or CARCUS, in the art of war, an iron case, or hollow capacity, about the bigness of a bomb, of an oval figure, made of ribs of iron, filled with combustible matters, as meal powder, saltpetre, sulphur, broken glass, shavings of horn, turpentine, tallow, &c. It has two or three apertures out of which the fire is to blaze, and the design of it is to be thrown out of a mortar, to set houses on fire, and do other execution. It has the name carcasse, because the circles which pass from one ring or plate to the other seem to represent the ribs of a human carcass.

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. It contained 15,200 inhabitants in 1815. 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 Carlovingian race in France, most of the cities of Languedoc erected themselves into little independent states, governed by their own princes. Carccassone was then under the dominion of viscounts. At the time when Pope Innocent III. patronised and commanded the prosecution of hostilities against the Albigenses for the crime of heresy, Raymond the reigning viscount was included in that proscription. Simon de Montfort, general of the army of the church, invested the city of Carccassone in 1209. 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 viscountess was not exempted, though young and beautiful, from this ignominious and shocking punishment. "On les fit sortir tout nus de la ville de Carccassone (says an ancient author) afin qu'ils recessent 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 execrables." It seems by this imputation that the Albigeois were accused by their Carccassone enemies of some enormities, probably unjust, and similar to those which religious enmity and prejudice have attributed to the followers of Zinzendorf in the last century.