ight have
reached his ears. But the people looked on with far other feelings.
Stupor kindled into admiration; the execution was a martyrdom; friars
gathered up their ashes and bones and carried them away, hardly by
stealth, to consecrated ground; they became holy relics. The two who
wanted courage to die pined away their miserable life in prison.

The wonder and the pity of the times which immediately followed, arrayed
Du Molay not only in the robes of the martyr, but gave him the terrible
language of a prophet. "Clement, iniquitous and cruel judge, I summon
thee within forty days to meet me before the throne of the Most High!"
According to some accounts this fearful sentence included the King, by
whom, if uttered, it might have been heard. The earliest allusion to
this awful speech does not contain that striking particularity, which,
if part of it, would be fatal to its credibility, _i.e._, the precise
date of Clement's death. It was not till the year after that Clement and
King Philip passed to their account. The fate of these two men during
the next year might naturally so appal the popular imagination, as to
approximate more closely the prophecy and its accomplishment. At all
events it betrayed the deep and general feeling of the cruel wrong
inflicted on the order; while the unlamented death of the Pope, the
disastrous close of Philip's reign, and the disgraceful crimes which
attainted the honor of his family seemed as declarations of heaven as to
the innocence of their noble victims.

JAMES VAN ARTEVELDE LEADS A
FLEMISH REVOLT

EDWARD III OF ENGLAND ASSUMES THE
TITLE OF KING OF FRANCE

A.D. 1337-1340

FRANCOIS P. G. GUIZOT

Having defeated the Flemings at Mons-la-Puelle in 1304,
Philip the Fair of France found that they were unsubdued and
ready to renew their war against him. Therefore he very soon
acknowledged their independence under their count, Robert de
Bethune. But Philip continually violated the treaty he had
made, and just before his death (1314) he again began
hostilities against Flanders.

Little of historical importance occurred in that country
between the death of Philip the Fair and the accession of
Philip of Valois (1328). His first act was to take up the
cause of Louis de Nevers, then Count of Flanders, whom the
independent burghers of most of the chief cities had united
to deprive of his territories, leaving him only Ghent for a
refuge. In the first ye