Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/30

 j^ LANGUEDOC. in the troubles a year's service in Palestine or against the Moors of Spain*, ^. . .,„ In Toulouse, the centre both of heresy and persecution, in spite of mutterings and menaces, open opposition to the Inquisition was postponed longer than elsewhere. Although Count Raymond is constantly represented by the Church party as the chief opi^onent of the Holy Office, it was probably his influence that succeeded m staving off so long the ine^'itable rupture. Hard experience from childhood could scarce have rendered him a fervent Catholic, yet that experience had shown him that the favor and protection of the Church were indispensable if he would retain the remnant of territory and power that had been left to him. He could not as vet be at heart a persecutor of heresy, yet he could not afford to antagonize the Church. It was important for him to retam the love and good-will of his subjects and to prevent the desolation of his cities and lordships, but it was yet more important for him to escape the stigma of favoring heresy, and to avoid calling down upon his head a renewal of the storm in which hehad been so nearly wrecked. Few princes have had a more difficult part to plav, with dangers besetting him on every side, and if he earned the" reputation of a trimmer without reUgious convictions, that reputation and his retention of his position till his death are per- haps the best proof of the fundamental wisdom which guided his necessarily tortuous course. Pierre Cardinal, the Troubadour, de- scribes him as defending himself from the assaults of the worst of men, as fearing neither the Frenchman nor the ecclesiastic, and as humble only with the good.+, , . , ,■ „„ He was always at odds with his prelates. Intricate questions with regard to the temporalities were a constant source of quarrel, and he lived under a perpetual reduplication of excommunications, . Vaissette, III. 402-3, 406; Pr. 370-1, 379-81. - Coll. Doat, XXXI. 33.- Teulet, Layettes, II. 321, 324. t " Car del pejors homes que son Se defen et de tot le mond ; Que Franses ni clergia Ni las autras gens ne I'affront; Mas als bos s'humilia Et I'mal confond." (Peyrat, Les Albigeois et Vlnquisition, VI. 394).