Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/154

128 the Holy Land, and of the pilgrims who still continued annually to seek its shores.

The concluding act of the bloody drama remained yet to be performed. The Grand-Master and the three grand-priors of Normandy, France, and Aquitaine still languished within the dungeons of their persecutor. The extremity of the torture to which they had been subjected had elicited from each of these dignitaries a partial confession of some of the absurd accusations brought against them, and it was deemed advisable, in order to justify the atrocious cruelties and the scandalous spoliation of which the fraternity had been the victims, that these confessions should be reiterated with the utmost publicity by the unfortunate knights. For this purpose a scaffold was erected in front of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, and on the 18th of March, 1313, the citizens were summoned to hear the confessions of these, the four principal officers of the Order, read aloud and confirmed by themselves. As soon as the prisoners had taken their places on the scaffold the bishop of Alba, after a violent harangue, in which he recapitulated the principal accusations that had been brought against the Templars, read aloud the contents of a document purporting to be an admission of their guilt on the part of the Grand-Master and his three confreres. When called upon to confirm these confessions, the priors of France and Aquitaine admitted the truth of the statements, and by this act of cowardice on their part purchased an ignominious reprieve of their doom. James de Molay, however, advancing to the edge of the scaffold, repudiated in a loud tone of voice his previous admissions. He announced to the assembled multitude that not only had they been originally extorted from him in a moment of weakness under the agony of torture, but further that they had been distorted and interpolated in a most scandalous and barefaced manner by the inquisitors before whom the examinations had been conducted, and who, he stated, deserved the death to which Saracens condemn those who have been convicted of lying and forgery. The prior of Normandy commenced to make a similar recantation, but the authorities hurriedly brought his address to a close, and the two recusants were taken back to their prison. The indignation of Philip was unbounded at this unexpected result of a proceeding by which