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248 contributions into its treasury from the rich South dwindled to nothing. What to the Pope was even more serious was that his authority was openly flouted.

Pope Innocent—is there not bitter satire in the name—in 1203 sent a legate into the southern provinces, Peter of Castelnau by name. This man visited Toulouse, but his efforts there to confute the heresy failed completely. Hopeless of success and mortified in his vanity Peter appealed to Pope Innocent to adopt drastic measures, and Innocent bade him require Raymond, Count of Toulouse, to suppress Albigensianism throughout his dominions by fire and sword. He was ordered, on pain of excommunication, to become the inquisitor and executioner of his subjects. At the same time he deposed Raymond, Bishop of Toulouse, an amiable, liberal-minded man, and put in his place the firebrand Foulques, who had been a troubadour, and notorious for his licentious verses.

Raymond VI of Toulouse promptly refused to do what was required of him, whereupon Innocent, in 1207, pronounced his excommunication.

Possibly the Count may have let slip some expression of disgust at the conduct of the papal legate, and a wish to be well rid of him, as did Henry II with reference to Becket. The result was the same; a knight killed Peter of Castelnau in 1208 as he was crossing the Rhone. This filled up the measure of Innocent's wrath. He hurled the most dreadful imprecations against the Count, and loudly summoned all Christendom to a war of extermination against the Albigenses. "Anathema to the Count of Toulouse! Remission of all sins to such as arm against these pestilential Provincials. Go forward, soldiers of Christ! May the heretics perish out of the land, and let colonies of Christians be established in their room!"