But on the moment that the king heard these things, without a day’s delay, without the least consultation with the ecclesiastical authorities, he ordered them to death as relapsed heretics. On the island in the Seine, where now stands the statue of Henry IV, between the king’s garden on one side and the convent of the Augustinian monks on the other, the two pyres were raised (two out of the four had shrunk back into their ignoble confessions). It was the hour of vespers when these two aged and noble men were led out to be burned. Both, as the smoke rose to their lips, as the fire crept up to their vital parts, continued solemnly to aver the innocence, the Catholic faith of the order. The king himself beheld this hideous spectacle.
[1313-1316 A.D.]
The wonder and the pity of the times which immediately followed not only arrayed De Molay in the robes of the martyr, but gave him the terrible language of a prophet. “Clement, iniquitous and cruel judge, I summon thee within forty days to meet me before the throne of the Most High.” According to some accounts this fearful sentence included the king, by whom, if uttered, it might have been heard. The earliest allusion to this awful speech does not contain that striking particularity which, if part of it, would be fatal to its credibility—the precise date of Clement’s death. It was not till the year after that Clement and King Philip passed to their account. The poetic relation of Godfrey de Paris simply states that De Molay declared that God would revenge their death on their unrighteous judges. The rapid fate of these two men during the next year might naturally so appal the popular imagination as to approximate more closely the prophecy and its accomplishment. At all events it betrayed the deep and general feeling of the cruel wrong inflicted on the order; while the unlamented death of the pope, the disastrous close of Philip’s reign, and the crimes of his family seemed as declarations of heaven as to the innocence of their noble victims.
The health of Clement V had been failing for some time. From his court, which he held at Carpentras, he set out in hopes to gain strength from his native air at Bordeaux. He had hardly crossed the Rhone when he was seized with mortal sickness at Roquemaure. The papal treasure was seized by his followers, especially his nephew; his remains were treated with such utter neglect that the torches set fire to the catafalque under which he lay, not in state. His body, covered only with a single sheet, all that his rapacious retinue had left to shroud their forgotten master, was half burned (not, like those of the Templars, on his living body) before alarm was raised. His ashes were borne back to Carpentras and solemnly interred.
Clement left behind him evil fame. He died shamefully rich. To his nephew (nepotism had begun to prevail in its baleful influence) he bequeathed not less than 300,000 golden florins, under the pretext of succour to the Holy Land. He had died still more wealthy but that his wealth was drained by more disgraceful prodigality. It was generally believed that the beautiful Brunisand de Foix, countess of Talleyrand Périgord, was the pope’s mistress; to her he was boundlessly lavish, and her influence was irresistible even in ecclesiastical matters. Rumour ran that her petitions to the lustful pontiff were placed upon her otherwise unveiled bosom. Italian hatred of a transalpine pope, Guelfic hatred of a Ghibelline pope, may have lent a too greedy ear to these disreputable reports; but the large mass of authorities is against the pope; in his favour, hardly more than suspicious silence.[b]
JOHN XXII TO URBAN V
[1316-1333 A.D.]
On the death of Clement, 1314, there were violent contests among the cardinals respecting the election of a successor, the French demanding a French pontiff and the Italians an Italian. After two years the French gained the victory; and in 1316, Jacques d’Euse of Cahors, cardinal of Porto, was made head of the church, and assumed the pontifical name of John XXII. He was not destitute of learning, but was crafty, insolent, weak, imprudent, and avaricious, as even those who honour his memory do not positively deny. He rendered himself notorious by many imprudent and unsuccessful enterprises, but especially by his unfortunate contest with the emperor, Ludwig of Bavaria. There was a contest for the empire of Germany between Ludwig of Bavaria and Frederick of Austria, each being chosen emperor by a part of the electors in the year 1314. John declared that the decision of this controversy belonged to him. But Ludwig, having conquered his rival in battle and taken him prisoner, in the year 1322, assumed the government of the empire, without consulting the pontiff, and refused to submit a cause which had been decided by the sword to another trial before the pontiff.
John was greatly offended at this, and in the year 1324 divested the emperor of all title to the imperial crown. Ludwig, in return, accused the pontiff of corrupting the faith, or of heresy; and appealed to the decision of a council. Exasperated by this and other things, the pontiff, in the year 1327, again divested the emperor of all his authority and power, and laid him under excommunication. In revenge for this injury the emperor, in the year 1328, at Rome, publicly declared John unworthy of the pontificate; and substituted in his place Pietro di Corvara, a Franciscan monk, and one of those who disagreed with the pontiff; and he, assuming the name of Nicholas V, crowned Ludwig emperor. But in the year 1330, this imperial pontiff voluntarily abdicated his office, and surrendered himself into the hands of John, who kept him a prisoner at Avignon till his death. Thus John continued to reign in spite of the emperor, as did the emperor in spite of the pontiff.
