Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/168

142 the course of his voyage, Pagnac had ample opportunities for discovering that the sympathies of Europe were strongly manifested in favour of his rival. Wherever they passed he saw that Villaret was received with all the honours due to the head of a powerful Order, who had in his own person achieved European renown by the conquest of Rhodes. He himself was, on the other hand, looked on simply as an insurrectionary firebrand, who from motives of ambition had stirred up a revolt amongst the knights against their legitimate lord. When they arrived at Avignon he did not find matters in any way improved. Whatever might be the feeling of John as regarded the conduct of Villaret, he was certainly by no means disposed to favour de Pagnac. That knight soon perceived that all chance of establishing his claim to the dignity of Grand-Master, for which he had so long toiled and plotted, and to which he so ardently aspired, was for ever at an end. In the bitterness of his feelings he withdrew from the papal court to indulge in solitude the chagrin with which he was overwhelmed. The blow was, however, too great to be withstood, and before long he sank under his disappointment, and died of a broken heart.

His death removed one great obstacle from the path of the Pope. That astute politician now saw his way clear to a solution of the difficulty in a manner which would enable him to place a creature of his own at the head of the Order. With this object in view he reinstated Villaret in his office, having, however, previously exacted from him a pledge that he would resign it again immediately. In return for this step he was promised the appointment to a grand-priory, to which he might retire, and where he might enjoy the dignity of an exalted station and the extensive revenues of his new office, free from all interference on the part of the fraternity. Villaret carried out his engagement, and resigned his post. John thereupon summoned to Avignon all the members of the Order who were within reach of his influence. There, under his own surveillance and the pressure of his own immediate presence, he caused a successor to be nominated, in whose allegiance and ready obedience he felt sure that he could confide. Elyon de Villanova was the knight thus selected, and irregular as was the mode of his election the fraternity felt themselves unable to resist it.