Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/164

138 ployed in the destruction of one Order, might at any moment be made available against the other, should they by their conduct draw down upon themselves the odium of the powers that be. The revenues, moreover, of the Templars were as they remarked, more apparent than real, whilst, on the other hand, the public treasury was encumbered with enormous liabilities on account of the loans raised by Vilaret from the bankers of Genoa and Florence for the purpose of achieving the conquest of Rhodes.

What rendered all their exhortations utterly futile, was the fact that the Grand-Master himself, the man to whom every one naturally looked for example and support, was, in his own person, outvying his youthful confreres in the extravagance of his luxury and the dissipation of his life. Surrounded by favourites, on whom he bestowed all the patronage of his office, he gradually assumed an overbearing arrogance of manner towards all who were not disposed to render him the most absolute homage. He seemed to consider that the acquisition of Rhodes through the force of his genius and the dauntless perseverance of his will had invested him with a sovereignty in the island far more absolute than that appertaining to his magisterial position. That supremacy, which others looked on as vested in the Order, and of which he was merely the chief administrator, was by him considered a personal matter, peculiar to himself alone. The murmurs which the arrogance of his conduct gradually engendered were at first low and suppressed. Men were loth to think hardly of the hero under whose guidance they had added so greatly to their renown. They were prepared to tolerate much in him which they would never have borne in another. Still, patience and forbearance have their limits, and Villaret gradually found that the lustre even of his reputation was becoming insufficient to stifle the murmurs excited by his haughty bearing.

Secret disaffection eventually developed into open complaint, which rose to such a pitch that Villaret was summoned before the council to give an account of his government, and to answer the numerous charges preferred against him. These consisted not merely of allegations as to his intolerable pride and hauteur towards those with whom he was brought into contact, but, at the same time, of mis-appropriation of the public revenues,