Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/150

124 his proposal as a compromise, whereby the lives and property of the Order were to be preserved, the refusal of Molay prevented its success, and thenceforward he determined to let matters take their course.

The pear was now ripe. The moment had arrived for which Philip had so long and so steadily plotted, and the fatal blow was to be no longer delayed. Secret orders were issued to the judicial authorities in every province of France, directing them simultaneously to set on foot a complete and speedy survey of all the Temple precoptories within their respective districts. They were to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the number and persons of all knights resident therein, and on October 13th these were to be all surprised and taken prisoners. An inquiry under the Inquisition was to be afterwards instituted, the application of torture being authorized in order to extort such confessions from the unfortunate captives as might justify the proceedings which were being taken against them.

These instructions were faithfully carried into effect. On the appointed day every Templar then within the limits of the French dominions was seized, and either cast into a dungeon or placed in close confinement within his own preceptory. The principal witnesses by whom the accusations brought against the Order were to be substantiated consisted of two reprobates, both under sentence of perpetual imprisonment; one of them, Nosso de Florentin, an apostate Templar, and the other, Squire de Florian, a citizen of Béziers. Both of these worthies had been confined in the same dungeon, where they had found ample time, during their hours of enforced idleness, to concoct their charges. These proved to be of so extravagant a nature that it required the full amount of ignorance prevalent in those days to render them credible. Absurd and maliciously false as they most palpably were, the inventors trusted to be enabled, by their means, to purchase liberation from the punishment which their own heinous crimes had justly brought down upon them.

These charges, which were afterwards framed into a regular act of inquisition, embraced no less than seventy-seven different items. The first thirteen imputed to the fraternity a total disbelief in God, our Saviour, the crucifixion, the blessed Virgin