Toulouse, the whole South, writhed under the despotism of Simon de Montfort, and called back its exiled count. A new Crusade was preached. Remission of sins was offered to all who would glean what the first locust swarm had left, and massacre such as had been spared. Excommunication was again launched against the Count of Toulouse and the Count of Foix. In an attack on Toulouse Simon de Montfort was killed, and the command was taken by Prince Louis of France. Before this vast army the cities of Languedoc opened their gates. Count Raymond and he of Foix bowed to the storm. Louis died of exhaustion on his return, after having secured the submission of almost the whole land.
Count Roger Bernard of Foix was excommunicated in 1228, and was forced to subscribe to the most degrading terms. The truce lasted eight years. In 1237 he was summoned to appear and answer for his orthodoxy before the papal Inquisitors quartered in his own domains, and holding their court in his own castle. Because he refused he was again excommunicated. He was compelled to submit in 1240, and died in the ensuing year.
The horrors of the extirpation of heresy continued till 1244, when the last of the strongholds of the Albigenses was taken, and two hundred of them were burnt alive without a trial.
After that all trace of them gradually disappears.
Bernard Roger III (1265) married Margaret de Moncada, second daughter of Gaston de Béarn, and as she was heiress, he annexed her territories, and thenceforth the history of Foix is merged in that of Béarn.
Foix, in local patois Fouch, is situated at the junction of the Arget with the Ariège, and where, most conveniently for military purposes, a rock shoots up, abrupt and bold, inviting the mediæval noble to plant his castle on the summit. The castle never was a palace like that of Pau; it never was anything but a stronghold. When the counts became lords of Béarn they abandoned their ancient nest, which if secure was inconvenient, and betook themselves to their own creations at Mazères, Orthez, and Pau. The town occupies a triangle where the two rivers already mentioned unite. It is a dull place, its sole feature being the castle, like a very plain man with a very prominent nose. That it should be capital of the department is due to association, not to size, for Pamiers, where was a cathedral, exceeds it in population. It has a theatre, in which but rarely a performance is given; a public library, open for a few hours one day in the week, into which an occasional reader saunters; baths, better known externally than within; an abattoir, where oxen past work are slaughtered, for consumption by those of the inhabitants who have digestions that could dissolve leather; a promenade which lacks promenaders; a vast prefecture, in which the prefect is dying daily of ennui. The Hotel des Gouverneurs has become Palais de Justice—“un édifice banal, malgré ce nom grandiloquent.”
The rock of Foix is 178 feet above the river, and is surmounted by three noble towers that served successively as keeps. In the donjons the Inquisition had their court, their trials, and sentences, and the Count had to resign his castle to them in pledge of submission to the judgment of the Holy See. The loftiest of the towers is cylindrical, and is attributed to Gaston Phœbus, but apparently it dates from the fifteenth century. Between the noble towers appear the mean buildings of a prison, in which those who are confined yawn their time away. Below the rock, near the river, at the apex of the triangle, is the church of S. Volusinian, of the fourteenth century, and, like most of the great churches in this portion of the south of France, consists of a nave without aisles. The choir is surrounded by radiating chapels.
Volusinian was Bishop of Tours, a native of Auvergne. When Alaric, King of the Goths, invaded Gaul he carried Volusinian away with him south, and as he proved to be uncompromising in his adherence to the Creed of Nicæa, had him executed at Foix. His festival is on 11 February, and he suffered in 491. Foix has no manufactures, no trade—hardly an expectant commis voyageur visits it; but I am in error. It has perpetrated a joke, a miserable pun—Foix produces patés de foie gras.
Were there but coal-mines near at hand Foix would revive, for the whole county is full of iron ore. Foix bleeds iron from its veins, but the ferruginous springs run away into the river. The stars in their courses fight against Foix; the valley of the Arget was full of nailmakers at one time—in 1835 there were forty-seven forges. Now their fires are put out: machine-made nails have killed the hand-made nails. Those made in the Barguillère, the valley of the Arget, were for horseshoes, and the makers dubbed themselves chevaliers. The extinction of the little forges has led to depopulation; between 1891 and 1901 there was a loss of 27,092 inhabitants in that district.
To the north of the town rises a steep hill, on the summit of which is the hermitage of S. Sauveur, but the last hermit has departed this life; his occupation also is gone, and he has no successor. The Administration has put an end to the hermits.