The archbishop, who was paying the price of his elevation to a hard creditor, was not to be stopped by these considerations. He was making short work of the business. On the Monday he had a number of those who had undertaken the defence of the order brought before the council, and he interrogated them once more himself. Those of them who, having confessed, had afterwards retracted, and now persisted in their retractation, were declared to be _relapsed heretics_, and were delivered over to the secular arm and condemned to the flames; those who, had not confessed, and would not, were sentenced to imprisonment as _unreconciled_ Templars; those who persisted in their confession of the enormities laid to the charge of the order were set at liberty, and called _reconciled_ Templars. The next morning the fifty-four Templars who had been declared relapsed were taken from their prison, placed in carts, and conducted to the place of execution, where they beheld the piles prepared, and the executioners standing with flaming torches in their hands. An envoy from the court was present, who proclaimed liberty and the royal favour for those who would even then retract their declarations and confess the guilt of the order. The friends and relatives of the unhappy victims crowded round them, with tears and prayers, imploring of them to make the required acknowledgment and save their lives. In vain. These gallant knights, who, yielding to the anguish of torture, and worn down by solitude and privations, had confessed to the truth of the most absurd charges, now that they beheld the certain limit of their sufferings, disdained to purchase by falsehood a prolongation of life to be spent in infamy and contempt. With one voice they re-asserted their own innocence and that of their order. They called on God, the Virgin, and all the saints to aid and support them, raised the hymn of death, and expired amidst the tears and commiseration of the by-standers. Felons convicted on the clearest evidence will, as is well known, die asserting their innocence; but this is when they have no hope of escape remaining. Here life and liberty were offered, and the victims were implored by those whom they most loved to accept of them. May we not then assert that the men who resisted all solicitations were sincere and spoke the truth, and were supported by their confidence of being received as martyrs by that God whom they devoutly adored according to the doctrines of their church? On Wednesday, Aymeric de Villars-le-Duc, aged about fifty years, was brought before the commissioners. He was quite pallid, and seemed terrified beyond measure. On the articles to which he was to depose being explained to him, he asseverated in the strongest manner his resolution to speak the truth; then striking his breast with his clenched hands, he bent his knees, and stretching his hands towards the altar, spake these memorable words:--