Palace of The Archbishop of Sens.
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The last act was yet to come. On 11th March 1314, a great stage was erected in the parvis of Notre Dame, and there, in chairs of state, sat the pope's envoy, a cardinal, the archbishop of Sens, and other officers of Christ's Church on earth. The Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, and three preceptors were exposed to the people; their alleged confession and the papal bull suppressing the order, and condemning them to imprisonment for life, were read by the cardinal. But, to the amazement of his Eminence, when the clauses specifying the enormities to which the accused had confessed were being recited, the veteran Master and the preceptor of Normandy rose, and in loud voices, heard of all the people, repudiated the confession, and declared that they were wholly guiltless, and ready to suffer death. They had not long to wait. Hurried counsel was held with the king, and that same night Jacques de Molay and the preceptor of Normandy were brought to a little island on the Seine, known as the Isle of the Trellises,[78] and burnt to death, protesting their innocence to the last.

"God pays debts, but not in money." An Italian chronicler relates that the Master, while expiring in the flames, solemnly cited pope and king to meet him before the judgment-seat of God. In less than forty days Clement V. lay dead: in eight months Philip IV. was thrown by his horse. Seven centuries later the grisly fortress of the Templars opened its portals, and the last of the unbroken line of the kings of France was led forth to a bloody death.

Those who would read the details of the dramatic examination at Paris before the papal commissioners, may do so in the minutes published by Michelet.[79] The great historian declares that a study of the evidence shook his belief in the Templars' innocence, and that if he were writing his history again, he must needs alter his attitude towards them. Such is not the impression left on the mind of the present writer. Moreover it has been pointed out that there is a suspicious identity in the various groups of testimonies, corresponding to the episcopal courts whence such testimonies came. The royal officers, after the severest search, could find not a single compromising document in the Templars' houses, nothing but a few account books, works of devotion and copies of St. Bernard's Rule. There were undoubtedly unworthy and vicious knights among the fifteen thousand Templars belonging to the order, but the charges brought against them are too monstrous for belief. The call which they had responded to so nobly, however, had long ceased. They were wealthy, proud and self-absorbed. Sooner or later they must infallibly have gone the way of all organisations which have outlived their use and purpose. It is the infamy of their violent destruction for which pope and king must answer at the bar of history.

Philip's reign is also remarkable for the establishment of the Parlement in Paris. From earliest times of the Monarchy, the kings had dispensed justice, surrounded by the chief Churchmen and nobles of the land, thus constituting an ambulatory tribunal which was held wherever the sovereign might happen to be. In 1302 Philip restricted it to judicial functions, and housed it in his palace of the Cité, which on the kings ceasing to dwell there in 1431 became the Palais de Justice. The ancient palace was rebuilt and enlarged by Philip. A vast hall with a double barrel-roof decorated with azure and gold, supported by a central row of columns adorned with statues of the kings of France—the most spacious and most beautiful Gothic chamber in France—and other courts and offices accommodated the Parlement. The tribunal was at first composed of twenty-six councillors or judges, of whom thirteen were lawyers, presided over by the royal chancellor, and sat twice yearly for periods of two months. It consisted of three chambers or courts.[80] The nobles who at first sat among the lay members gradually ceased to attend owing to a sense of their legal inefficiency, and the Parlement became at length a purely legal body. During the imprisonment of John the Good in England, the Parlement[81] sat en permanence, and henceforth became the cour souveraine et capitale of the kingdom. The purity of its members was maintained by severest penalties. In 1336 one of the presidents was convicted of receiving bribes and hanged. Twelve years later the falsification of some depositions was punished with the same severity, and in 1545 a corrupt chancellor was fined 100,000 livres, degraded, and imprisoned for five years. The chief executive officer of the Parlement, known as the Concierge, appointed the bailiffs of the court and had extensive local jurisdiction over dishonest merchants and craftsmen, whose goods he could burn. His official residence, known as the Conciergerie, subsequently became a prison, and so remains to this day. The entrance flanked by the two ancient tours de César et d'Argent, is one of the most familiar objects in Paris. There the Count of Armagnac was assassinated and the cells are still shown where Marie Antoinette, Madame Roland, and many of the chief victims of the Terror were lodged before their execution; where Danton, Hébert, Chaumette, and Robespierre followed each other in one self-same chamber.

Palais de Justice, Clock Tower and Conciergerie.
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CHAPTER VIII

Étienne Marcel—the English Invasions—The Maillotins—Murder of the Duke of Orleans—Armagnacs and Burgundians