QUARREL OVER CARDINAL NORIS
Benedict seems to have passed over in dignified silence thisindecent threat that he might be anathematized for heresy, but the breach was wider than ever. In the Spring of 1750 the affair was taken out of the hands of Portocarrero and was confided to Manuel Ventura Figueroa, an auditor of the Rota, who skilfully induced Benedict to drop the matter, while with equal skill and unlimited bribery he negotiated the Concordat of 1753, which virtually gave to the crown the patronage of the Spanish Church. Then, in 1755, came the dismissal of Rábago, for his share in exciting the resistance of the Jesuits of Paraguay to the treaty of 1750 transferring that colony to Portugal. He was succeeded as confessor by Manuel Quintano Bonifaz who, in that same year, had become inquisitor-general on the death of Prado y Cuesta. Benedict had never ceased to claim the fulfilment of an offer once made by Fernando to remove Noris’s name from the Index and, in 1757 he urged the king to afford him that satisfaction, before his death, in return for the many favors bestowed.
Jesuit influence was no longer supreme, and Fernando ordered an investigation. The documents were collected and were submitted to Bonifaz who, in December, presented a consulta, dwelling upon the care habitually bestowed by the Inquisition before condemning the most insignificant book while, in this case, Casani and Carrasco had included in the Index the works of Noris, without any preliminary examination and without the knowledge of the inquisitor-general, which was a foul abuse of the confidence reposed in them. Noris’s book had been printed in Spain in 1698, dedicated to Inquisitor-general Rocaberti, and had undisputed circulation until these two padres discovered in it traces of Jansenism. Bonifaz therefore concluded that the pope had just cause of complaint and that the royal promise should be fulfilled. Accordingly, on January 28, 1758, an edict was issued, reciting the prohibition and ending with “But, having since considered the matter with the mature and serious reflection befitting its importance, we order the removal of the said work from the Index, and declare that both it and its most eminent author remain in the same repute and honor as before.” For this the good old pope expressed his gratification in warm terms to Fernando.[591]
This may be assumed as the last struggle over what were conceived to be the doctrinal errors of Jansenism, and subsequent persecution was directed against it as the opponent of Ultramontanism and Jesuitism, and as the supporter of the royal prerogative. There had been, under Philip II, a strong tendency in the Spanish Church to the Gallicanism which became known as Jansenism. In 1598 Agostino Zani, the Venetian envoy, says that the Spanish clergy depend on the king first and then on the pope; there was talk of separation from the Holy See and forming under Toledo a national Church in imitation of the Gallican.[592]The Concordat of 1753, which concentrated patronage in the crown, could only strengthen this dependence of the clergy, while the second half of the eighteenth century witnessed an ominous tendency throughout Europe to throw off subjection to Rome. The celebrated work of “Febronius,”[593]in 1763, boldly attacked the papal autocracy, and encouraged the assertion of the regalías; the claims of the Holy See, in both spiritual and temporal matters, were called in question with a freedom unknown since the great councils of the fifteenth century, while the reforms of Joseph II and of his brother Leopold of Tuscany and the “Punctation” of the Congress of Ems were disquieting manifestations of the spirit of revolt. It was convenient to stigmatize this spirit as heresy under the name of Jansenism, which thenceforth became the object of the bitterest papal animadversion.
ITS DEVELOPMENT
Fray Miguélez informs us that Bonifaz, for his share in the vindication of Noris, was reproached with Jansenism, and that thenceforth the Inquisition became a mere instrument in the hands of a court bitterly hostile to Rome; that instead of being a terrible repressor of heresy, it was the defender of the regalías and persecutor of Ultramontanism—in other words, that it was Jansenist—and that it was used in an attempt to lay the foundations in Spain of a schismatic Church like that of Utrecht.[594]This was not the case, but as Jansenism was now merely a doctrinal misnomer for a principle, partly political and partly disciplinary, the Inquisition had a narrow and difficult path to tread. Carlos III was fully convinced of the extent of the regalías; he was involved inconstant struggles with the Roman court, and had little hesitation in dictating to the Inquisition. It did not dare to interfere with the royal prerogatives but, in so far as it could, it favored Ultramontanism by persecuting those against whom it could formulate charges under the guise of Jansenism.
