Innocent had now obtained what he wished—a decent pretext for the full outpouring of the vials of his wrath. The honors of martyrdom were decreed to the victim; Raymond was denounced as the author of the crime, and proclaimed a spiritual outlaw; and the faithful were called upon to assist in his destruction. "Up, soldiers of Christ," he writes to Philip Augustus of France, "up most christian King! hear the cry of blood; aid us in wreaking vengeance on these malefactors. Up ye nobles, knights of France, the rich and sunny lands of the south will be the reward of your valor." The preaching of the crusade was entrusted to the Cistercian order, under their fanatical abbot, Arnold; "a man," says Milman, "whose heart was sheathed with the triple iron of pride, cruelty, bigotry." Just at this moment, the missionaries fell in with the notable Spaniard, Dominic, ever since famous as the founder of the Inquisition and the Dominican friars. His heart was in no wise softer than Arnold's, and he was more successful as a preacher. Not a moment was lost in denouncing the crime and its perpetrators. Every heart and hand was engaged to take vengeance for the insult upon God in the person of His servant. The same indulgences which had ever been granted to the champions of the holy sepulcher were assured to those who should enter upon the new crusade against Raymond and the Albigenses. The clergy everywhere preached with indefatigable zeal this new way of obtaining the forgiveness of sins and everlasting life.
"To that ignorant and superstitious generation," says Sir James Stephens, "no summons could have been more welcome. Danger, privations, and fatigue, in their direst forms, had beset the rugged paths by which the crusaders to the East had fought their way to the promised paradise. But in the war against the Albigenses the same inestimable recompense was to be won, not by self-denial, but by self-indulgence. Every debt owing to man was to be canceled, every offense already committed against the law of God was to be pardoned, and an eternity of blessedness was to be won, not by a life of future sanctity, but by a life of future crime; not by the restraint, but by the gratification, of their foulest passions; by satiating their cruelty, their avarice, and their lust, at the expense of a people whose wealth excited their covetousness, and whose superiority provoked their resentment." Forward to this mingled harvest of blood and plunder, of priestly absolution and military fame, rushed all the wild spirits of the age. The whole of Europe resounded with preparations for the holy war.