One hundred and forty knights were examined in Paris, and all but three confessed that the order practised a secret initiation, in which the aspirants were bound to deny Christ, and spit upon the cross; and that, moreover, immoral customs were practised amongst them. Many of them also confessed that they had committed acts of idolatry. A learned contemporary writer, De Wilcke, a German protestant clergyman, has epitomized the researches of two of his co-religionists--Moldenhawer, who discovered in the National Library in Paris the original records of the examination, and Munster, who found in the library of the Vatican the original notes of the proceedings that took place in England. This is De Wilcke’s conclusion: “The two facts of the denial of Christ and the spitting on the cross are attested by all the witnesses who were examined, with one or two exceptions.” In spite of the scandal caused by these confessions, Pope Clement V. urgently protested against Philippe’s course of action, and represented to him that the Templars were a religious body, under the control of the Holy See alone, that the king was consequently wrong to make himself their judge, and that he had no authority over either their possessions or their persons. Philippe unwillingly yielded to the pope’s remonstrances, and the pontiff himself examined seventy-two Templars, whose confessions tallied with the avowals made in the first instance at Paris. An inquiry was instituted in England, in Italy, in Spain, and in Germany. The answers extracted in the course of the different examinations were not exactly coincident, but the confessions of impiety and immorality were very numerous, except in Spain. The Aragonese Templars took up arms and held themselves on the defensive in their fortresses; they were however, conquered by King James II., and thrown into prison as rebels. The Templars of Castile were arrested, tried before an ecclesiastical tribunal, and declared innocent. [Illustration: Fig. 150.--Council of Vienne.--Fresco executed in the Vatican Library by order of Pope Pius V. (Sixteenth Century).] The pope acknowledged the existence of serious irregularities amongst the knights of the order, but persisted in reserving to himself the right to pronounce a final decision. He, however, instructed every bishop in the Christian world to investigate the cases within his own diocese, and to absolve the innocent, and condemn the guilty Templars according to the utmost rigour of the law.