The ministers of Carlos III, who survived into the earlier years of Carlos IV, were animated with this spirit of revolt and there was an active propaganda. The book of Febronius was secretly printed in Madrid and was largely circulated for, although condemned, the Inquisition was compelled prudently to close its eyes.[595]The acts of the Synod of Pistoja were translated into Spanish and persistent efforts were made to obtain licence for their publication, until Pius VI intervened with a letter to the king and frustrated the attempt.[596]When the bullAuctorem fidei, condemning, in 1794, the errors of the synod, reached Spain the Council of Castile reported against its admission.[597]The University of Salamanca was regarded as a Jansenist hot-bed. Jovellanos tells us that all who were trained there were Port-Royalists of the Pistoja sect; the works of Opstraet, Zuola and Tamburini were in everybody’s hands; more than three thousand copies were in circulation before the edict of prohibition appeared, and then only a single volume was surrendered.[598]We hear of the Marquis of Roda, one of the most influential ministers of Carlos III, uttering warm praises of Port-Royal and of the great men connected with it.[599]Naturally episcopal vacancies were filled with bishops of the same persuasion and one of them, Joseph Clíment of Barcelona, had trouble with the Inquisition for lauding the schismatic Church of Utrecht. In 1792, Agustin Abad y la Sierra, Bishop of Barbastro, was denounced to the Saragossatribunal as a Jansenist who favored the French Revolution, but soon afterwards his brother Manuel was appointed inquisitor-general and the prosecution was suspended, but, when the latter, in 1794, was ordered by Carlos IV to resign, he was immediately denounced in his turn.[600]
The Inquisition, in fact, could not but be opposed to Jansenism, for one of the objects of the Jansenistic movement was the restoration of episcopal rights and privileges, so seriously curtailed by the Holy Office, and the remodelling of its organization was regarded as essential to the overthrow of Ultramontanism.[601]The Jesuits were therefore inevitably the allies of the Inquisition; they had conceived a strong hostility to Carlos III who, since his accession in 1759, had diminished their influence by dismissing from office those who were devoted to them. Their disaffection culminated in the tumults and disturbances of April 1766, which spread through the kingdom from Guipúzcoa to Andalusia, and humiliated Carlos to the last degree. These were evidently the result of concerted action, intelligently directed and supported by ample funds, working on popular discontent caused by scarcity and high prices. Prolonged investigation convinced the king that the Company of Jesus was responsible for the troubles, thus explaining the rigor with which the expulsion was executed in 1767, and the implacable determination of Carlos in demanding of Clement XIII and Clement XIV the suppression of the Order.[602]
REACTION
The elimination of the Jesuits was a triumph for so-called Jansenism. It left the educational system of Spain in confusion, and advantage was taken of this to reconstruct it on lines which should train the rising generation in Gallican ideas as to the relations of Church and State, and should replace medievalism by modernscience.[603]Yet the Inquisition continued the struggle, and its jealous watchfulness is indicated when, in 1773, some chance expressions of a student led to the denunciation, to the Barcelona tribunal, of the teaching of the great Catalan University of Cervera, as infected with Baianism and Jansenism, in conformity to theThéologie de Lyon, a book condemned in Rome for its Gallican principles—a denunciation which was duly followed by the prosecution of one of the professors, a Dominican named Pier.[604]
A reaction in the policy of the court came with the rise to power of the infamous royal favorite Godoy. By a decree of October 19, 1797, Carlos IV permitted the repatriation of the survivors among the Jesuits expelled in 1767. The occupation of the papal states by Napoleon had deprived them of their Bolognese refuge, and they found themselves ill at ease in the Ligurian Republic to which they had gone. They were therefore compassionately allowed to return, under precautions that should scatter them where they should not trouble the public peace, but they speedily made their influence felt, and were busy in denouncing to the Inquisition as Jansenists all who did not share their blind devotion to the Holy See.[605]Still more threatening was the reception, in 1800, of the bullAuctorem fidei, brought about by the influence of Godoy, and enforced by a royal decree of December 10th, charging the bishops to punish all opinions contrary to the definitions of the bull, while the Inquisition was ordered to suppress all writings in support of the condemned propositions, and the king promised to employ all the power given to him by God to enforce these commands. The triumph of Ultramontanism was complete, and Godoy richly earned the grotesquely incongruous title bestowed on him, by Pius VI, of Pillar of the Faith.[606]
