Saint Louis (Louis IX). Drawing by Fragonard.
			XIXth Century. Lithograph by F. Ardit.

ith the support of the local nobility and the co-operation of the inhabitants of the suburbs of Saint-Michel and Saint-Vincent, Raimond Trencavel II, deprived of his paternal inheritance, laid siege to the fortress. On September 17 1240, the offensive was launched and was heavily reinforced for 25 days with mines and catapults. Guillaume des Ormes' active defense with the support of Louis IX's troops, drove Trenceval back to his trenches on October 12. He was forced to renounce his rights in 1246. A year later he broke his seal as a sign of submission to Louis IX who authorised the creation of the bastide on the banks of the Aude. As stated in the Treaty of Paris in 1229, Alphonse de Poitiers inherited the county of Toulouse on the death of Raymond VII. The king's younger brother and his wife died without an heir in 1271. The county of Toulouse became the possession of the king who thus definitively joined the South of France to the Capetian domain.