Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/108

 Q2 LANGUEDOC. of good augury. Hardly had the news of his election reached Albi when Frere Bernard was busy in organizing a mission to represent to him in the name of the city the necessity of relief, and when he visited Toulouse the wives of the prisoners, still lan- guishing in confinement, were taken thither to make their woes emphaticaUy known. Hardly had he been consecrated at Lyons when these complaints poured in and were substantiated by two Dominicans, Bertrand Blanc and Francois Aimeric, who were as emphatic as the representatives of Albi in their denunciations of inquisitorial methods and abuses. Geoffroi d' Ablis hurried thither from Carcassonne to defend himself in such haste that he left no one to take his place, and was obhged to send from Lyons, Septem- ber 29 1305, a commission to Jean de Faugoux and Gerald de Blumac to act in his stead. In this paper his fiery fanaticism breathes forth in his denunciations of the horrid beasts, the cruel beasts, who are ravaging the vineyard of the Lord, and who are to be tracked to their dens and extirpated with unsparing rigor.* His efforts to justify the Inquisition were unavaihng, more especiaUy, perhaps, because the people of Albi bribed Cardinal Kaymond de Goth, the pope's nephew, with two thousand hvres Tournois, the Cardinal of Santa Croce with as much, and the Car- dinal Pier Colonna with five hundred. March 13, 1306, Clement commissioned two cardinals, Pierre of San Yitale (afterwards of Palestrina) and Berenger of SS. Nereo and Achille (afterwards of Frascati), who were about to pass through Languedoc on a mis- sion, to investigate and make such temporary changes as they should find necessary. The people of Carcassonne, Albi, and Cordes had offered to prove that good Catholics were forced to confess heresy through the stress of torture and the horrors of the prisons, and further that the records of the Inquisition were altered and falsified. Until the investigation was completed, the inquis- itors were not to consign to strict prison or to inflict torture on ■ de Care. (Doat, XXXII. 83). , . . . Geoffrors stay at Lyons was prolonged. November 29, we find liim issuing commissions to those appointed by his deputies (Doat, XXXII. 85). Jean de Fancroux had been connected with the Inquisition for at least twenty years (Doat, XXXII. 125). (
 * MSS. Bib. Nat., fonds latin, 4270, fol. 10-11, 84, 128, 166-7.-Arcli. de Ilnq.