fore it. He professed his belief in the
Catholic faith, but now denied that the order was guilty of the charges
alleged against it, as also did many of the other knights. Other
witnesses were, however, brought forward, some of whom pretended to have
abandoned the order on account of its foul acts. At the Porte St.
Antoine, on many pleasant evenings in the following May, William de
Nogaret revelled in the luxury of avenging the shade of his father.
[Sidenote: Found guilty and punished.] One hundred and thirteen Templars
were, in slow succession, burnt at stakes. The remorseless lawyer was
repaying the Church in her own coin. Yet of this vast concourse of
sufferers all died protesting their innocence; not one proved an
apostate. Notwithstanding this most significant fact--for those who were
ready to lay down their lives, and to meet with unshaken constancy the
fire, were surely the bravest of the knights, and their dying
declaration is worthy of our most reverent consideration--things were
such that no other course was possible than the abolition of the order,
and this accordingly took place. The pope himself seems to have been
satisfied that the crimes had been perpetrated under the instigation or
temptation of Satan; but men of more enlarged views appear to have
concluded that, though the Templars were innocent of the moral
abominations charged against them, a familiarity with other forms of
belief in the East had undoubtedly sapped their faith. After a weary
imprisonment of six years, embittered by many hardships, the grand
master, Du Molay, was brought up for sentence. He had been found guilty.
With his dying breath, "before Heaven and earth, on the verge of death,
when the least falsehood bears like an intolerable weight on the soul,"
he declared the innocence of the order and of himself. [Sidenote:
Burning of Du Molay.] The vesper-bell was sounding when Du Molay and a
brother convict were led forth to their stakes, placed on an island in
the Seine. King Philip himself was present. As the smoke and flames
enveloped them they continued to affirm their innocence. Some averred
that forth from the fire Du Molay's voice sounded, "Clement! thou wicked
and false judge, I summon thee to meet me within forty days at the bar
of God." Some said that he also summoned the king. In the following year
King Philip the Fair and Pope Clement the Fifth were dead.

John XXII., elected after an interval of more than two years spent in
ri