This is a reproduction (facsimile) of the original book published in 1826.The attention of the public has been, of late, much directed to the character and sufferings of the Albigensian Christians, and to the principles and conduct of the church of Rome, through whose instigation, and by whose authority, they were persecuted and destroyed. The outlines of those persecutions are sufficiently known, having been presented in the pages of general history; and even their particular details have been minutely depicted by those who have vindicated the cause of the sufferers, and by others who were the witnesses and agents of their sufferings. Yet a history was still wanted which should trace the rise and progress of these calamitous events with truth and precision, and at the same time give such a view of the shifting scenes by which they were attended, as to cause them to make an indelible impression upon the mind. This object has been accomplished by M. Simonde de Sismondi, who has, in his history of the French people, now in the course of publication at Paris, bestowed much pains and research on the subject of the crusades of the Roman church against the Albigenses, and has treated it with so much eloquence and beauty of style, and such a spirit of philosophic (enquiry, as to render it a most interesting episode in that valuable work. The volume here offered to the English reader is an attempt to exhibit that part of M. Sismondi's narrative, with only so much of the general history as may serve for its connexion and illustration. Although, therefore, it is only an extract from a larger work, yet it nevertheless embraces an entire, and, to a considerable degree, an independent subject; giving a view of a series of interesting events, issuing in a catastrophe, of great importance to the cause of civil and religious liberty, and of lasting influence upon the future destinies of Europe and of the world. It commences with the thirteenth century, and comprises a period of about forty years, detailing the progress in civilization, liberty, and religion, of the fine countries in the south of France, and the destruction of that liberty and civilization, the devastation and ruin of those countries, and the extinction of those early efforts for religious reformation, through the power and policy of the church of Rome. It relates the establishment of the inquisition, and the provisions by which this merciless tribunal was adapted to become, for ages, the grand engine of domination to that ambitious and persecuting power. And it marks the complete establishment of civil and ecclesiastical despotism, by the surrender of all those states, with their rights and liberties, to the dominion and controul of the French monarch, under the direction of the Roman pontiff. When therefore the curtain at last falls upon this sad tragedy, it seems as if the night of ignorance and tyranny had closed upon the nations for ever.