) 280 THE KNIGHTS T-SHFLARB. J SMBI D» and were burned to death in a slow and lingering manner upon Λ. Xìsìi. email fires of eltarcoal which were kindled on the little island in the Seine, between the king's garden and the convent of St. Augustine, close to the spot where now stands the equestrian statue of Henri IV.* Thus perished the last Grand Master of the Temple. The fate of the persecutors of the order is not unworthy of notice. A year and one month after the above horrible execution, the pope was attacked by a dysentery, and speedily hurried to his grave. The dead body was transported to Carpentras, where the court of Rome tben resided ; it was placed at night in a chnrch which caught fire, and the mortal remains of the holy pontiff were almost entirely consumed. His relations quarrelled over the immense treasures he left behind him, and a vast sum of money, which had been deposited for safety in a church at Lucca, was stolen by a daring band of German and Italian freebooters. Before the close of the same year, king Philip died of a lingering disease which baffled all the art of his medical attendants, and the condemned criminal, upon the strength of whose information the Templars were originally arrested, was hanged for fresh crimes. " History attests," says Monsieur Raynouard, " that all those who were foremost in the persecution of the Templars, came to an untimely and miserable death." The last days of Philip were embittered by misfortune; his nobles and clergy leagued against him to resist his exactions ; the wives of his three sons were accused of adultery, and two of them were publicly convicted of that crime. The misfortunes of Edward the Second, * Villani, lib. viii. cap, 92. Contin. Chron. de Nançis, ad ann. 1313. Pap. Mats. in Philip, pulchr. lib. fii. p. 393. Marwna de rcb. Hisp, lib. xv. cap. 10. Dupuy,&. 1700, p. 71. Chron. Corn. Zunfiwt apud Marlene, torn. v. cob 100. ItagnouarH, p. 2*0,210.