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 THE TEMPLARS. 277 of human nature, or who is familiar with the condition of monas- ticism at the period, can deny the possibilities of such occasional performances, whether as brutal jokes or spiteful assertions of supremacy, but the only rational conclusion from the whole tre- mendous tragedy is that the Order was innocent of the crime for which it was punished. While Philippe was seizing his prey, Clement, at Poitiers, was occupied in the equally lucrative work of sending collectors throughout Germany to exact a tithe of all ecclesiastical revenues for the recovery of the Holy Land. When aroused from this with the news that Philippe, under the authority of Frere Guil- laume the inquisitor, had thus taken decided and irrevocable action in a matter which was still before him for consideration, his first emotion naturally was that of wounded pride and indignation, sharpened perhaps by the apprehension that he would not be able to secure his share of the spoils. He dared not publicly disavow responsibility for the act, and what would be the current of pub- lic opinion outside of France no man could divine. In this cruel dilemma he wrote to Philippe, October 27, 1307, expressing his indignation that the king should have taken action in a matter which the brief of August 24 showed to be receiving papal con- sideration. Carefully suppressing the fact of the intervention of the Inquisition which legally justified the whole proceeding, Clem- a youth of twenty at the time, that after his reception he was taken into another room by two of the brethren and forced to renounce Christ. On his refusing at first, one of them said that in his country people renounced God a hundred times for a flea — perhaps an exaggeration, but " Je renye Dieu " was one of the com- monest of expletives. When the preceptor heard him weeping he called to the tormentors to let him alone, as they would set him crazy, and he subsequently told Eudes that it was a joke (lb. II. 100-2). What is the real import of such incidents may be gathered from a story re- lated by a witness during the inquest held in Cyprus, May, 1310. He had heard from a Genoese named Matteo Zaccaria, who had long been a prisoner in Cairo, that when the news of the proceedings against the Order reached the Soldan of Egypt he drew from his prisons about forty Templars captured ten years be- fore on the island of Tortosa, and offered them wealth if they would renounce their religion. Surprised and angered by their refusal, he remanded them to their dungeons and ordered them to be deprived of food and drink, when they perished to a man rather than apostatize. — Schottmiiller, op. cit. II. 160.