Paris (France) -- Description and travel; Paris (France) -- History
Those who would read the details of the dramatic examination at Paris
before the papal commissioners, may do so in the minutes published by
Michelet.[79] The great historian declares that a study of the
evidence shook his belief in the Templars' innocence, and that if he
were writing his history again, he must needs alter his attitude
towards them. Such is not the impression left on the mind of the
present writer. Moreover it has been pointed out that there is a
suspicious identity in the various groups of testimonies,
corresponding to the episcopal courts whence such testimonies came.
The royal officers, after the severest search, could find not a single
compromising document in the Templars' houses, nothing but a few
account books, works of devotion and copies of St. Bernard's Rule.
There were undoubtedly unworthy and vicious knights among the fifteen
thousand Templars belonging to the order, but the charges brought
against them are too monstrous for belief. The call which they had
responded to so nobly, however, had long ceased. They were wealthy,
proud and self-absorbed. Sooner or later they must infallibly have
gone the way of all organisations which have outlived their use and
purpose. It is the infamy of their violent destruction for which pope
and king must answer at the bar of history.
[Footnote 79: It is to be hoped that some English scholar will do for
these most important records, the earliest report of any great
criminal trial which we possess, what Mr. T. Douglas Murray has done
for the Trial and Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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