the Place des
Victoires, and that of Louis XV. in the place that bears his name, had
fallen at the same time.

The royal family arrived at the Temple at seven in the evening. The
lanterns placed on the projecting portions of the walls and the
battlements of the great tower made it resemble a catafalque surrounded
by funeral lights. The Queen wore a shoe with a hole in it, through
which her foot could be seen. "You would not believe," said she,
smiling, "that a Queen of France was in need of shoes." The doors
closed upon the captives, and a sanguinary crowd complained of the
thickness of the walls separating them from their prey.

{337}

XXXIII.

THE TEMPLE.

There are places which, by the very souvenirs they evoke, seem fatal
and accursed. Such was the dungeon that was to serve as a prison for
Louis XVI. and his family. The great tower for which Marie Antoinette
had felt a nameless instinctive repugnance in the happiest days of her
reign, arose at the extremity of Paris like a gigantic phantom, and
recalled in a sinister fashion the tragedies of the Middle Ages and the
sombre legends of the Templars. It was formerly the manor, the
fortress, of that religious and military Order of the Temple, founded
in the Holy Land at the beginning of the twelfth century, to protect
the pilgrims, and which, after the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem,
had spread all over Europe. The great tower was built by Frere Hubert,
in the early years of the thirteenth century, in the midst of an
enclosure surrounded by turreted walls. There ruled, by cross and
sword, those men of iron, in white habits, who took the triple vows of
poverty, chastity, and obedience, and who excited royal jealousy by the
increase of their power. It was there that Philippe le Bel went on
October 13, {338} 1307, with his lawyers and his archers, to lay his
hand on the grand-master, seize the treasures of the order, and on the
same day, at the same hour, cause all Templars to be arrested
throughout the realm. Then began that mysterious trial which has
remained an insoluble problem to posterity, and after which these
monastic knights, whose bravery and whose exploits have made so
prolonged an echo, perished in prisons or on scaffolds. Pursued by
horrible accusations, they had confessed under torture, but they denied
at execution. When the grand-master, Jacques de Molay, and the
commander of Normandy were burned alive before the garden of Philippe