THE TRIAL OF THE TEMPLARS IN FRANCE 303
but the brethren were comparatively cheerful during this
part of the process. They had recovered their faith in the
Pope and believed that at last they would receive justice.
The five hundred and forty-six prisoners who had offered
to defend the Temple were assembled in the garden of the
Bishop of Paris on March 28th. They were told that the
Grand Master and other leaders had confessed to a number
of the crimes, and the complete indictment against the Order
was read out in Latin. As many of the brethren could not
understand Latin, a lawyer began to read a translation in
French. He was stopped by a howl of anger. The
Templars who knew Latin had explained some of the charges
to their comrades, and the brethren shouted out that they
would not permit such horrible and unfounded accusations to
be repeated in French. When the excitement had blown
over, the procedure which the commission proposed to follow
was explained to the prisoners. The defenders were to
choose a few members to act as their representatives before
the court. Every facility would be granted to such repre-
sentatives to conduct the defence and lawyers would go round
all the prisons to ascertain the names of the members by
whom the Templars wished to be represented.
The prisoners were suspicious when asked to choose repre-
sentatives. Some thought it was a trap, others that the
appointment of representatives was dangerous as such repre-
sentatives might be induced to betray the Order. The prin-
cipal objection was that the Templars still regarded
themselves as under the command of the Grand Master,
and they claimed that only he could authorise them to act
collectively. This objection was placed before the court.
When the commissioners replied that the Grand Master and
other leaders refused to defend the Order, the prisoners
expressed their disbelief, and when assured that de Molay
would not speak except before the Pope they begged to
be led before their leader. The commissioners patiently