le Bel, March 11, 1314, even in the midst of flames, they did not cease
to attest the innocence of the Order of the Temple. The people,
astonished by their heroism, believed that they had summoned the Pope
and the King to appear in the presence of God before the end of the
year. Clement V., on April 20, and Philippe IV., on November 29,
obeyed the summons.

The possessions of the order were given to the Hospitallers of Saint
John of Jerusalem, who transformed themselves into Knights of Malta
toward the middle of the sixteenth century. The Temple became the
provincial house of the grand-prior of the Order of Malta for the
_nation_ or _language_ of France, and the great tower contained
successively the treasure, the arsenal, and the archives. In 1607, the
grand-prior, Jacques de Souvre, had a house built in {339} front of the
old manor, between the court and the garden, which was called the
palace of the grand-prior. His successor, Philippe de Vendome, made
his palace a rendezvous of elegance and pleasure. There shone that
Anacreon in a cassock, the gay and sprightly Abbe de Chaulieu, who died
a fervent Christian in the voluptuous abode where he had dwelt a
careless Epicurean. There young Voltaire went to complete the lessons
he had begun in the sceptical circle of Ninon de l'Enclos. The office
of grand-prior, which was worth sixty thousand livres a year, passed
afterwards to Prince de Conti, who in 1765 sheltered Jean-Jacques
Rousseau there, as _lettres de cachet_ could not penetrate within its
privileged precinct. Under Louis XVI. the palace of the grand-prior
had served as a passing hostelry to the young and brilliant Count
d'Artois when he came from Versailles to Paris. The flowers of the
entertainments given there by the Prince were hardly faded when Louis
XVI. suddenly entered it as a prisoner.

It was seven o'clock in the evening when the wretched King and his
family, coming from the convent of the Feuillants, arrived at the
Temple. Situated near the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, not far from the
former site of the Bastille, the Temple enclosure at this period was
not more than two hundred yards long by nearly as many wide. The rest
of the ancient precinct had disappeared under the pavements or the
houses of the great city. Nevertheless, the enclosure still formed a
sort of little {340} private city, sometimes called the
Ville-Neuve-du-Temple, the gates of which were closed every night. In
one of its an