ing souls and consenting to murders, listening to false counsel and lighting horrible fires, destroying the barons and degrading the nobility, depriving men of their lands and encouraging violence, strangling women and innocent children, if by such means, a man can in this world gain the kingdom of Christ, then the Count must indeed wear a crown, and shine resplendent in Heaven."*

Neither the death of Montfort, nor that of Raymond, which occurred in 1223, put an end to the war. It was continued by their successors. A new crusade was preached against Raymond VII., who had succeeded his father, and Louis VIII. of France headed the army. In 1229, both parties, exhausted by the war, and ardently desiring to put an end to it, agreed to sign a treaty of peace at Meaux. On the 12th of April of that year, the Count of Toulouse solemnly swore, in the great church of Notre Dame, in Paris, to observe this treaty, humiliating to him as its stipulations were. By this act, he promised allegiance to the king of France, and thus prepared the way for the final destruction of the independence of the South.

"Thus terminated," says Mr. Schmidt, "the war against the Albigenses. It was productive of the most important consequences, as well for Languedoc as for the rest of France. At first, the destruction of the heresy had been not only the pretext, but the real cause, of the war; soon, however, this ceased to be any thing more than a pretext to obtain objects, in which the interests of the Catholic faith were but little concerned. Political and national interests were soon blended with those of the Church, and it was not long before they formed the principal motives for continuing the war, although they were still veiled under the name of religion. This war was one between the citizens and knights of the south and the northern barons, who were allied with a fanatic and ambitious clergy. It was a war of violence against right, and, as a poet expresses it,—of fraud against honesty.' It prepared the way for the extinction of the nationality peculiar to the south of France, and the amalgamation of this generous and illustrious population with the rest of the nation. If this result is one in which we should rejoice, the honor of it does not belong to those who effected it from motives of ven

* See "Histoire en Vers de la Croisade contre les Herétiques Albigeois," pub lished by the late M. Fauriel, in the valuable Collection of Documents relating to the History of France, and which contains one of the most complete accounts of the Crusade.

Instead of

geance or hatred, but to that Divine Providence, which is able to make the evil actions of men work for good. As far as the primitive object of the crusade, the extirpation of heresy, is concerned, it is certain that the crusade did not accomplish it. The heresy continued to reign with as much power in Languedoc after the crusade, as when Innocent III. first undertook to destroy it by the force of arms. The indignation to which the horrors committed during the war, the ruin of the prosperity of the country, the destruction of its nationality and religious independence, and of the joyous and poetic mode of life in the south, gave rise, lent new strength to the heresy. For the nobility, as well as the other classes of society, attributed the misfortunes which befell their country, not merely to the cruelty of the northern French, but still more to the perfidiousness and fanaticism of the clergy. To the cours d'amour had succeeded the tribunals of the Inquisition; 'the gay science had made way for an ardent theological controversy, the principal argument of which was the stake. the poets and story-tellers who had travelled through the country, only the gloomy figures of monks could be seen; and in that land where formerly the glorious exploits of past ages had been sung, nothing was heard but sermons urging the population to religious persecution. Many castles were occupied by the foreign conquerors, whilst the former inmates, excommunicated by the Church, lived either in exile or hidden in the thick forest. It is easy to imagine the effect which such a change must have produced on the ardent imagination of the inhabitants of these southern climes. Far from becoming more attached to the Church, they conceived against it an implacable hatred. This feeling bursts forth with energy in the lays of the last Provençal poets, who complain bitterly that all their pleasures have faded away. They no longer sing either love or chivalry. They only write to lament the decline of their native country, and to accuse the French, the clergy, and above all, the Pope. These lays, which breathe only sadness or revenge, were eagerly listened to by a people so easily moved by the power of poetry; they kept up that feeling of enmity which made them regard the French of the north as oppressors, and by fortifying them in their resistance to a Church, which, in order to gain them over to her faith, had had recourse to such barbarous means, confirmed them in their attachment to the Catharist sect."

Owing to these circumstances, it was not till the middle of the fourteenth century that the heresy entirely disappeared. The persecutions of the Inquisition were at last successful. The temporal and spiritual power were closely associated in the work of destruction. The archives of the tribunals of the