The charge was one easy to bring, and the intelligent classes in Spain were kept in a state of unrest and apprehension. An illustrative case was that of two brothers, Gerónimo and Antonio de la Cuesta, one penitentiary and the other archdeacon in the church of Avila. They incurred the enmity of their bishop, Rafael de Muzquiz, confessor of Queen María Luisa de Parma: he organized a formidable conspiracy against them and they were denounced as Jansenists, in 1801, to the tribunal of Valladolid. Muzquiz was promoted to the archiepiscopal see of Compostela, but there was no slackening in the energy of the prosecution. Antonio escaped to Paris but Gerónimo was thrown into the secret prison, where he lay for five years. In spite of the mass of testimony accumulated against him, he was acquitted by the tribunal, but the Suprema refused to accept the decision and removed the inquisitors. The brothers had powerful friends at court, who prevailed on Carlos to intervene, when he had all the papers submitted to him and decided the case himself—an assumption of royal jurisdiction for which it would be difficult to find a precedent. By royal decrees of May 7, 1806, he ordered that the Valladolid inquisitors should be in no way prejudiced by their removal but should be capable of promotion. Gerónimo was restored to his dignity in the church of Avila, with ceremonies galling to his adversaries; he was to receive all the arrears of his prebend; his trial and imprisonment were not to inflict any disability on him or his kindred, and his name was to be erased from the record so that no trace of it should remain. The papers in the case against the fugitive brother Antonio were to be sealed up and delivered to the Secretaria de Gracia y Justicia. Heavy fines moreover were levied on all concerned in the prosecution, to defray the expenses of the trial, and any excess was to be paid to Gerónimo. They amounted in all to 11,455 ducats, assessed upon twenty-one persons, all clerics except one or two officials and, in addition to these, there were nine regulars—Carmelites, Benedictines, Franciscans and Dominicans—who were banished for thirty leagues around Madrid and royal residences. Two of them were calificadores and one a notary of a commissioner, who were incapacitated for their functions.[607]
DISAPPEARANCE
Archbishop Muzquiz did not wholly escape. Gerónimo’s defence placed him in the position of a calumniator and, in hisefforts at extrication, he accused the inquisitors of Valladolid and the Inquisitor-general Arce y Reynoso of partiality. This exposed him to prosecution under the bullSi de protegendis; his episcopal dignity protected him from arrest, but he was fined in eight thousand ducats and the Bishop of Valladolid who, when canon of Avila, had joined in the conspiracy, was fined in four thousand. They would not have escaped so easily but for the influence with Godoy of a lady who was popularly reputed to have received a million of reales for her services.[608]
As we have seen, in Jansenism the doctrinal points involved were of interest only to the sublimated theologian and they were virtually lost to view at an early period. Being thus incapable of precise theological definition, it was a favorite weapon for the gratification of enmity, as it could be charged against all opponents of whatever character. Even as the French Jacobins were stigmatized as Jansenists, so those Spaniards who submitted to the “intrusive” government of Joseph Bonapart were classed as Jansenists, and so were their most active antagonists, the liberal members of the Córtes of Cadiz.[609]The fact is that the French Revolution, which orthodox writers represent as the triumph of Jansenism, was, in reality, its death-blow, for in that cataclysm disappeared the powerful and well-organized hierarchy which alone could struggle within the Church against the advance of Ultramontanism and its attendant Probabilism.
