forty of his knights; sixty met the same fate at Beaucaire; many others all over France; and their property was put in the king’s keeping for the service of the Holy Land.  On the 12th of August, 1308, a papal bull appointed a grand commission of inquiry charged to conduct, at Paris, an examination of the matter “according as the law requires.”  The Archbishops of Canterbury in England and of Mayence, Cologne, and Troves in Germany, were also named commissioners, and the pope announced that he would deliver his judgment within two years, at a general council held at Vienne, in Dauphiny, territory of the Empire.  Twenty-six princes and laic lords, the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, the Counts of Flanders, Nevers, and Auxerre, and the Count of Talleyrand de Perigord, offered themselves as the Templars’ accusers, and gave powers of attorney to act in their names.  On the 22d of November, 1309, the Grand Master, Molay, was, called before the commission.  At first he firmly denied all that his order had been accused of; afterwards he became confused and embarrassed, said that he had not the ability to undertake the defence of his order, that he was but a poor, unlettered knight, that the pope had reserved to himself the decision in the case, and that, for his part, he only wished the pope would summon him as soon as possible before him.  On the 28th of March, 1310, five hundred and forty-six knights, who had declared their readiness to defend their order, appeared before the commission; and they were called upon to choose proctors to speak in their name.  We ought also, then,” said they, “to have been tortured by proxy only.”  The prisoners were treated with the uttermost rigor and reduced to the most wretched plight:  “out of their poor pay of twelve deniers per diem they were obliged to pay for their passage by water to go and submit to their examination in the city, and to give money besides to the man who undid and riveted their fetters.”  In October, 1310, at a council held at Paris, a large number of Templars were examined, several acquitted, some subjected to special penances, and fifty-four condemned as heretics to the stake, and burned the same day in a field close to the abbey of St. Anthony; and nine others met the same fate at the hands of a council held at Senlis the same year:  “They confessed under their tortures,” says Bossuet, “but they denied at their execution.”  The business dragged slowly on; different decisions were pronounced, according to the place of decision; the Templars were pronounced innocent, on the 17th of June, 1310, at Ravenna, on the 1st of July at Mayence, and on the 21st of October at Salamanca; and in Aragon they made a successful resistance.  Europe began to be wearied at the uncertainty of such judgments and at the sight of such horrible spectacles; and Clement V. felt some shame at thus persecuting monks who, on more than one occasion, had shown devotion to the Holy See.