The last great master of the Knights Templar, who died at the stake and launched a terrible curse

As soon as Louis XVI's head rolled on January 21, 1793, a man fired into the crowd towards the scaffold, put his hands in the blood shed by the king and began splashing people screaming : "Jacques de Molay, you are avenged" (in French, "Jacques de Molay has been avenged." Who this character has mentioned, some say he was a mason? Well, the last Grand Master of the Order of the Knights Templar, died at the stake by order of Philip IV and who, in the middle of his agony, launched a terrible curse.

Jacques de Molay was born in 1245 in Molay, a city in the north-east of

la France

which in the Middle Ages belonged to the Burgundy region. Son of noblemen of the second category, since he was a boy, he proved that he was for great things: he left his hometown, became a military, entered a body of his own. an elite to which everyone wanted to belong and, as if that were not enough, became the maximum authority of this fraternity. But one day, he fell out of favor.

As described in the book
The Templar Knights (Vergara Editorial), by Pier Paul Read (best-selling author)
They live!Jacques was the son of Juan de Longwy and was linked by his mother to the distinguished Rohan family. "It took the name of Molay for a property of the diocese of Besançon," is specified in this book.

In times of
The Crusades, he began to dream, as it was said, with which he dreamed every second of the nobility: wearing the white coat with the black cross, which was the uniform of
The poor knights of Christ, known as the Templars. In just 12 years, in 1265, the doors of this sacred order were opened in the city of Beaune. "He was admitted by two senior officers: Humberto de Pairayd, master of England, and Amaury de La Roche, master in France," is reported in
The Templar Knights.

This young and ambitious adventurer began to be one of the 20,000 men accepted in this circle (only 10% were gentlemen). He had only one idea in mind: to reach the top of the hierarchy.

As the writer Maurice Druon describes it,
The cursed kings (Editorial Vergara), the term Templar evoked at the time the exoticism and the epic: swollen sailing ships sailing towards the east, galloping loads in the sand, treasures of the sea. Arabia, cities taken and gigantic fortresses. All this for a religious purpose: to expel Muslims from the Holy Land.

Soon, Jacques discovered that he was realizing his dream: he sailed in unknown seas, fought what he called "infidels", lived in great fortresses, marched proudly in cities taken and climbed one by one the different hierarchical steps of the Temple. . Until the day of 1293, at age 48, his brothers chose him to exercise the supreme function of Grandmaster of France and Overseas.

Under his leadership, the Templars retained their power, accumulated fortunes and became practically masters and lords of France and much of Europe. Between 1293 and 1305, Molay promoted multiple expeditions against the Muslims and managed to enter Jerusalem in 1298, defeating the Sultan of Egypt, Malej Nacer.

At 60, Jacques de Molay had finished. He had become the great reformer of the Order of the Temple, had accumulated only a surpbaded power than that of either the king or the pope, and had secured a place in the great story crusades. I touched the sky with my hands. But … there is always a "brushstroke" that ruins everything.

In the early hours of Friday, October 13, 1307, the King of France Philip IV, said Philip the Fair, had all the Templars of France arrested by a gigantic operation prepared for a long time. He accused them of heresy, in the name of the Holy Inquisition. A certain Guillermo de Nogaret, in person, was in charge of capturing Jacques at the headquarters of the Order.

At dawn of 1307, superstition originated: Friday 13th brought misfortune, which, at least for Molay and thousands of other Templars, became a reality. As recalled Agustín Saade, professor of history at the University of Buenos Aires, Jacques was imprisoned in the temple tower. A few centuries later, Louis XVI would be locked up, he would only remain guillotined.

The tortuous interrogations and prosecutions lasted seven years, during which Jacques was tortured and forced to confess what his accusers wanted: heresy, sodomy, sacrilege of the cross and veneration of pagan idols. In the Knights Templar, it is said that, according to the Capetian attorneys, the Order of the Temple would have been delivered to worship and service to the devil. Each new recruit, at his initiation, "has been instructed to deny Christ and to spit, trampling an image of Christ on the cross or urinating on it."

In the end, Philip IV himself, in collusion with Pope Clement V, condemned Molay to die burned at the stake. Thus, on March 18, 1314, the last great master extinguished among the flames in front of Notre-Dame cathedral. But before going out forever, he managed to shout, "Pope Clement, Knight William, King Philip!" Before one year, I call you to appear before the Court of God to receive his just punishment, cursed to the thirteenth generation of your lineage . "

Indeed, a year ago, Pope Felipe el Hermoso and Guillermo de Nogaret were dead. Not only that. The king's three sons were also dying and the Capetos dynasty, which had ruled France for 300 years, extinguished it. The rest of the curse has also been fulfilled, as described in the seven volumes of
The cursed kings.

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