Pedro’s intervention promised to be decisive. For four years, in the face of heavy odds, Count Simon had snatched success out of the jaws of hostile circumstance. But now the odds were so overwhelming that only one result seemed possible. In the summer of 1213 any man (no matter what he desired in the matter) estimating the chances of the future would have told you that de Montfort and his little band of Crusaders would be wiped out.
CHAPTER V.
THE ALBIGENSIAN CRUSADE.
MURET AND ITS SEQUEL.
We have seen that everyone, except perhaps de Montfort himself, expected to see the Crusade annihilated. The event proved them wrong. It is fair, therefore, to speak of the rest of the war and the final surrender of the house of Toulouse as the sequel to the amazing action of Muret. For although that final surrender was postponed sixteen years, without Muret there would have been no surrender at all.
Besides its immense result, the campaign of 1213 culminating in the battle of Muret, is interesting as one of the very few conflicts between men of European stock in which a small force has broken and destroyed a force many times larger than itself. That the men of the time realized both the importance and the extraordinary nature of the action is proved by the abundance of record concerning it. Despite this fact, no student of mediæval war will be surprised to learn that the reconstruction of the battle itself remains difficult. It is strange, however, that the evidence as to Pedro’s line of march is almost altogether lacking.
It seems fairly certain that the Aragonese concentrated at Lerida. They could not have marched by the great coast road of the Romans, from Barcelona via Perpignan (a town of Pedro’s) to Narbonne, and then west by Carcassonne on Toulouse, inasmuch as de Montfort strongly held the Carcassonne country. Therefore, to march by this, the natural low-grade route of peace-time, would have exposed the King to the probability of having to fight before his junction with his Languedocian allies. Eliminating the main coast road, there remain two possibilities, the Somport and the Cerdagne, and between them there seems to be no direct evidence whatsoever. To move by Huesca, Jaca, the Somport, and so into friendly Bearn by Oloron, would have put it out of de Montfort’s power to harass the march. A phrase in Vaissete, repeated by Luchaire, to the effect that the king “entered Gascony” appears to tell in favour of the Somport hypothesis. So does the fact that the Aragonese entered Toulouse before moving on Muret. Had he moved by the Cerdagne, Muret would have been directly on his line of march to Toulouse. Nevertheless, the probabilities seem to tell in favour of the Cerdagne. In the first place, Belloc states that the Somport was disused (except locally we may imagine) after “... the new civilization of the Middle Ages had set in with the twelfth century....” The southern side of the Somport, which the army would have had to mount, is excessively steep. Moreover, the bulk of Pedro’s army, as we have already seen, was not Aragonese but anti-clerical Catalan. For the Catalans, the Cerdagne was by far the shortest line into Languedoc.
To move by the Somport would have compelled them to an enormous detour, and, as matters stood, speed was all-important. Their commander could not long keep up any shred of pretence that he had the Pope’s approval of his actions, and must therefore make haste. The choice of Lerida as the point of concentration tells in favour of the Cerdagne. Had the Aragonese intended to move by the Somport, a concentration at Huesca or even at Jaca would have been more natural. Moreover, there is no great difficulty in assuming the Cerdagne route, by the upper Segre to Puigcerda, the Puymorens Pass, and the upper Ariege on Foix. The whole of the upper Tet basin and also the head waters of the Aude were in Roussillon, which was Aragonese land. It would have been virtually impossible for de Montfort, even were he warned in time, to march from the Middle Aude country through hostile territory by Axat, Mont-Louis, and Saillagouse to cut in on the right of the Aragonese column. The forces in being, and friendly to Pedro, in Languedoc put such a move out of all reason. Further on, when Aragon had joined Foix, de Montfort had a garrison at Pamiers, which might harass the flank of their column moving northward. Still, Pamiers could have been avoided by going from Foix west on St. Girons and the upper Garonne valley, and, in any event, Aragon and Foix were in great force, and marching to the large and friendly city of Toulouse, so that, granted any kind of reasonable care for security on the march, there was little to fear from the Pamiers garrison. It would seem, therefore, as if the weight of probability, slight as it is, tells in favour of Pedro’s having marched by the Cerdagne.
Whatever his line of march, the Aragonese effected a junction with his allies, and together they sat down before Muret on September 10. The place was held for de Montfort by a garrison of thirty knights and seven hundred poorly armed infantry. The Languedocian barons were in high spirits. A small garrison of de Montfort’s in Pujols, eight and three-quarter miles east-south-east of Toulouse, had been cut off and massacred. The militia infantry of the commune of Toulouse were available for the attack on Muret, for the garrison of that town threatened Toulouse closely on the south-west as Lavaur did on the north-east. The choice of objective was wise, inasmuch as it made the militia available, as well as for the main reason: that is the importance of disengaging Toulouse (the Languedocian base) from the nearest Montfortist garrison.
