For three years these miserable wretches languished in their dungeons, and the imagination recoils from picturing their torments. Finally Philip felt that an end must be made, and in March, 1310, 546 of the survivors were taken from their prisons and made to choose delegates, for their exasperation was so deep that the government feared to let them appear before the court in a body. The precaution availed little, for the knights who conducted the common defence proved themselves as proud and bold in this last extremity of human misery, as they had ever been upon the day of battle. They denied the charges brought against them, they taunted their judges with the lies told them to induce them to confess, and they showed how life and liberty had been promised them, under the royal seal, if they would admit the allegations of the government. Then they told the story of those who had been steadfast to the end. “It is not astonishing that some have borne false witness, but that any have told the truth, considering the sorrows and suffering, the threats and insults, they daily endure.... What is surprising is that faith should be given to those who have testified untruly to save their bodies, rather than to those who have died in their tortures in such numbers, like martyrs of Christ, in defence of the truth, or who solely for conscience sake, have suffered and still daily suffer in their prisons, so many torments, trials, calamities, and miseries, for this cause.”[176] The witnesses called confirmed their statements. Bernard Peleti, when examined, was asked if he had been put to the torture. He replied that for three months previous to his confession to the Bishop of Paris, he had lain with his hands so tightly bound behind his back that the blood started from his finger nails. He had beside been put in a pit. Then he broke out: “If I am tortured I shall deny all I have said now, and shall say all they want me to say. If the time be short, I can bear to be beheaded, or to die by boiling water, or by fire, for the honour of the order; but I can no longer withstand the torments which, for more than two years, I have endured in prison.”[177] “I have been tortured three times,” said Humbert de Podio. “I was confined thirty-six weeks in a tower, on bread and water, quia non confitebatur quae volebant.”[178] Bernard de Vado showed two bones which had dropped from his heels after roasting his feet.[179]