Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/35

 TROUBLES AT TOULOUSE. 19 house were they ill-treated, and even there, when the sons of the person cited drew knives upon them, the bystanders interfered. There was evidently nothing to be done with men who thus courted martyrdom. To gratify them would be suicidal, and the consuls decided to expel them. On being informed of this the prior distributed among trusty friends the books and sacred ves- sels and vestments of the convent. The next day (JSTov. 5 or 6, 1235) the friars, after mass, sat down to their simple meal, during which the consuls came with a great crowd and threatened to break in the door. The friars marched in procession to their church, where they took their seats, and when the consuls entered and commanded them to depart they refused. Then each was seized and violently led forth, two of them who threw themselves on the ground near the door being picked up by the hands and feet and carried out. Thus they were accompanied through the town, but not otherwise maltreated, and they turned the affair into a procession, marching two by two and singing Te Deum and Salve Kegina. At first they went to a farm belonging to the church of Saint-Etienne, but the consuls posted guards to see that nothing was furnished to them, and the next day the prior dis- tributed them among the convents of the province. That the whole affair enlisted for them the S3riiipathies of the faithful was shown by two persons of consideration joining them and entering the Order while it was going on.* It is significant of the position which Guillem Arnaud's stead- fastness had already won for his office that to him was conceded the vindication of this series of outrages on the immunity of the Church. Bishop Raymond had joined him in Carcassonne without anathe- matizing the authors of his exile, but now the anathema prompt- ly went forth, November 10, 1235, uttered by the inquisitor with the names of the Bishops of Toulouse and Carcassonne appended as assenting witnesses. It was confined to the consuls, but Count Eaymond was not allowed to escape the responsibility. The ex- communication was sent to the Franciscans of Toulouse for publi- cation, and when they obeyed they too were expelled, in no gen- (Martene Thesaur. VI. 460-1).— Epistt. Sseculi XIII. T. L No. 688 (Mon. Germ. Hist.).— Guill. Pod. Laur. c. 43.
 * Pelisso Chron. pp. 30-40. — Bern. Guidon. Hist. Fundat. Convent. Praedicat.