By contrast with the vagueness of our knowledge of Pedro’s movements, those of de Montfort are known in detail. The crusading leader lay at Fanjeaux with a small force including thirty knights. Then as now, the early summer saw the high-water mark of the French energy, and by September the greater part of the forty-day Crusaders of that year had turned homeward. Although we know (from the interception of a private letter of Pedro’s) that de Montfort had some sort of intelligence service at work, nevertheless, his information seems to have been defective, so that he was surprised by Pedro’s move, perhaps because of its speed. When word came that the Aragonese was in Languedoc in arms, de Montfort at once sent his wife, the Countess Alice, to overtake certain temporary Crusaders who had just started homeward and, if possible, persuade them to return. The energetic countess made such haste that she gathered up at Carcassonne several hundred of the departing Crusaders, including the Viscount of Corbeil and that William des Barres who had commanded a “battle” (i.e., unit) under Cœur de Lion in the Third Crusade, including the bloody repulse of Saladin at Arsouf twenty-two years before. Even when these reinforcements had come in, de Montfort’s mobile force was small. He had about two hundred and sixty knights, and six hundred “sergeants,” that is cavalrymen heavily armed like knights but not of noble blood. King Pedro and the southern lords were known to be in great force. Most mediæval commanders, when gravely inferior in numbers, were accustomed to decline battle from behind walls, but Simon was an extraordinary man, and, moreover, he was driven by political necessity. Only the terror of his name made it possible for his small forces to hold down his thousands of unwilling southern subjects. To lose a strong place like the Castle of Muret might prove fatal to his prestige and be the signal for a general insurrection. Furthermore, he had not only boundless faith in his cause, but also a hearty contempt for the King of Aragon as an opponent. He knew that the Aragonese and the Languedocians were not accustomed to acting together, and would therefore have difficulty in deploying for action, especially if suddenly attacked. He therefore decided to take the field.
His decision made, on September 9 (as Pedro and the southern lords were marching on Muret, but before news of the move had come in) de Montfort moved west from Fanjeaux on Saverdun, making a slight detour to the Cistercian Abbey of Boulbonne, near Mazeres. There he dedicated his sword, laying it for a time on the altar while he prayed. When the sacristan of the abbey asked him in wonder why with his handful of men he was attacking so famous a chieftain as the Aragonese, Count Simon drew from his pouch an intercepted letter from Pedro to a mistress of his, the wife of a Languedocian baron, in which the King had written that it was for her sweet sake that he was fighting to drive out the “French.” “I do not fear this king,” said de Montfort, “who opposes the work of God for the sake of a harlot.” Already he was expecting an attack on Muret, the most exposed of his garrisons. During the hot afternoon, couriers, who had ridden that day upwards of twenty miles from Muret, brought word that the place was attacked. The little crusading army pushed on, reaching Saverdun at nightfall. Here a council of war was held, at which de Montfort was for pushing on that night to Muret, which was ill provisioned, but yielded to the opinion of the clergy with him, who urged that the men and horses were fatigued from marching some 35 miles in forty-eight hours, on top of the 17 miles that de Corbeil and des Barres had already done from Carcassonne to Fanjeaux.
No less than seven bishops, Fulk of Toulouse, Arnold of Nismes, Bernard of Beziers, Raymond of Agde and Peter of Comminges (together with the future St. Dominic) were present, an imposing array with which it was doubtless hoped to impress King Pedro. On the morning of Wednesday the eleventh, de Montfort confessed, and made his will, directing that it be sent to Rome for confirmation in case of his death. Mass was said, and the Counts of Toulouse, Foix, and Comminges were again formally excommunicated, together with the Toulousains and all who might oppose the Crusade. Significantly, the King of Aragon was not mentioned by name, and to him Bishop Fulk despatched a mounted courier asking safe conduct for the clergy who were with de Montfort in order that peace might be made. Having crossed the Ariege at Saverdun, the little army moved north up the left bank of that river. About ten miles on their way, at Hauterive, the courier sent to Pedro returned with the refusal of all that Bishop Fulk had asked. Along the twelve miles between Hauterive and Muret, the march was delayed by marshy country which had been made more difficult by recent rains. Fierce Languedocian summer showers drenched the advancing column, one being so severe as to drive many men to shelter in a little wayside church which their leader had entered to pray. When the shower had passed the advance was resumed, and towards evening the massive red brick ramparts of Muret came in sight. No enemy had been seen during the day, but now, in full view of the enemy so that their own numbers could be closely estimated, the Crusaders crossed the bridge over the Garonne and entered the place unopposed. The lack of opposition surprised de Montfort, Antony says.