The court of Philip III., pitiful scion of a noble king, is associated with a dramatic judicial murder at Paris. Among the late-repentant souls temporarily exiled from purification who crowd around Dante at the foot of the Mont of Purgatory is that of Pierre de la Brosse, "severed from its body through hatred and envy and not for any sin committed." Unhappy Pierre was St. Louis' chamberlain and had been present at his death. He filled the same high office under his son, became his favourite minister and all-powerful at court. In 1276 the king's eldest son by his first queen died under suspicion of poison. The second queen, sister of the Duke of Brabant, being envious of Pierre's ascendency, began insidiously to abuse the king's ear. Pierre met the queen's move by clandestinely spreading a report that the prince was sacrificed to secure the succession to her own offspring. The king was then persuaded by the queen's friends to consult a famous prophetess, who declared her innocent, and Pierre's death was plotted by the queen, her brother of Brabant, and some discontented and jealous nobles. One morning Paris was startled by the arrest of the omnipotent minister, who was tried before a commission packed by his enemies, and hanged on 30th June 1278, by the common hangman, at the gibbet on Montfaucon, in the presence of the Duke of Brabant and others of his enemies. The popular belief was that he had been accused of an attempt on the queen's chastity: actually his destruction had been compassed by a charge of treason, based on some forged letters. The tragic end of Pierre de la Brosse excited universal interest and discussion. Benvenuto da Imola says that Dante, when in Paris, diligently sought out the truth and convinced himself of the great minister's innocence. A prince of far different calibre was the Fourth Philip, surnamed the Fair, who grappled with and humiliated the great pontiff, Boniface VIII.--the most resolute upholder of the papacy in her claim to universal secular supremacy--and thus achieved a task which had baffled the mighty emperors themselves; a prince who, in Dante's grim metaphor, scourged the shameless harlot of Rome from head to foot, and dragged her to do his will in France. [Illustration: PALAIS DE JUSTICE, CLOCK TOWER AND CONCIERGERIE.]