The Knights Templar.

christian arms afterwards underwent the Templars , entrenched in the island of Arade , harassed their enemies for a long time . Too much reduced , however , to oppose numerous armies , the Grand Master and his knights were necess itated to take refuge in the isle of Cyprus , where they were preparing to carry on the war against the infidels , when his holiness called the Grand Master to France . He arrived with a retinue of sixty chevaliers alread

y grown old in combat , experienced in adversity , ever ready to shed their blood and sacrifice life for the defence of the Catholic Church and the honour of the Order . Can the like be said of kni ghts who pass their life in the pleasures of the world and in intemperance ? All at once the knights are arrested in France and sought after through

Christendom . The most horrible accusations are published against them ; they are supposed guilty of atrocious crimes against religion and morality . "All historians coincide , " says Dupui , "that the origin of the ruin of the Templars was the work of the prior of Montfaucon , ancl of Noffodei , a Florentine , banished from his country , and whom nobod y believes to have been a Templar . This priorby the sentence of the Grand Masterhad been

con-, , demned for heresy , and for having led an infamous life , to pass the remainder of his days in a prison . The other is reputed to have been by the prevot of Paris condemned to rigorous penalties . " Thus it is upon the denunciation of those two wretches , branded by justice , one of whom had been banished from the Order for the crimes of heresy and corruption of moralsthat a similar accusation is made against the whole

, Order ! What an incoherent contradiction ! If the Grand Master rigorously punished such crimes , can it be supposed that the Order made an express law in support of such crimes for the instalment of the chevaliers ? Apage . Vah !

What an astonishing contradiction ! And if such a revolting corruption had existed in the Order , was there any necessity to wait till all the knights should have been cast into dungeons , in order to disseminate against them such a horrible calumny ? It will be proper to offer to your view a picture of the oppressions which the proscribed Templars were to undergo , before it be attempted to discuss in

detail the nature of the accusations ; the extraordinary and unjustifiable proceedings carried on ; the pretended proofs which some historians , of more gravity than virtue , suppose to be the result of them ; the motives and the forms of the judgments of condemnation of the Order . First , The Grand Master is called from the isle of Cyprus into France , under the perfidious pretext of incorporating the Hospitallers with the

Templars . In 1307 , upon the 13 th of October , this Grand Master , with one hundred and thirty-nine chevaliers , are arrested at their palace of the temple at Paris . Their property and treasure are seized . The king , Philip the Fair , takes possession of their palace . * On the same day all the other chevaliers in France are arrested .

The king publishes an accusation to bias ths public mind , stigmatising the Templars as prowling wolves , as a perfidious and idolatrous society , whose works and discourses alone were capable of contaminating the earth and of infecting the air , etc . " Quorum non solum actus et opera detestanda , verum etiam repentina verba ten-am sua fceditate commaculant , roris beneficio subtrahunt , et aeris inficiunt puritatem . "f