe for a moment. Driven from one retreat after another, they finally took possession of the castle of Queribus, in the Pyrenees of Fe- nouiUedes. In the early spring of 1255 this last refuge was be- sieged by Pierre d'Auteuil, the royal Seneschal of Carcassonne. The defence was stubborn. May 5 the seneschal appealed to the bishops sitting in council at Beziers to give him assistance, as they had done so energetically at Montsegur. The reply of the prel- ates was commendably cautious. They were not bound, they said, to render mihtary ser^nce to the king, and when they had joined his armies it had been by command of a legate or of their primate, the Archbishop of Narbonne. Nevertheless, as common report described Queribus as a receptacle of heretics, thieves, and robbers, and its reduction was a good work for the faith and for peace, they would each - one, without derogating from his rights, furnish such assistance as seemed to him fitting. It may be as- sumed from this that the seneschal had to do the work unaided ; in fact, he complained to the king that the prelates rather impeded than assisted him, but by August the place was in his hands, and nothing remained for the outlaws but the forest and the caverns. In that savage region the dense undergrowth afforded many a hiding-place, and an attempt was made to cut away the briers and thorns which served as shelter for ruined noble and hunted Catha- ran. The work was undertaken by a certain Bernard, who thence acquired the name of Espinasser or thorn-cutter. Popular hatred has preserved his remembrance, and expresses its sentiment m a myth which gibbets him in the moon.* With the land at its feet, the Inquisition, in the plenitude of its power, had no hesitation in attacking the loftiest nobles, for aU men were on a level in the eyes of the Most High, and the Holy Office was the avenger of God. The most powerful vassal of the houses of Toulouse and Aragon was the Count of Foix, whose ex- tensive territories on both sides of the Pyrenees rendered him al- most independent in his mountain fastnesses. Count Roger Ber. nard II., known as the Great, had been one of the bravest and - Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1255.-Vaissette, III. 482-3; TV. 17.- A. Molinier (Vaissette, Ed. Privat, VL 843).-Peyrat, op. cit. III. 54.