We hear little of Jansenism under the Restoration, though it is sometimes included subordinately in the charges of anti-political opinions. The bitterness still felt towards it, however, is well expressed by Vélez, Archbishop of Santiago, as late as 1825, when he ignorantly declares that Jansen caused the rebellion of the Low Countries against Spain in the Assembly of 1633, while his disciples, uniting in Bourg-Fontaine and Portugal, conspired against the lives of all princes. Jansen supported the doctrines of the Calvinists and Lutherans against the faith and his followers promulgated the greatest errors against the Church and its discipline.[610]
FEWsubjects have been so fertile as Free-Masonry in the growth of legend and myth. If we may believe some of its over-enthusiastic members, the Archangel Michael was the Grand Master of the earliest Masonic lodge; the builders of the Tower of Babel were wicked Masons and those who held aloof from the impious work were Free-Masons. Others trace its origin to Lamech and others again tell us that the first Grand Lodge in England was founded by St. Alban in 287. Its adversaries are equally extravagant; if we may trust them it is the precursor of Antichrist and a survival of Manicheism; it is supreme in European cabinets and directs the policy of the civilized world in opposition to the Church. Every pope in the nineteenth century fulminated his anathema against it. The Abbé Davin assures us that Jansenism is the masterpiece of the powers of evil and that it has become, in the form of Masonry, the most formidable of secret societies, organized for the destruction of the Christian Monarchy.[611]There are zealous Spanish Masons who assure us that the Comunidades of Castile and the Germanía of Valencia were the work of Masons; that Agustin and Pedro Cazalla and the other victims of the auto of May 21, 1559 were Masons, and that the unfortunate Don Carlos was a victim to Masonry.[612]
PROHIBITED BY ROME
Descending to the sobriety of fact, Masonry emerges into the light of history in 1717, when Dr. Desaguliers, Anthony Sayer, George Payne and a few others formed, in London, an organization based on toleration, benevolence and good-fellowship. Itsgrowth was slow and its first appearance in Spain was in 1726, when the London lodge granted a charter for one in Gibraltar. Lord Wharton is said to have founded one in Madrid, in 1727, and soon afterwards another was organized in Cádiz. These were primarily for the benefit of English residents, although doubtless natives were eligible to membership. As yet it was not under the ban of the Church, but its introduction in Tuscany led the Grand-duke Gian Gastone to prohibit it. His speedy death (July 9, 1737), caused his edict to be neglected; the clergy represented the matter to Clement XII, who sent to Florence an inquisitor; he made a number of arrests, but the parties were set at liberty by the new Grand-duke, Francis of Lorraine, who declared himself the patron of the Order and participated in the organization of several lodges.[613]Clement sustained his inquisitor and issued, April 28, 1738, his bullIn eminenti, calling attention to the oath-bound secrecy of the lodges, which was just cause for suspicion, as their object would not be concealed if it were not evil, leading to their prohibition in many states. Wherefore, in view of the grave consequences threatened to public tranquility and the salvation of souls, he forbade the faithful to favor them or to join them under pain ofipso factoexcommunication, removable only by the Holy See. Prelates, superiors, Ordinaries and inquisitors were ordered to inquire against and prosecute all transgressors and to punish them condignly as vehemently suspect of heresy, for all of which he granted full powers.[614]Thus the only accusation brought against Masonry was its secrecy, but this sufficed for the creation of a new heresy, furnishing to the Inquisition a fresh subject for its activity.
The nature of the condign punishment thus threatened was left to the discretion of the local tribunals, but a standard was furnished by an edict of the Cardinal Secretary of State, January 14, 1739, pronouncing irremissible pain of death, not only on all members but on all who should tempt others to join the Order, or should rent a house to it or favor it in any other way. The only victim of this savage decree is said to have been a Frenchman who wrote a book on Masonry; it is true that, in this same year, 1739, the Inquisition in Florence tortured a Mason named Crudeli, and kept him in prison for a considerable time, but the death-penaltywas a matter for the secular authorities and in Florence these were not under control. Indeed, when the Inquisition offered pardon for self-denunciation, and a hundred crowns for information, and made several arrests, the Grand-duke interposed and liberated the prisoners.[615]Even when the arch-impostor Cagliostro, in 1789, ventured to found a lodge in Rome and was tried by the Inquisition, the sentence, rendered April 7, 1791, recited that, although he had incurred the death-penalty, it was mercifully commuted to imprisonment for life.[616]He was accordingly imprisoned in the castle of San Leone where he is supposed to have died in 1795.
The Parlement of Paris refused to register the bull of 1738 and when, in 1750, the jubilee attracted crowds of pilgrims to Rome, so many had to seek relief from the excommunication incurred under it that Benedict XIV was led to revive it, May 18, 1751, in his constitutionProvidas, pointing out moreover the injury to the purity of the faith arising from the association of men of different beliefs, and invoking the aid of all Catholic princes to enforce the decrees of the Holy See.[617]When thus, without provocation, Rome declared war to the knife against the new organization, it naturally became hostile to Rome, and when its membership was forbidden to the faithful, it was necessarily confined to those who were either indifferent or antagonistic to the Roman faith.
