De Montfort had been fighting Albigensian heretics during the Albigensian Crusade, when he was besieged by the vastly superior coalition army. Refusing to surrender or be starved into submission, de Montfort went on the offensive. Leading his knights out of the town, he proceeded to position them in a wide arc, then fell upon the Toulouse cavalry with a noise "like a whole forest going down under the axe". Next to fall before the Crusader army was the Aragonian cavalry, where King Peter himself fell to the sword. After this, all that was left was to scatter the remaining cavalry defending the coalition camp before turning on the infantry that had been besieging Muret's walls. Despite their overwhelming advantage in numbers,the coalition army numbering almost 34,000 men was destroyed by de Montfort's army of only 2,100. The siege of Muret was lifted.