Ut sua supplicibus cumulentur marmora votis.”
This prelate was the nephew and godson of Philippe le Bel, the destroyer of the Knights-Templars and persecutor of Pope Boniface VIII., who merited the stigma Dante casts on him in his Purgatorio:
“Lo! the flower-de-luce
Enters Alagna: in his vicar, Christ
Himself a captive, and his mockery
Acted again. Lo! to his holy lip
The vinegar and gall once more applied,
And he ’twixt living robbers doomed to bleed.”
“When, O Lord! shall I behold that vengeance accomplished which, being already determined in thy secret judgment, thy retributive justice even now contemplates with delight?” continues the spirit met by the Divine Poet in the place of expiation—words that might be echoed in these days, when
“The new Pilate, of whose cruelty