THE TEMPLARS. 295 out a hearing. On the 11th the Council of Sens was opened at Paris. On the 12th, while the commissioners were engaged in taking testimony, word was brought them that fifty-four of those who had offered to defend the Order had been condemned as re- lapsed heretics for retracting their confessions, and were to be burned that day. Hastily they sent to the council Philippe de Yohet, the papal custodian of the Templars, and Amis, Archdeacon of Orleans, to ask for delay. Yohet, they said, and many others asserted that the Templars who died in prison declared on peril of their souls that the crimes alleged were false; Eenaud de Provins and his colleagues had appealed before them from the council ; if the proposed executions took place the functions of the commission would be impeded, for the witnesses that day and the day before were crazed with terror and wholly unfit to give evi- dence. The envoys hurried to the council-hall, where they were treated with contempt and told that it was impossible that the commission could have sent such a message. The fifty-four martyrs were piled in wagons and carried to the fields near the convent of S. Antoine, where they were slowly tortured to death with fire, refusing all offers of pardon for confession, and manifest- ing a constancy which, as a contemporary tells us, placed their souls in great peril of damnation, for it led the people into the error of believing them innocent. The council continued its Avork, and a few days later burned four more Templars, so that if there were any who still proposed to defend the Order they might recognize what would be their fate. It ordered the bones of Jean de Tourne, former treasurer of the Temple, to be exhumed and burned; those who confessed and adhered to their confessions were reconciled to the Church and liberated ; those who persisted in refusing to confess were condemned to perpetual prison. This was rather more humane than the regular inquisitorial practice, but it suited the royal policy of the moment. A few weeks later, at Senlis, the Council of Reims burned nine more ; at Pont de l'Arche three were burned, and a number at Carcassonne.*
- Fisquet, La France Pontificate, Sens, p. 68. — Proces, I. 274-5, 281, — Contin.
Chron.G. de Fracheto (Bouquet, XXI. 33).— Chron. Anon. (Bouquet, XXI. 140).— Amalr. Auger. Hist. Pontif. (Eccard II. 1810). — Trithem. Chron. Hirsaug. ann. 1307.— Bern. Guidon. Flor. Chron. (Bouquet, XXI. 719).— Joann. de S. Victor
