knights had been arrested, their entire property confiscated, and the Temple occupied by the king and his court. In this nefarious enterprise Philippe had taken care to secure the co-operation of the Pope, Clement V; the wildest charges, of idolatry, magic practices, cruelty and outrage, were brought against the order; fifty-six of the knights were burned alive at a slow fire at Vincennes, and, finally, in 1313, the grand-master and another dignitary, on the little Ile aux Vaches, to-day the platform of the Pont-Neuf, in the presence of the king and all his court. A popular legend asserts that as the figure of the grand-master, Jacques de Molay, disappeared finally in the smoke and flame of his pyre, he was heard, in a solemn voice, to summon his executioners to meet him before the bar of God, the Pope within forty days and the king within the year. Certain it is that both these potentates died within the appointed time. The provincial synod which had condemned the fifty-six Templars had been presided over by one of Philippe's confidants, the Archbishop of Sens, brother of the king's minister of finances, Enguerrand de Marigny. It was this latter who set the melancholy example of being hanged by his royal master's successor, which was followed by other finance ministers in two succeeding reigns. His innocence, however, was formally recognized by the king, Louis X, before the end of his short reign of eighteen months, a sum of ten thousand livres was granted to his children, "in consideration of the great misfortune which has befallen them," and his principal accuser, the Comte de Valois, stricken with paralysis ten years later, made amends by a general distribution of alms to the poor of Paris, with the request that they would "pray to God for Monseigneur Enguerrand and for Monseigneur Charles de Valois." Much the same fate awaited Gérard de la Guette, minister of Philippe V, le Long, who reigned for six years after Louis X,--only, as he had expired under the torture, this minister was hanged after death, and his innocence duly acknowledged in course of time. Pierre Remy, successor of Gérard de la Guette and treasurer of Charles le Bel, who succeeded Philippe le Long, was arrested by Charles's successor, Philippe de Valois, even before he had been crowned, and hanged on the gibbet of Montfaucon, like his predecessors. He was at first intended for the little gibbet of Montigny, reserved for the vulgar, but on his way there--whether moved by sudden remorse, or by ambition for higher honors--he accused himself of a multitude of new crimes, among others, of high treason against the king and against the State. He was accordingly transferred to Montfaucon, where he had the distinction of being hanged above all others. This was in 1328.