Paris, France - (Sacre Bleu Mess): France is reeling from the sudden, tragic torching of one of its greatest national treasures after the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral was razed to the ground.
The magnificent 800-year old edifice, which burst into flames during a major refurbishment, stands on the banks of Paris’ River Seine opposite the very spot where, in March 1314, the Knights Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay was burned to death. For defying his greedy, profligate, treacherous King.
Known as Philip the Fair, France’s King Philip IV was nearing bankruptcy in debt to Knights Templar lenders following decades of royal blowouts to fight useless wars.
Eventually a novel debt-busting solution saw him arrest De Molay and hundreds of his cohorts, and accuse them of heresy - a charge which, in those days, was punishable by death.
Torture and false confessions proved hugely successful for Philip, giving him all he needed from the Templars’ fortune - and completely erasing all his debts.
However, after seven years of fetid incarceration, De Molay recanted the absurd confession causing the King to decide to kill him and all the Templars via a spot of devilish burning at the stake.
De Molay and his followers were then torched upon a makeshift scaffold on the Ile de la Cite Island on the River Seine in front of the as yet unfinished cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris.
Tonight that magnificent French catlick erection lies in ruins, its ashes floating down the Seine much like De Molay’s.
The Knights Templar are at last revenged.
