r the
immediate arrest of all the Templars in his dominions. The pope afterwards
took up the cause with almost as much fervour as the king of France; and
in every part of Europe the Templars were thrown into prison, and their
goods and estates confiscated. Hundreds of them, when put to the rack,
confessed even the most preposterous of the charges against them, and by
so doing increased the popular clamour and the hopes of their enemies. It
is true that, when removed from the rack, they denied all they had
previously confessed; but this circumstance only increased the outcry, and
was numbered as an additional crime against them. They were considered in
a worse light than before, and condemned forthwith to the flames as
relapsed heretics. Fifty-nine of these unfortunate victims were all burned
together by a slow fire in a field in the suburbs of Paris, protesting to
the very last moment of their lives their innocence of the crimes imputed
to them, and refusing to accept of pardon upon condition of acknowledging
themselves guilty. Similar scenes were enacted in the provinces; and for
four years hardly a month passed without witnessing the execution of one
or more of these unhappy men. Finally, in 1313, the last scene of this
tragedy closed by the burning of the Grand-Master, Jacques de Molay, and
his companion Guy, the commander of Normandy. Any thing more atrocious it
is impossible to conceive,--disgraceful alike to the monarch who
originated, the pope who supported, and the age which tolerated the
monstrous iniquity. That the malice of a few could invent such a charge is
a humiliating thought for the lover of his species; but that millions of
mankind should credit it is still more so.

The execution of Joan of Arc is the next most notorious example which
history affords us of the imputation of witchcraft against a political
enemy. Instances of similar persecution, in which this crime was made the
pretext for the gratification of political or religious hatred, might be
multiplied to a great extent. But it is better to proceed at once to the
consideration of the bull of Pope Innocent, the torch that set fire to the
long-laid train, and caused so fearful an explosion over the Christian
world. It will be necessary, however, to go back for some years anterior
to that event, the better to understand the motives that influenced the
Church in the promulgation of that fearful document.

Towards the close of the fourteenth and beg