280 THE HISTORY OP THE ORDER OF [book ill.

breed indiscipline. Villaret, blinded by his glory,was unable to withstand the temptation of success.Instead of giving good example to his youngknights, quite the contrary. They had in him anexcuse for every excess. And it appeared thatvalour and luck legitimated vice.

Langne was a word of division regarding theorder, but of union between conspirators. If thatwas too harsh a term to be applied to those youngknights then, it was quickly to suit their mutinousconduct. Nor were the riches, supposed flowinginto the treasury from the downfal of their formercompanions-in-arms without offering a veil ofsanction to every wild and ruinous expense. Invain one of the elder knights exhorted them tobeware, that it was the very same turbulence andvanity that led the Templars to destruction; thattheir enemies desired nothing more than to be fur-nished with an excuse to ruin them; that it wasnot from love of Hospitallers that Philip le Belburned the Templars; that if the Parliament ofParis 1 , and even Rome herself, declared the Hospi-tallers were to possess all the property, yet thatwas only in show, to fling the odium on them, andthe King of France in fact seized every stiver of itin his dominions for himself; and that the Pope

1 Cod. Dipl. Goros., ii., Nuni. xxviii.—Appendix, cxvi.