THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE       339
the stake. De Molay and de Charnay also realised that they
ran the risk of execution, but death seemed to them prefer-
able to a life spent in prison. Before the reading of the
judgment was completed, de Molay interrupted: " I think
it only right that, at so solemn a moment and when my life
has so little time to run, I should reveal the deception which
has been practised and speak up for the truth. Before
heaven and earth and with all of you here as my witnesses,
I admit that I am guilty of the grossest iniquity. But the
iniquity is that I have lied in admitting the disgusting charges
laid against the Order. I declare, and I must declare, that
the Order is innocent. Its purity and saintliness is beyond
question. I have indeed confessed that the Order is guilty,
but I have done so only to save myself from terrible tortures
by saying what my enemies wished me to say. Other knights
who have retracted their confessions have been led to the
stake, I know 5 yet the thought of dying is not so awful that
I shall confess to foul crimes which have never been com-
mitted. Life is offered to me, but at the price of infamy.
At such a price life is not worth having. I do not grieve
that I must die if life can be bought only by piling one lie
upon another."
De Charnay spoke in similar terms, and the crowd, which
had been profoundly moved by the declarations and the
bearing of the two knights, began to murmur sympathetically.
The proceedings were hastily closed and the four prisoners
removed to gaol. Philip the Fair was informed of the state-
ments of de Molay and de Charnay and at once summoned
a secret council, which decreed that both prisoners should
be put to death as relapsed heretics. The Pope had probably
no thought of permitting the great officers to be given to the
flames 5 but Philip did not allow any time for consultation
with the papacy. He was weary of the whole affair of the
Temple, annoyed that he had failed to win complete success
and obtain all the possessions of the Order in France, and