During the reading of the letters which recited his confession made to the cardinals at Chinon, he crossed himself repeatedly, and gave other signs of indignation and surprise, and said, that, were it not for the respect due to the envoys of the pope, he should express himself differently. They said they were not come there to receive challenges. He replied that he spoke not of cartels, he only wished they acted in this case as the Saracens and Tartars did, who cut off the head and cut the body in two of those who were found to be guilty. Two circumstances are worthy of note in this examination; one, that William Plasian was present at it, and, as the commissioners expressly declared, without being invited by them; the other, that the confessions, which were imputed to Molay, and which he evidently intimated to be false, were inserted in the bull _Faciens misericordiam_, which bears the date of the 12th August, although the festival of the Assumption, that is the 16th of August, is given as the day on which they were made[101]. It was there declared that the heads of the order had confessed and been absolved; yet here we find the Master treated as a heretic who was still unreconciled. [Footnote 101: Raynouard, 61. This circumstance was first remarked by Fleury, _Hist. Eccles._, lib. xci. Yet it seems hardly credible that the pope and his secretaries could have made so gross a mistake.] The following day (Nov. 27), Ponsard de Gisi, prior of Payens, appeared before the commission. On being asked if he would defend the order, he replied, "Yes; the imputations cast on us of denying Christ, of spitting on the cross, of authorising infamous crimes, and all such accusations, are false. If I, myself, or other knights, have made confessions before the bishop of Paris, or elsewhere, we have betrayed the truth--we have yielded to fear, to danger, to violence. We were tortured by Flexien de Beziers, prior of Montfaucon, and the monk William Robert, our enemies. Several of the prisoners had agreed among themselves to make these confessions, in order to escape death, and because thirty-six knights had died at Paris, and a great number in other places, under the torture. As for me, I am ready to defend the order in my own name, and in the names of those who will make common cause with me, if I am assigned out of the goods of the order as much as will defray the needful expense. I require to be granted the counsel of Raynaud of Orleans and of Peter of Bologna, priests of the order." He was asked if he had been tortured. He replied that he had, three months before he made his confession.