PERSECUTION
While the papal commands were ignored in France, they had been eagerly welcomed in Spain. The bullIn eminentireceived the royal exequatur and the Inquisitor-general Orbe y Larreategui published it in an edict, October 11, 1738, pointing out that the Inquisition had exclusive jurisdiction in the matter. He promised to prosecute with the utmost severity all disobedience to the bull, and called for denunciations, within six days, of all infractions, under pain of excommunication and of two hundred ducats. The edict was to be read in the churches and to be affixed to theirportals, thus giving an effective advertisement to the new institution by conveying a knowledge of its existence to a population thus far happily ignorant.[618]
The Inquisition, however, was not allowed long to enjoy the exclusive jurisdiction claimed, for Philip V, in 1740, issued an edict under which, we are told, a number of Masons were sent to the galleys, while the Inquisition vindicated its rights by breaking up a lodge in Madrid and punishing its members.[619]There was thus established a cumulative jurisdiction which continued, for State autocracy and Church autocracy were alike jealous of a secret organization of unknown strength which, in troublous times, might become dangerous. Fernando VI manifested this by a pragmática of July 2, 1751, in which he forbade the formation of lodges under pain of the royal indignation and punishment at the royal discretion; all judges were required to report delinquents, and all commanders of armies and fleets to dismiss with dishonor any culprits discovered in the service. That, in spite of these repressive measures, Free-Masonry was spreading, may be assumed from the publication, about this time, of two editions of a little book against it, in which this decree is embodied.[620]Padre Feyjoo assisted in advertising the Order by devoting to it a letter in which, with gentle satire, he treated it as a hobgoblin, imposing on public credulity with false pretences, although there might be evil spirits among the harmless ones.[621]
The Inquisition meanwhile was not idle, though it did not imitate the severity of the papal government or of the royal edicts. In 1744 the Madrid tribunal sentenced, to abjurationde leviand banishment from Spain, Don Francisco Aurion de Roscobel, canon of Quintanar, for Free-Masonry; in 1756 the same tribunal prescribed reconciliation for Domingo de Otas and, in 1757, a Frenchman named Tournon escaped with a year’s detention and banishment from Spain, although, by endeavoring to induce hisemployees to join the Order, he was reckoned as a dogmatizer.[622]Another case about the same time reveals a strange indifference, possibly attributable to hesitation in attacking a dependent of a powerful minister. A priest named Joachin Pareja presented himself, April 19, 1746, to the Toledo tribunal and related that when, in 1742, he accompanied the Infante Phelipe to Italy, he lay for some months in Antibes, where he made the acquaintance of Antonio de Rosellon, gentleman of the chamber to the Marquis of la Ensenada, who talked freely to him about Free-Masonry, of which he was a member. He had but recently learned that Free-Masons were an infernal sect, condemned by a papal bull, and he had made haste to denounce Rosellon. No action was taken for eighteen months when, on October 13, 1747, the tribunal asked the Madrid inquisitors to examine Rosellon, after consulting the Suprema. The Suprema promptly scolded it for its remissness and ordered it to make inquiry of other tribunals; the customary interrogations were sent around with negative results and, on January 8, 1748, the fiscal reported accordingly; there was but one witness and therefore he recommended suspension, which was duly voted. Some twenty months passed away when suddenly, September 7, 1751, the Suprema recurred to the matter and wrote to Toledo demanding a report. Toledo waited for more than a month and then, on October 16th, replied that it referred the whole affair to the Madrid tribunal as Pareja and Rosellon were both in that city.[623]This probably ended the case.
POLITICAL ACTIVITY
Free-Masonry was growing and extending itself throughout influential circles. In 1760 theGran Logia españolawas organized and independence of London was established; in 1780 this was changed to a Grand Orient, symbolical Masonry being subordinated to the Scottish Rite. In this we are told that such men as Aranda, Campomanes, Rodríguez, Nava del Rio, Salazar y Valle, Jovellanos, the Duke of Alva, the Marquis of Valdelirias, the Count of Montijo and others were active; that the ministers ofCarlos III were mostly Masons and that to them was attributable the energetic action against Jesuitism and Ultramontanism.[624]To what extent this is true, it would be impossible to speak positively, but unquestionably Masonry afforded a refuge for the modern spirit in which to develop itself against the oppressive Obscurantism of the Inquisition.
