an ancient city of France, in Lower Languedoc, with a bishop's see. It is divided into the upper and lower town. They are both surrounded with walls; and though their situations are different, they are both watered by the river Aude. The upper town is seated on a hill, with a castle that commands it as well as the lower town. It is strong, not only by its situation on a craggy rock, but also by several large towers which are joined to its walls, and which render it of difficult access. The cathedral church is remarkable for nothing but its antiquity. The lower town is large, and built after the modern taste. The streets are very straight, and lead to a large square in the middle, from whence may be seen the four gates of the town. There is here a manufacture of cloth. The neighbouring country is full of olive-trees; and in the mountains there is a fine marble, commonly called marble of Languedoc. E. Long. 2° 25'. N. Lat. 43° 11'.

This place bore a considerable share in that celebrated crusade undertaken against the Albigenses in the beginning of the 13th century, and which forms one of the most astonishing instances of superstition and of atrocious barbarity to be found in the annals of the world. When the royal power was nearly annihilated, during the reigns of the last kings of the Carolingian race in France, most of the cities of Languedoc credited themselves into little independent states, governed by their own princes. Carcassone was then under the dominion of viceroys. At the time when Pope Innocent III. patronized and commanded the prosecution of hostilities against the Albigenses for the crime of heresy, Raymond the reigning vicar was included in that proscription. Simon de Montfort, general of the army of the church, invested the city of Carcassone in 1299. The inhabitants, terrified at the fate of several other places where the most dreadful massacres had been committed, demanded leave to capitulate; but this act of mercy was only extended to them under a condition equally cruel, incredible, and unparalleled in history, if we are not compelled to believe it by the unanimous testimony of all the contemporary writers. The people found in the place were all obliged, without distinction of rank or sex, to evacuate it in a state of nudity; and Agnes the vicar was not exempted, though young and beautiful, from this ignominious and shocking punishment. "On les fit fortir tout nus de la ville de Carcassone (says an ancient author) afin qu'ils receussent de la honte, en montrant ces parties du corps que la pureté de la langue n'exprime point, desquelles ils avoient abuse, et s'en estoient servis dans des crimes excrables." It seems by this imputation that the Albigois were accused by their enemies of some enormities, probably unjust, and similar to those which religious enmity and prejudice have attributed to the followers of Zinzendorf in the present century.