PROSECUTIONS AT ALBI. ^j Encouraged by the crippling and suspension of the Inquisition, the Catharan propaganda had 'been at work with renewed vigor. In 1299 the Council of Beziers sounded the alarm by announcing that perfected heretics had made their appearance in the land, and ordering close search made after them. At Albi, Bishop Bernard was, as usual, at variance with his flock, yho were pleading against him in the royal court to preserve their jurisdiction. The occa- sion was opportune. He called to his assistance the inquisitors Nicholas d' Abbeville and Bertrand de Clermont, and towards the close of the year 1299 the town was startled by the arrest of twenty-five of the wealthiest and most respected citizens, whose regular attendance at mass and observance of all religious duties had rendered them above suspicion. The trials were pushed with unusual celerity, and, from the manner in which those who at first denied were speedily brought to confession and to revealing the names of their associates, there was doubtless good ground for the popular belief that torture was ruthlessly and unsparingly used ; in fact, allusions to it in the final sentence of Guillem Calverie, one of the victims, leave no doubt on the subject. Abjuration saved them from the stake, but the sentence of perpetual impris- onment in chains was a doubtful mercy for those who were sen- tenced, while a number were kept interminably in jail awaiting judgment.* The whole country was ripe for revolt. The revival of Phi- lippe's quarrel with Boniface soon gave assurance that help might be expected from the throne ; but if this should fail there would be scant hesitation on the part of desperate men in looking for some other sovereign who would lend an ear to their complaints. The arrest and trial for treason of the Bishop of Pamiers, in 1301, shows us what was then the undercurrent of popular feeling in Languedoc, where the Frenchman was still a hated stranger, the king a foreign despot, and the people discontented and ready to shift their allegiance to either England or Aragon whenever they could see their advantage in it. The fragile tenure with which de ITnq. de Care. (Doat, XXXII. 283).— Vaissette, IV. 91 ; Pr. 100-2.-Lib. Sen- tentt. Inq. Tolos. pp. 282-5.— Coll. Doat, XXXIV. 21.
- Concil. Biterrens. ann. 1299, c. 3 (Vaissette, IV. 96).— MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds
latin. No. 4270, fol. 264, 270.— Archives de I'Evechg d'Albi (Doat, XXXV. 69). —MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin. No. 11847.— Lib. Sententt. Inquis. Tolos. p. 266.
