Jacques de Molay was the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar. On March 18th, 1314, he was burned at the stake outside the Notre Dame in Paris, after his order had been declared anti-Christian and he himself had been imprisoned and tortured for five years. King Phillip the Fair was the power behind the destruction of the Templars, mainly because he envied their wealth and power. He had the support of the current pope, Clement V. Instrumental in the abolishment was also Guillaume de Nogaret, who carried out the persecutions. The land and valuables that had belonged to the order were taken over by Phillip and his supporters.

With his dying breath, the Grand Master is supposed to have sworn an oath of revenge. It went something like this: 'Pope Clement, Chevalier Guillaume de Nogaret, King Philippe, before a year, I am ordering you to appear before the tribunal of God. Cursed you will all be! Cursed until the 13th generation!'

Strangely enough, the Pope died on April 20, 1314 from a sudden attack of dysentery. Guillaume de Nogaret followed, and King Philip himself died on St. Andrew's day, November 29 of the same year. De Molay's curse seemed to be working.

Since popes normally don't have children, and de Nogaret was a mere tool of the French king, the curse must have fallen most heavily on the French kings, right? The French writer Maurice Druon has produced six volumes called Les Rois Maudits where he shows how the entire Capetian dynasty fell because of the curse, and the Hundred Years War started because of it.

But the story doesn't stop there. Legend has it that during the days of the French Revolution, nearly 500 years after de Molay's death, an anonymous man from the crowd jumped onto the guillotine just as Louis XVI had been decapitated, dipped his hand in the king's blood, and cried: 'Jacques de Molay, tu es vengé!'

Most parts of this story - excluding the dates - are unverified legends, most likely inventions of a later age. However, it is a powerful image: To see centuries of wrongdoing concentrated in the red on a man's hand, as he is shouting about revenge.

Others take this as solid proof that the Freemasons were behind the entire French Revolution, and are probably running the world to this day (along with the Jews, of course). Believe what you will - you can never be too careful with secret societies, you know.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.