A disturbing element was furnished by Cagliostro who, in his two visits to Spain, founded the lodge España, in competition with the Grand Orient. This attracted the more adventurous spirits and grew to be revolutionary in character. It was the centre of the foolish republican conspiracy of 1796, known as the conspiracy of San Blas, from the day selected for the outbreak. Arms were collected in the lodge, but the plot was betrayed to the police; three of the leaders were condemned to death but, at the intercession of the French ambassador, the sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. The chiefs were deported to Laguayra where they captured the sympathies of their guards and were enabled to escape. In 1797 they organized a fresh conspiracy in Caraccas, but it was discovered and six of those implicated were executed.[625]
In the troubled times that followed, the revolutionary section of Masonry naturally developed, at the expense of the conservative. There is probably truth in the assertion that the French occupation was assisted by the organization of the independent lodges under Miguel de Azanza, one of the ministers of Carlos IV, who was grand master. The ensuing war was favorable to the growth of the Order. The French armies sought to establish lodges in order to popularize the “intrusive” government, while the English forces on their side did the same, and the Spanish troops were honeycombed with thetrincheras, or intrenchments, as these military lodges were called.
With the downfall of Napoleon and liberation of the papacy, Pius VII made haste to repeat the denunciation of Masonry. He issued, August 15, 1814, a decree against its infernal conventicles, subversive of thrones and religion. He lamented that, in the disturbances of recent years, the salutary edicts of his predecessors had been forgotten and that Masonry had spread everywhere. To their spiritual penalties he added temporal punishments—sharp corporal affliction, with heavy fines and confiscation, andhe offered rewards for informers. This decree was approved by Fernando VII and was embodied in an edict of the Inquisition, January 2, 1815, offering a Term of Grace of fifteen days, during which penitents would be received and after which the full rigor of the laws, secular and canonical, would be enforced. Apparently the result was inconsiderable for, on February 10th, the term was extended until Pentecost (May 14th) and inviolable secrecy was promised.[626]Fernando had not waited for this but had already prohibited Masonry under the penalties attaching to crimes of the first order against the State and, in pursuance of this, on September 14, 1814, twenty-five arrests had been made for suspicion of membership.[627]
UNDER THE RESTORATION
Thus, as before, there was cumulative jurisdiction over Masonry. The time had passed for competencias between the Inquisition and the royal courts; it was too closely identified with the State to indulge in quarrels, but still there was jealous susceptibility and self-assertion. As early as 1815 this showed itself in the prosecution of Diego Dilicado, parish priest of San Jorje in Coruña, because he had reported the existence there of a lodge to the public authorities and not to the Inquisition.[628]Several cases, in 1817, show that when a culprit was tried and sentenced by the royal courts, the Inquisition insisted on superadding a prosecution and punishment of its own. Thus when Jean Rost, a Frenchman, was sent to the presidio of Ceuta by the chancellery of Granada, the Seville tribunal also tried him and ordered his confinement in the prison of the presidio, at the same time demanding from the chancellery the Masonic title and insignia of the prisoner and whatever else appertained to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.[629]The Madrid tribunal, May 8, 1817, sentenced Albert Leclerc, a Frenchman, for Free-Masonry; he had already been tried and convicted by the royal court and a courteous note was addressed, as in other similar cases, to the Alcalde de Casa y Corte, to have him brought to the secret prison, for the performance of spiritual exercises under a confessor commissioned to instruct him in the errors of Masonry, and to absolve him from the censures incurred, after which he would be returned to the alcalde for the execution of hissentence of banishment. So, in July 1817, the Santiago tribunal collected evidence against Manuel Llorente, sergeant of Grenadiers, and the Suprema directed that, as soon as the secular trial was finished, he was to be imprisoned again and tried by the tribunal.[630]
For this punctiliousness there was the excuse that the papal decrees rendered Masonry an ecclesiastical crime involving excommunication, of which the temporal courts could take no cognizance. This duplication of punishment may possibly explain the extreme variation in the severity of the penalties inflicted. In 1818 the Madrid tribunal sentenced Antonio Catalá, captain in the volunteer regiment of Barbastro, to a very moderate punishment, alleging as a reason his prolonged imprisonment and ill-health. The Suprema sent back the sentence for revision, when the abjuration was changed fromde levitode vehementi. Then the Suprema took the matter into its own hands and condemned him to be reduced to the ranks for four years’ service in the regiment of Ceuta, which was nearly equivalent to four years of presidio. On the other hand, in 1819, the sentence was confirmed of Martin de Bernardo, which was merely to abjurationde levi, absolution ad cautelam, a month’s reclusion and spiritual penances. Greater severity might surely have been shown in the case of the priest, Vicente Perdiguera, commissioner of the Toledo tribunal, when, in 1817, the Madrid tribunal suggested that, in view of his notorious Free-Masonry and irregular conduct, he should be deprived of his office and insignia and of the fuero of the Inquisition. To this the Suprema assented and with this he escaped.[631]
It casts doubt upon the reported extent of Free-Masonry that, in spite of the vigilance of the Inquisition, the number of cases was so small. From 1780 to 1815 they amount in all only to nineteen. Then, in 1816, there is a sudden increase to twenty-five; in 1817 there are fourteen, in 1818 nine and in 1819 seven.[632]
Possibly there may have been others tried by the civil or military courts, which escaped inquisitorial action, but, in view of its jealous care of its jurisdiction, these cannot have been numerous.
