treasure, twelve mules' load of gold
and silver, was stored in the vaults of the great fortress of the
Templars at Paris. Some rumours reached de Molay of the delation made
by the Toulousian prisoners, but the pope reassured him in an
interview, April 1307, and lulled him into security. On 14th September
of the same year the royal officers of the realm were ordered to hold
themselves armed for secret service on 12th October, and sealed
letters were handed to them to be opened that night. At dawn on the
13th, all the Templars in France were arrested in their beds and flung
into the episcopal gaols, and the bishops then proceeded to "examine"
the prisoners. One hundred and forty were dealt with in Paris, the
centre of the order. The charges and a confession of their truth by
the Grand Master were read to them; denial, they were told, was
useless: liberty would be the reward of confession, imprisonment the
penalty of denial.

[Footnote 73: The contemporary chronicler, Villani, says of one of
these scoundrels that he "was named Nosso Dei, one of our Florentines,
a man filled with every vice."]

A few confessed and were set free. The remainder were "examined."
Starvation and torture of the most incredible ferocity did their work.
Thirty-six died under the rack in Paris, and many more in other
places; most of the remainder confessed to anything the inquisitors
required. Clement, warned by the growing feeling in Europe, now became
alarmed, and the next act in the drama opens at the abbey of St.
Genevieve in Paris, where a papal commission sat to hear what the
Templars had to say in their defence. All were invited to give
evidence and promised immunity in the name of the pope. Hundreds came
to Paris to defend their order,[74] but having been made to understand
by the bishops that they would be burned as heretics if they retracted
their confessions, they held back for a time until solemnly assured by
the papal commissioners that they had nothing to fear, and might
freely speak. Ponzardus de Gysiaco, preceptor of Payens, then came
forward and disclosed the atrocious means used to extort confessions,
and said if he were so tortured again he would confess anything that
were demanded of him; he would face death, however horrible, even by
boiling and fire, in defence of his order, but long-protracted and
agonising torture was beyond human endurance. Ponzardus was sent back
to confinement and the warders were bidden to see that he s