THE TEMPLARS. 329 the question has been argued pro and con with a vehemence which promises to leave it one of the unsettled problems of history.* Be this as it may, Philippe obtained the object of his desires. After 1307 his financial embarrassments visibly decreased. There was not only the release from the obligation of the five hundred thousand livres which he had borrowed of the Order, but its vast accumulations of treasure and of valuables of all kinds fell into his hands and were never accounted for. He collected all the debts due to it, and his successors were still busy at that work as late as 1322. The extensive banking business which the Templars had established between the East and the West doubtless rendered this feature of the confiscation exceedingly profitable, and it is safe to assume that Philippe enforced the rule that debts due by convicted heretics were not to be paid. Despite his pretence of surrendering the landed estates to the pope, he retained possession of them till his death and enjoyed their revenues. Even those in Guyenne, belonging to the English crown, he collected in spite of the protests of Edward, and he claimed the Templar castles in the English territories until Clement prevailed upon him to withdraw. The great Paris Temple, half palace, half fortress, one of the ar- chitectural wonders of the age, was retained with a grip which nothing but death could loosen. After the property had been ad- judged to the Hospitallers, in May, 1312, by the Council of Yienne with Philippe's concurrence, and he had formally approved of it in August, Clement addressed him in December several letters ask- ing his assistance in recovering what had been seized by indi- viduals — assistance which doubtless was freely promised ; but in June, 1313, we find Clement remonstrating with him over his re- fusal to permit Albert de Chateauneuf, Grand Preceptor of the Hospital, to administer the property either of his own Order or that of the Temple in France. In 1314 the General Chapter of the Hospital gave unlimited authority to Leonardo and Francesco de Tibertis to take possession of all the Temple property promised to the Order, and in April an arret of Parlement recites that it had been given to the Hospital at Philippe's special request, and that he had invested Leonardo de Tibertis with it ; but there was
- Raynald. aim. 1307, No. 12.— D'Argentre I. i. 281.— Cainpi, Dell' Hist. Ec-
cles. di Piacenza, P. in. p. 43, Piacenza, 1651,— Feyjoo, Cartas I. xxviii.