Yet all authorities of the period agree that, under the Restoration, Masonry flourished and spread, especially in the army; that it was the efficient source of the many plots which disturbed Fernando’s equanimity, and that the revolution of 1820 was its work, backed by the widespread popular discontent aroused by the oppression and inefficiency of his rule. When, in January, 1820, the movement was started by the troops destined for America, in their cantonments near Cádiz, there was a lodge in every regiment. Riego, who led the revolt, was a Mason, and so was the Count of la Bisbal who ensured its success when, at Ocaña, whither he had been sent to command the troops gathered for its suppression, he caused them to proclaim the Constitution. At Santiago, the first act of the revolutionaries was to sack the Inquisition and to liberate the Count of Montijo, grand master of the Masonic organizations, who lay in the secret prison.[633]
We shall have occasion hereafter to see the ruinous part played by Free-Masonry, and its offshoot the Comuneros, during the brief constitutional epoch from 1820 to 1823. With the restoration of absolutism the Comuneros disappeared and Masons became the object of persecution far severer than that of the Inquisition. They were subjected to the military commissions set up everywhere throughout Spain, and those who would not come forward and denounce themselves were declared, by an order of October 9, 1824, to be punishable with death and confiscation.[634]
INthe earlier period, Spanish orthodoxy seems to have been little troubled with free-thinking, nor, when this was encountered, does it seem to have been visited with the same vindictiveness as Protestantism. From a temporal point of view, it was less dangerous, and the denial of God was an offence less than the denial of papal supremacy. In an auto at Toledo, November 8, 1654, there appeared Don Francisco de Vega Vinero, characterized as “herege apostata, ateista,” who escaped with reconciliation, confiscation, ten years of prison and three years of exile from Toledo, Madrid and Renedo.[635]The intellectual movement of the eighteenth century in France, however, could not but awake an echo in Spain, despite the severity of censorship, and the quarantine at the ports. There was a steady infiltration of liberalism, political and spiritual; Spaniards of culture who travelled, or who were sent abroad on missions, returned with enlarged horizons of thought, and could not but compare the backwardness of their native land with the activity, for good or for evil, of the other European nations. The more the writings of the fashionable philosophers of France were denounced, the greater became the curiosity to examine them. A reactionary writer tells us that the works of Filangieri, Rousseau, Mably, Condillac, Pereira, Febronius (Hontheim) and Scipione de’Ricci had full circulation in the universities and colleges. Some professors taught many of their principles, the students were infected and this moral pestilence extended rapidly without attracting due attention.[636]The Abbé Clément found, in 1768, that one of the obstacles to the success of his Jansenizing mission was the secret tolerance and indifferentism; it was difficult to believe how great were the evidences of incredulity, united with all the externals of devotion, even under the oppression of habitual dread of the severity of the Inquisition.[637]Thus, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, the decadent activity of the Holy Office found a new heresy to combat, which it styled Philosophism or Naturalism.
