It was probably owing to these last words that there arose a popular rumor, soon spread abroad, that James de Molay, at his death, had cited the pope and the king to appear with him, the former at the end of forty days, and the latter within a year, before the judgment-seat of God. Events gave a sanction to the legend: for Clement V. actually died on the 20th of April, 1314, and Philip the Handsome on the 29th of November, 1314, the pope, undoubtedly, uneasy at the servile acquiescence he had shown towards the king, and the king expressing some sorrow for his greed and for the imposts (_maltote, maletolta,_ or _black mail_) with which he had burdened his people.
In excessive and arbitrary imposts, indeed, consisted the chief grievance for which France, in the fourteenth century, had to complain of Philip the Handsome; and, probably, it was the only wrong for which he upbraided himself. Being badly wounded, out hunting, by a wild boar, and perceiving himself to be in bad case, he gave orders for his removal to Fontainebleau, and there, says Godfrey of Paris, the poet-chronicler just quoted in reference to the execution of the Templars, “he said and commanded that his children, his brothers, and his other friends should be sent for. They were no long time in coming; they entered Fontainebleau, into the chamber where the king was, and where there was very little light. So soon as they were there, they asked him how he was, and he answered, ‘Ill in body and in soul; if our Lady the Virgin save me not by her prayers, I see that death will seize me here; I have put on so many talliages, and laid hands on so much riches, that I shall never be absolved. Sirs, I know that I am in such estate that I shall die, methinks, to-night, for I suffer grievous hurt from the curses which pursue me: there will be no fine tales to be told of me.’” Philip’s anxiety about his memory was not without foundation; his greed is the vice which has clung to his name; not only did he load his subjects with poll taxes and other taxes unauthorized by law and the traditions of the feudal system; not only was he unjust and cruel towards the Templars in order to appropriate their riches; but he committed, over and over again, that kind of spoliation which imports most trouble into the general life of a people; he debased the coinage so often and to such an extent, that he was everywhere called “the base coiner.” This was a financial process of which none of his predecessors, neither St. Louis nor Philip Augustus, had set him an example, though they had quite as many costly wars and expeditions to keep up as he had. Some chroniclers of the fourteenth century say that Philip the Handsome was particularly munificent and lavish towards his family and his servants; but it is difficult to meet with any precise proof of this allegation, and we must impute the financial difficulties of Philip the Hand-some to his natural greed, and to the secret expenses entailed upon him by his policy of dissimulation and hatred, rather than to his lavish generosity. As he was no stranger to the spirit of order in his own affairs, he tried, towards the end of his reign, to obtain an exact account of his finances. His chief adviser, Enguerrand de Marigny, became his superintendent-general, and on the 19th of January, 1311, at the close of a grand council held at Poissy, Philip passed an ordinance which established, under the headings of expenses and receipts, two distinct tables and treasuries, one for ordinary expenses, the civil list, and the payment of the great bodies of the state, incomes, pensions, &c., and the other for extraordinary expenses. The ordinary expenses were estimated at one hundred and seventy-seven thousand five hunded livres of Tours, that is, according to M. Boutaric, who published this ordinance, fifteen million nine hundred thousand francs (about three million eighty-four thousand dollars). Numerous articles regulated the execution of the measure; and the royal treasurers took an oath not to reveal, within two years, the state of their receipts, save to Enguerrand de Marigny, or by order of the king himself. This first budget of the French monarchy dropped out of sight after the death of Philip the Handsome, in the reaction which took place against his government. “God forgive him his sins,” says Godfrey of Paris, “for in the time of his reign great loss came to France, and there was small regret for him.” The general history of France has been more indulgent towards Philip the Handsome than his contemporaries were; it has expressed its acknowledgments to him for the progress made, under his sway, by the particular and permanent characteristics of civilization in France.