Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/91

Rh The case of Castel Fabri might have passed unnoticed, like thousands of others, had it not chanced to bring into collision with the Inquisition the lector of the convent of Carcassonne. Bernard Délicieux was no ordinary man, in fact a contemporary assures us that in the whole Franciscan Order there were few who were his equals. Entering the Order about 1284, his position of lector or teacher shows the esteem felt for his learning, for the Mendicants were ever careful in selecting those to whom they confided such functions; and, moreover, we find him in relations with the leading minds of the age, such as Raymond Lully and Arnaldo de Vilanova. His eloquence made him much in request as preacher; his persuasiveness enabled him to control those with whom he came in contact, while his enthusiastic ardor prompted him to make any sacrifices necessary to a cause which had once enlisted his sympathies. He was no latitudinarian or time-server, for when the split came in his own Order he embraced, to his ruin, the side of the Spiritual Franciscans, with the same disregard of self as he had manifested in his dealings with the Inquisition. He was no admirer of toleration, for he devoutly wished the extermination of heresy, but experience and observation had convinced him that in Dominican hands the Inquisition was merely an instrument of oppression and extortion, and he imagined that by transferring it to the Franciscans its usefulness would be preserved while its evils would be removed. Boniface VIII., as we have seen, about this time replaced the Franciscan inquisitors of Padua and Vicenza with Dominicans for the purpose of repressing similar evils, and in the jealousy and antagonism between the two orders the converse operation might seem worth attempting in Languedoc. In the hope of alleviating the sufferings of the people, Bernard devoted himself to the cause for years, incurring obloquy, persecution, and ingratitude. Those whom he sought to serve allowed him to sell his books in their service, and to cripple himself with debt, while the enmities which he excited hounded him relentlessly to the death. Yet in the struggle he had the sympathies of his own Order which everywhere throughout Languedoc manifested itself