In the last years of the seventeenth century, Philippe de Vendôme, prince of the blood and knight of Malta, was named Grand Prior of the Temple. He would have his priory worthy of the gallant and graceful Court of the Palais-Royal; and the handsomest and most amiable of ladies, and the finest and gayest of wits were bidden to his historic suppers. The oaks that had shadowed the cross of Jacques de Molay lent their shelter now to "all the gods of Olympus," summoned within the green enclosure of the Temple by the lively invocations of La Fare and de Chaulieu. In the eighteenth century, this same enclosure had a population of four thousand souls, divided into three distinct classes. There was first the house of the Grand Prior, the dignitaries of the Order, and certain nobles; then, a numerous body of workers of all grades; and lastly, a rather heterogeneous collection of debtors who were able to elude their creditors within these precincts, in virtue of a Mediæval prescript—which justice ceased to respect in 1779. At this epoch, the Government of Louis XVI.—as if with a presentiment of what the Temple was shortly to become for the King of France—ordered the demolition of the old fortress of the Templars. But the destroyers of 1779 overthrew only a portion of the tower; the dungeon itself remained, to be witness of a royal agony. [Illustration: THE TEMPLE PRISON.] See, then, at length, after the revolution of the 10th of August, Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette prisoners in the prison of the Temple! Marie Antoinette, most imprudent and most amiable, most unfortunate and most calumniated of women; Louis XVI., poor honest gentleman, whose passive intelligence drew from Turgot this prophetic word: "Sire, a weak prince can make choice only between the musket of Charles IX. and the scaffold of Charles I." The King was without force and without prestige; the Queen was incapable either of giving or of receiving a lesson in royalty.