Inquisition established in Languedoc bear witness to the zeal with which this odious persecution was carried on. Abandoned by the powerful barons, who had so long protected them, and weakened in numbers, the Cathari ceased to resist, and gradually renounced their faith. But the spirit which had so long sustained them in opposition was not crushed. Other heretics arose in their place; and when, after several centuries, owing to the progress of civilization, and, above all, to the invention of printing, an irretrievable schism took place in the Church, it was in those cities, in those parts of the country where the Cathari had been the most numerous, that Protestant communities were most firmly established. It is, indeed, a spiritual affinity between the faith of the Cathari and that of Protestants which makes us sympathize with the former, rather than any positive resemblance between their doctrines and those of the modern Reformers. Viewed as a theological or a philosophical system, the Catharist heresy would be entitled to little respect; but the spirit of those who, in adopting it, opposed the power of Rome and endeavored to reform its abuses, must strongly excite our admiration. The system itself is so defective, it gives such erroneous views of man and of his relations to his Creator, it is so strongly imbued with errors derived from paganism, that it could only have been so widely spread as it was in a rude age and among an illiterate people. And it is doubtful whether it would have found so many believers even in such an age, had it not been for the many circumstances which combined to favor its growth. The contrast which the pure lives of the Cathari offered to those of the Catholic clergy, the comparative simplicity of their worship, and above all, the violent measures to which the Church resorted in order to extirpate the heresy, could not have failed to gain many over to their cause. Religious liberty, the liberty of the human mind to speculate on the highest subjects offered to its meditation, and to conclude according to the degree of light which has been imparted to it, cannot be destroyed by such means as the Catholic Church adopted against the Cathari. The more

it is persecuted, the more powerful it becomes. Those who proclaim its sacred principles before the time marked by Providence for their reception may perish, but from their ashes will arise others, who in their turn will strive for this

noble cause, and ultimately triumph. Thus it was with the Cathari. They, like many other of the heretical sects of the Middle Ages, were but the predecessors of more fortunate reformers, who, coming at a more enlightened period of the world's history, were enabled to establish on an imperishable basis the religious freedom of mankind.

ART. X.-1. Les Guerres d'Idiome et de Nationalité: Tableaux, Esquisses, et Souvenirs d'Histoire Contemporaine. Par M. PAUL DE BOURGOING, Ancien Ministre de France en Russie et en Allemagne. Paris. 1849.

2. Austria. By EDWARD P. THOMPSON, ESQ., Author of "Life in Russia, or the Discipline of Despotism." London Smith, Elder & Co. 1849. 12mo. pp. 419. 3. The Annual Register, or a View of the History and Politics of the Year 1848. London: F. & J. Rivington. 1849. 8vo. pp. 456 & 483.

4. A Brief Explanatory Report as to the Termination of the Hungarian Struggle, the Capitulation of the Fortress of Comorn, and the Objects, Probable Extent, and Other Circumstances of the Hungarian Emigration. New York: J. M. Elliott, Printer. 1850. 8vo. pp. 22.

GOLDSMITH tells us, in one of his delightful essays, that "an alehouse-keeper near Islington, who had long lived at the sign of the French king, upon the commencement of the last war with France, pulled down his old sign, and put up the Queen of Hungary. Under the influence of her red face and golden sceptre, he continued to sell ale till she was no longer the favorite of his customers; he changed her, therefore, some time ago for the King of Prussia, who may probably be changed in turn for the next great man who shall be set up for vulgar admiration."

The republican sympathies of the people of this country, so far as they are indicated in the newspapers and the speeches of ambitious politicians, appear to have shifted from

one object to another about as often as the honest publican of Islington changed his sign. Hardly two years ago, we were called upon to admire that strange phenomenon, a liberal and reforming Pope, almost a republican, we were told, — who had given a free constitution to his people, and pardoned all political offenders. Portraits of the excellent Pio Nono were exposed for sale in all our printshops, and for ornament in most Protestant drawing-rooms. Now, the same Pope is the object of the fiercest invective and obloquy; he has recovered his old titles; he is once more a despot and a tyrant, Antichrist and the Man of Sin. His portrait was ignominiously taken down, and engravings of Ledru Rollin, Louis Blanc, and Lamartine occupied its place. Public meetings were convoked to send addresses of congratulation to the new French republic, and the members of the Provisional Government were our idols for almost four months. But the insurrection of June gave a rude shock to their popularity, and a few persons among us were allowed timidly to express their doubts of the discretion, the disinterestedness, and the immaculate patriotism of these February heroes. They have now sunk wholly out of sight, and their names are seldom mentioned but with some expression of pity or contempt. Charles Albert, a king with democratic tendencies, next ruled in our republican hearts for a fortnight, till his glory was eclipsed by that of Mazzini and Garibaldi, the one a veteran conspirator, and the other a brigand and the leader of brigands. Cavaignac, who had become almost a hero in our esteem after he had so gallantly put down with sharp shot the insurgents of Paris, was execrated for fitting out an expedition to do precisely the same thing to the insurgents of Rome. Yet some doubted whether the assassins of Count Rossi and the venerable Palma did not as richly deserve condign punishment as the murderers of General Brea and the Archbishop of Paris.

It is humiliating to look back upon changes of opinion so frequent and violent as these; to be obliged to confess that we have wasted our honest enthusiasm, mistaken our men, and lavished upon demagogues, savage fanatics, or disguised supporters of despotism, the admiration which was intended for the brave, enlightened, and disinterested champions of human freedom and defenders of their country's rights. Our