THE SUPPRESSION OF THE TEMPLE 341
itself the Temple, but the Order founded in Jerusalem eight
centuries ago died with de Molay. Some historians have
claimed the Freemasons as the true successors of the
Templars, but their arguments are more ingenious than
convincing.
The guilt or innocence of the Order of the Temple must
for ever remain a mystery, Philip IV of France has had
many admirers. He built up a national spirit in France,
broke the power of the feudal aristocracy, and curbed the
Church j he was the first French king to summon the com-
moners and to foster the power of the civil lawyers. If
achievement can be considered apart from moral worth, he
was in some ways a very great king. The admirers of a
monarch to whom France owed so much have refused to
believe that their hero could be guilty of the unjust persecu-
tion of an innocent Order to serve his own selfish ends. The
Templars, they say, are self-condemned, and two thousand
guilty confessions are sufficient in themselves to establish
the offences. Papal writers also maintain that the result of
the examination conclusively demonstrates the guilt of the
Temple—any other view would reflect upon Clement V and
the justice of the Church.
No documentary evidence whatever was produced against
the Templars at any of the enquiries in France or elsewhere,
and no documentary proof against them has ever been found.
Almost all the records of the Order were destroyed by the
command of the Pope and Philip, and most of what remained
after the suppression of the Temple was edited by apologists
for the monarchy or the papacy, and edited consequently with
the view of maintaining the guilt of the Order. The record
of the examination by the papal commission at Paris and
of the examinations before the Inquisition and the ecclesias-
tical tribunals in some countries have, however, been pre-
served. But few of the depositions are to be trusted since
numerous complaints of perjury and falsification were made,