“A thing deplorable and horrible to the mind is among us, and a thing terrible to the ears.... Natures that have exiled themselves beyond the bounds of nature, treasonable to the dignity of man. Christ is betrayed, and their initiation is the initiation of devils. They spit upon the Cross.” Also to these men admissions made by Templars who had betrayed their Order were related, and truth and rumour, and blasphemy and justice, were commingled in these high denunciations. The congregation of these picked men chosen to spread the thing immediately throughout Paris were ready to believe, and most of what they believed was true. But still in that high tower, as the darkness came, the chiefs of the Templars were confident and immune. Nothing in Christendom was so strong as they. The noise from the streets beyond their walls grew less, then suddenly rose and was more ordered and, as it were, more menacing. They could catch the regular footfall of men in rank and the clank of metal. Some rose, and going to the deep western windows of their high place, whence the sunset beyond Valerian and the hills of St. Cloud still warmed all the sky, they saw torches lit in the gloaming, and they heard a challenge at the gate. The gate opened, and a troop poured in. It was the king’s men. No resistance was held or opposed. That great door of the tower itself, which was to stand as the tower stood for so many centuries more (until it fell at the orders of Napoleon), was opened to the order of the king. The men who opened it at first looked at one another. None spoke save the Grand Master, who only said, “Woe to him that betrays his brethren,” and who, as he said it, looked fixedly at the youngest man. Then the worked hanging, which hung by rings before the archway of their room, was drawn clattering aside. The archers entered in a body, and these men were prisoners. Before it was night Philip himself, the king, had taken possession of that tower. He had filled it with his scribes. The treasury was forced. The rolls of parchment were brought forth, the accounts were rendered, and the vast fortunes of that place were beneath the grasp of the monarchy, which would proceed to the full revelation of so many crimes and of the humbling of so much pride, to the torture and to the death.