the
question, in order to extort from them a confession of their guilt: the
more obstinate perished in the hands of their tormentors: several, to
procure immediate ease in the violence of their agonies, acknowledged
whatever was required of them: forged confessions were imputed to
others: and Philip, as if their guilt were now certain, proceeded to
a confiscation of all their treasures. But no sooner were the templars
relieved from their tortures, than, preferring the most cruel execution
to a life with infamy, they disavowed their confessions, exclaimed
against the forgeries, justified the innocence of their order, and
appealed to all the gallant actions performed by them in ancient or
later times, as a full apology for their conduct. The tyrant, enraged
at this disappointment, and thinking himself now engaged in honor to
proceed to extremities, ordered fifty-four of them, whom he branded as
relapsed heretics, to perish by the punishment of fire in his capital:
great numbers expired, after a like manner, in other parts of the
kingdom: and when he found that the perseverance of these unhappy
victims, in justifying to the last their innocence, had made deep
impression on the spectators, he endeavored to overcome the constancy of
the templars by new inhumanities. The grand master of the order, John de
Molay, and another great officer, brother to the sovereign of Dauphiny,
were conducted to a scaffold erected before the church of Notredame, at
Paris: a full pardon was offered them on the one hand; the fire destined
for their execution was shown them on the other: these gallant nobles
still persisted in the protestations of their own innocence and that
of their order; and were instantly hurried into the flames by the
executioner.[**]

* It was pretended that he kissed the knights who received
him on the mouth, navel, and breech. Dupuy, p. 15, 6.
Walsing, p. 99.

** Vertot, vol. ii. p. 142.

In all this barbarous injustice, Clement V., who was the creature
of Philip, and then resided in France, fully concurred; and without
examining a witness, or making any inquiry into the truth of facts, he
summarily, by the plenitude of his apostolic power, abolished the whole
order. The templars all over Europe were thrown into prison; their
conduct underwent a strict scrutiny; the power of their enemies still
pursued and oppressed them; but nowhere, except in France, were the
smallest traces of their guilt preten