o tie him to the stake, and they were
binding his hands with a cord, but he said to them, 'Sirs, suffer me to
fold my hands a while, and make my prayer to God, for verily it is time.
I am presently to die; but wrongfully, God wot. Wherefore woe will come,
ere long, to those who condemn us without a cause. God will avenge our
death.'"

It was probably owing to these last words that there arose a popular
rumor, soon spread abroad, that James de Molay, at his death, had cited
the pope and the king to appear with him, the former at the end of forty
days, and the latter within a year, before the judgment-seat of God.
Events gave a sanction to the legend: for Clement V. actually died on the
20th of April, 1314, and Philip the Handsome on the 29th of November,
1314, the pope, undoubtedly, uneasy at the servile acquiescence he had
shown towards the king, and the king expressing some sorrow for his greed
and for the imposts (_maltote, maletolta,_ or _black mail_) with which he
had burdened his people.

In excessive and arbitrary imposts, indeed, consisted the chief grievance
for which France, in the fourteenth century, had to complain of Philip
the Handsome; and, probably, it was the only wrong for which he upbraided
himself. Being badly wounded, out hunting, by a wild boar, and
perceiving himself to be in bad case, he gave orders for his removal to
Fontainebleau, and there, says Godfrey of Paris, the poet-chronicler just
quoted in reference to the execution of the Templars, "he said and
commanded that his children, his brothers, and his other friends should
be sent for. They were no long time in coming; they entered
Fontainebleau, into the chamber where the king was, and where there was
very little light. So soon as they were there, they asked him how he
was, and he answered, 'Ill in body and in soul; if our Lady the Virgin
save me not by her prayers, I see that death will seize me here; I have
put on so many talliages, and laid hands on so much riches, that I shall
never be absolved. Sirs, I know that I am in such estate that I shall
die, methinks, to-night, for I suffer grievous hurt from the curses which
pursue me: there will be no fine tales to be told of me.'" Philip's
anxiety about his memory was not without foundation; his greed is the
vice which has clung to his name; not only did he load his subjects with
poll taxes and other taxes unauthorized by law and the traditions of the
feudal system; not only was he unj