Montfort (meditatively)—"I was thinking of that—there is nothing to expect from him. (Deliberately to Karvel) Do you persist in your heresy?"
Karvel—"Hear, Montfort: at Chasseneuil, at Beziers, at Carcassonne, at Termes, at Minerve, in all the places whither the Army of the Faith carried ravage and murder, women, maids and children who escaped the massacre and were by you condemned to the pyre, threw themselves heroically into the flames rather than, even with their lips, accept that Roman Church, whose base name causes us disgust and horror. The 'heresy' has passed into our blood; our children have taken it in with their mothers' milk. Not unless you exterminate them all will you have exterminated 'heresy' from this region. The more men, women and children you slay, the vaster the regions of our country that you depopulate and turn into deserts, all the more imperishable will be the monuments raised by yourself and that will teach the next generations to execrate your Church. The air that is breathed in this region has for centuries been so impregnated by the breath of freedom, that breath is so pure and penetrating, that neither the steam from the torrents of blood that you have shed, nor yet the smoke that has gone up from the pyres that you have lighted have been able to contaminate it. Here our ancestors have lived in freedom; here we shall know how to live in freedom or to die; and here our children will emulate us and remain, like ourselves, unshackled by the Church of Rome."
While the Perfect speaks these words Montfort and his wife exchange glances alternately expressive of indignation, horror and amazement. The wan eyes of Alyx of Montmorency fill with tears. She clasps her hands and addresses the count:
"Oh! My heart bleeds like the heart of the Holy Virgin! I take You for witness, Lord God, my divine master! Strengthened by faith against the trials that it has pleased You to afflict me with for my salvation, it is long since I have wept. No; I have seen my father die and my second son; I looked upon their corpses with a tranquil eye, seeing that it was You, Oh my God, who called them unto You. To-day, however, my tears flow when I think of the thousands of poor souls whom the abominable preachings of this monster of perdition may cause to burn everlastingly in hell!"
Montfort (weeping like the countess, whom he closes in his arms)—"Console yourself, dear and saintly wife! Console yourself! We shall pray for the souls that this miscreant has damned. It has pleased the Lord to recall me to life this day. I shall prove my devout recognition by dedicating to pious works a part of the booty that we shall take at Lavaur. I shall establish masses for the repose of the souls of the heretics of this city whom I shall exterminate."
The ingenious idea of masses, especially consecrated to the repose of the souls of the heretics whom Montfort promises himself soon to put to the sword or to consign to the flames, seems to assuage the countess's grief. Suddenly the din of a distant tumult breaks in upon the silence of Montfort's sick chamber. Trumpets are heard sounding from the direction of the camp. Montfort starts, half rises on his couch, listens and cries: "Alyx, it is the call to arms! The besieged must have made a sally! This way, my equerries!—My armor!—Let my horse be saddled." Thus speaking, the count rises half naked on the couch, but enfeebled by the fever and the blood-letting, he is seized with a vertigo, his limbs tremble under him and he drops down on the bed. In dropping, the bandage of the arm unfastens, the recently lanced vein re-opens, and the blood streams out anew. Karvel hastens to the side of Montfort, who lies unconscious on the couch, and seeks to stop the flow of blood while one of the equerries breaks precipitately into the room crying:
"Seigneur!—Seigneur!—To arms!—The camp is broken into!"
Alyx of Montmorency—"What is the meaning of these trumpet blasts? Is there an engagement on?"
The Equerry—"The Seigneurs of Lascy and Limoux were in the neighboring room awaiting the orders of seigneur the count, when a knight rode in in haste to notify them that a large heretic force was seeking to enter the Castle of Lavaur under the cover of night, in order to reinforce the garrison. Hugues of Lascy and Lambert of Limoux immediately rode off with the knight and ordered a call to arms."
Karvel (attending to Montfort)—"Oh! Mylio's songs have not been vain. They have redoubled the courage of the inhabitants of Languedoc!"