The proceedings against the order in France had, in the mean time, assumed a most sanguinary character. On the 28th of March, (A. D. 1310) five hundred and forty-six Templars, who persisted in maintaining the innocence of their order, were assembled in the garden of the bishop’s palace at Paris, to hear the articles of accusation read over to them, and a committee of their number was authorised to draw up a written defence. They asked to have an interview with the Grand Master and the heads of the order, but this was refused. The total number of Templars, immured in the prisons of Paris, was nine hundred. In the course of the examination before the papal commissioners, Brother Laurent de Beaume produced a letter which had been sent to him and his fellow-prisoners at Sens, warning them against a retractation of their confessions in the following terms: “_Sachez que notre pere le pape a mande que tuit cil qui aurent fayt les suizitos confessions devant ses anvouez, qui en cele confessions ne voudroient perseverès, que il sorent mis a damnazion et destruit au feu._” This threat was carried into execution, and Brother Laurent de Beaume was one of the first victims. The defence drawn up by the brethren and presented to the commissioners by Brother Peter de Bologna, begins by stating the origin and objects of their institution, the vows to which they subjected themselves, and the mode in which persons were received into the fraternity. They give a frightful account of the tortures that had been inflicted upon them, and declare that those who had escaped with life from the hands of the tormentors, were either ruined in health or injured in intellect, and that as pardon and forgiveness had been freely offered to those knights who would confess, it was not wonderful that false confessions had been made. They observed that a vast number of knights had died in prison, and they exhorted the commissioners to interrogate the guards, jailers, and executioners, and those who saw them in their last moments, concerning the declarations and confessions they had made at the peril of their souls when dying. They maintained that it was a most extraordinary thing that so many knights of distinguished birth and noble blood, members of the most illustrious families in Europe, should have remained from an early age up to the day of their death, members of the order, and should never, in days of sickness, or at the hour of death, have revealed any of the horrid iniquities and abominations charged against it.[156] All the Templars, indeed, who had made confessions were rapidly following one another’s example in retracting them, and maintaining their innocence, and the king hastened to arrest the unfavourable march of events.