Such was the fate of the reduced county of Toulouse. At the division of Languedoc in 122g Louis IX. was given all the country from Carcassonne to the Rhone. This royal Languedoc was at first subject to much trickery on the part of northern speculators and government officials. In 1248 Louis IX. sent royal enqueteurs, much like Charlemagne's missi dominici, to correct all abuses, especially to enquire concerning peculation by royal agents. On the basis of their investigations the king issued royal edicts in 1254 and 1259 which organized the administration of the province. Two senechaussees were created—one at Nimes, the other at Carcassonne—each with its lesser divisions of vigueries and bail liages. During the reign of Philip III. the enqueteurs were busily employed securing justice for the conquered, preventing the seizure of lands, and in 1279 a supreme court of justice was established at Toulouse. In 1302 Philip IV. convoked the estates of Languedoc, but in the century which followed they were less an instrument for self-government than one for securing money, thus aiding the enqueteurs, who during the Hundred Years' War became mere revenue hunters for the king. Under Charles V., Louis of Anjou, the king's brother, was governor of Languedoc, and while an active opponent of the English, he drained the country of money. But his extortions were surpassed by those of another brother, the duc de Berry, of ter the death of Charles V. In 1382 and 1383 the infuriated peasantry, abetted by some nobles, rose in a rebellion—known as the Tuchins—which was put down with frightful butchery, while still greater sums were demanded from the impoverished country. In the anarchy which followed brigandage increased. Redress did not come till 1420, when the dauphin, afterwards Charles VII., came to Languedoc and re-formed the administration. Then the country he saved furnished him with the means for driving out the English in the north. For the first time, in the climax of its miseries, Languedoc was genuinely united to France. But Charles VII. was not able to drive out the brigands, and it was not until after the English were expelled in 1453 that Languedoc had even comparative peace. Charles VII. united Comminges to the crown; Louis XI. Roussil lon and Cerdagne, both of which were ceded to Aragon by Charles VIII. as the price of its neutrality during his expedition into
Italy. From the reign of Louis XI. until 1523 the governorship of Languedoc was held by the house of Bourbon. After the treason of the constable Bourbon it was held by the Montmorency family with but slight interruption until 1632.
The Reformation found Languedoc orthodox : persecution had succeeded. The Inquisition had had no victims since 1340, and the cities which had been centres of heresy were now strongly orthodox. But Calvinism gained ground rapidly in the other parts of Languedoc, and by 1560 the majority of the population was Protestant. This was, however, partly a political protest against the misrule of the Guises. The open conflict came in 1561, and there was intermittent civil war thenceforward until the Edict of Nantes (1598). By this, the Protestants were given ten places of safety in Languedoc ; but civil strife did not come to an end, even under Henry IV. In 1620 the Protestants in Languedoc rose under Henri, duc de Rohan (1579-1638), who for two years defied the power of Louis XIII. When Louis took Montpellier in 1622, he attempted to reconcile the Calvinists by bribes of money and office, and left Montauban as a city of refuge. By 1629 Prot estantism was crushed in the Midi as a political force. After the rebellion of Henri II., duc de Montmorency, Languedoc lost its old provincial privilege of self-assessment until 1649. During Louis XIV.'s reign Languedoc prospered until the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Industries and agriculture were encouraged, roads and bridges were built, and the great canal giving a water route from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean increased the trade of its cities. The religious persecutions which accompanied the revoca tion of the Edict of Nantes resulted in a guerrilla warfare known as the rebellion of the Camisards (q.v.).