The leading ministers of Carlos III, such as Aranda, Campomanes, Roda and Floridablanca, were shrewdly suspected of sympathy with these dangerous speculations, but the time had passed when the Marquis of Villanueva could be arrested and prosecuted without the assent of the king. It was safer to make examples of men not thus protected but yet sufficiently conspicuous to serve as warnings. Such a case was that of Dr. Luis Castellanos, health-officer of the port of Cádiz—a free-thinker calling himself a philosopher, an agnostic who professed to know nothing of God and who probably was indiscreet in airing his opinions. On his trial by the Seville tribunal he at first denied, but subsequently he confessed and begged for mercy. On June 30, 1776, an auto with open doors was held in the chapel of the castle of Triana, at which were present, doubtless by invitation that could not be declined, the Duke of Medina Celi, the Count of Torrejon and innumerable other distinguished personages, at which Castellanos was sentenced to abjuration and confiscation, to wear asanbenito de dos aspasand to serve for ten years in the hospital of the presidio of Oran—a severity which emphasizes the dread inspired by this negation of opinion.[638]
PABLO OLAVIDE
Contemporary with this was a case of more far-reaching influence. Pablo Olavide, a young lawyer of Lima and judge in the Audiencia, distinguished himself in the terrible earthquake of 1746 and was made custodian of the treasures dug from the ruins. After satisfying those who could prove their claims, he employed the remainder in building a church and a theatre. There were disappointed claimants who carried their complaints to Madrid. Olavide was summoned thither, disbarred, condemned to pay various sums and imprisoned. His health failing, he was allowed to go to Leganes, where he contracted marriage with Isabel de los Rios, whose two successive husbands had left her large fortunes. He was remarkably intelligent, brilliant in society, and, with the aid of his wife’s money, he speedily acquired prominent social position. He travelled and in France he formed relations with Voltaire and Rousseau, with whom he maintained correspondence.Aranda, who secretly sympathized with him in this, was then at the height of his power and became his warm friend, seeking to use his abilities in the projects on foot to elevate Spain from its condition of poverty and misery.
Practical statesmen had long recognized as a serious evil the baldios, or extensive and numerous tracts of uncultivated land, useless for all purposes except as pasturage for the migratory flocks of theMesta, that powerful combination of sheep-owners who had secured legislation restricting all cultivation that interfered with their privileges. As early as 1749 the Marquis of la Ensenada had entertained projects of introducing colonies of foreigners to occupy these idle lands; in 1766 the idea was revived andNuevas Poblaciones, as they were called, were established in various places. A contract was made to bring six thousand German and Swiss Catholics and establish them on the southern slope of the Sierra Morena, along the main road from Madrid to Cádiz—a wild and rugged country, the haunt of highway robbers. Campomanes drew up the plan, under which establishments of the religious Orders were absolutely prohibited; the settlers were to have pastors of their own race; all spiritual affairs were to be in the hands of the parish priests, subject to episcopal jurisdiction, and the dreaded Mesta was not allowed to intrude. Olavide was appointed superintendent of the colony, and was also madeassistente, or governor of Seville.
He threw himself into the project with enthusiasm, labored with intelligent activity, overcame the initial difficulties and for some years success seemed assured. Gradually however trouble arose with the Capuchin friars who had accompanied the colonists as their priests. Friar Romuald of Freiburg, the prefect of the group, was a disturbing element, involved in quarrels with the episcopal officials; friction sprang up between him and Olavide, which developed into hatred, and the Inquisition furnished ready means for gratifying malevolence. In September, 1775, Romuald presented a formal denunciation of the Superintendent as an atheist and materialist, who was in correspondence with Voltaire and Rousseau, who read prohibited books, denied the miracles, and held that non-Catholics could be saved. Ample details were furnished of his irreligious walk and conversation, some of which indicate the points on which quarrels had arisen—not resorting to prayer and good works to avert calamities, forbidding the ringing of bells in tempests, wanting corpses buried in cemeteriesrather than in churches, and defending the Copernican system condemned by the Church. Olavide’s protector, Aranda, had fallen from power in 1773 and the opportunity was not to be lost by the Inquisition of striking at a man, conspicuous enough to serve as a terrifying example, and yet who, as a “kinless loon,” had no influential family behind him. Besides, the whole scheme of the Poblaciones had aroused the hostility of two influential classes—the friars whose establishments were excluded and the Mesta whose flocks were not allowed to ravage the fields.