People's party paper. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1891-1898, 1893-05-12
To him succeeded Philip the Far,

To him succeeded Philip the Far,
who reigned till 1914.
He was active and successful !;
was cruel, proud, treacherous and
aVaricious. He plundered his sub
jects, made them pay heavy taxes,
debased the gold and silver money
by melting it up and putting baser
metals with it in recoinage.
But he is notable for the success
with which he resisted the Pope's
claim to have absolute authority over
temporal affairs.
Had this claim been admitted in
practice, the Church would have
been ruler over everything and
everybody. Every law in France
would have been subject to the
Pope's veto, every State officer to
foreign control and removal.
Philip resisted this power, and his
people sustained him in it.
To get their full support, he sum-
moned the first States General
known to French history.
The assembly thus named was a
sort of General Congress of the rep
resentatives of the people in which
the Clergy, the Aristocracy and a
portisn of the Commons all took
part.
To their credit be it said that most
of the French Churchmen. took the
Kings side of the controversy,
Without narrating the violent
events that followed, it is sufficient
to say that the King won complete
victory. He drove Pope Boniface
VIII, to madness and death, and
completely established his indepen-
dence of papal control.
Philip having spent all his money
in war with the Flemings, decided
to refill his purse.
First he fell upon the Jews, took
all their cash that he could lay hands
on and then drove them out of
France.
Next he made an agreement with
his friend, Pope Clement, (whose
election he had brought about after
the contest already alluded toy to
seize all the property Of the Knights
Templar, one of the most powerful
and wealthy orders of chlvalry.
Philip had the knights seized sud
denly and thrown into prison on the
most preposterous charges. One of
these was that they were in the habit
of worshiping the devil under the
form of cat. Toasted on a slow
fire, the unhappy prisoners, to escape
the dreadful pain, confessed the
crime. Most horrible were the per-
versions of justice sometimes prao-
ticed in those times.
If the accused admitted guilt at
the outset, of course punishment fol-
lowed.
If, on the other hand, he was inno-
cent, and denied guilt, he was tor
tured with deviHsh cruelty until he
lied to escape pain. Having extorted
the confession by punishment equal
to death itself, they then mercifully
ended the business by carrying out
the final sentence.
After putting the Knights through
hideous fortunes to compel them to
confess (Which confessions they with
drew as soon as the torture was
stopped), the cold-hearted King had
them burnt to death by slow fire
on an island in the Seine, close to
his royal palace.
He then seized all their money and
two thirds of all their personal prop
erty, besides much of their immense
holdings of real estate.
This royal monster was killed by a
hog. Boar-hunting was favorite
pastime in those days, and part
of the pleasure lay in the fact
that it was dangerous. Philip, in the
pursuit of this amusement, came
across the wrong hog one day, and
got the worst of it. Being badly
wounded by the wild boar, he saw
that he must die, and his last hours
were full of remorse for his crimes.
FAMOUS ORATORS.