ition or
religious zeal of the West, its defenders returned to their homes
loaded with riches and prestige if not with unstained honour, and
without insinuations that they had betrayed the cause of Christ
and the Crusades. Such was the condition of the Temple when
Philip, after exhausting the coffers of Jews and Christians,
found his treasury still unfilled. The opportunity was not to
be neglected: it remained only to secure the consent of the
Church, and to provoke the ready credulity of the people. Church
and State united, supported by the popular superstition,
were irresistible; and the destined victims expected their
impending fate in silent terror. At length the signal was given.
Prosecutions in 1307 were carried on simultaneously throughout
the provinces; but in French territory they assumed the most
formidable shape. In many places they were acquitted of the
gravest indictments: the English king, from a feeling of justice
or jealousy, expressed himself in their favour. As for Spain, 'it
was not in presence of the Moors, and on the classic ground of
Crusade, that the thought could be entertained of proscribing the
old defenders of Christendom.' Paris, where was their principal
temple, was the centre of the Order; their wealth and power were
concentrated in France; and thus the spoils not of a single
province, but almost of the entire body, were within the grasp of
a single monarch. Hence he assumed the right of presiding as
judge and executioner.[59] On October 12, 1307, Jacques Molay,
with the heads of the Temple, was invited to Paris, where, loaded
with favours, they were lulled into fatal security. The delusion
was soon abruptly dispelled. Molay, together with 140 of his
brethren, was arrested--the signal for a more general procedure
throughout the kingdom.

[59] Dante seems to refer to this recent spoliation in the
following verses:--

'Lo! the new Pilate, of whose cruelty
Such violence cannot fill the measure up,
With no decree to sanction, pushes on
Into the Temple his yet eager sails.'

_Purgat._ xx. Cary's Transl.

The charges have been resolved under three heads: (1) The denial
of Christ. (2) Treachery to the cause of Christianity. (3) The
worship of the devil, and the practice of sorcery. The principal
articles in the indictment were that the knights at initiation
formally denied the divinity of Christ, pronouncing he was not
truly a God--