INTERVENTION OF THE HOLY ALLIANCE
The Congress of Verona met in the autumn of 1822. The Urgel Regency sent there the Count de España as its representative to urge that Spain should be restored to the condition prior to March 9, 1820; the Government sent no envoy, relying on the friendly aid of England, represented by the Duke of Wellington. Without his knowledge the Allied Powers signed, on November 22d, a secret treaty, in which they declared against the sovereignty of the people, representative government and the freedom of the press, and in favor of the clergy as an instrument for enforcing the passive obedience of the subject; and each signatory pledgeditself to a subsidy of twenty millions of francs annually to France, to which was assigned the duty of suppressing these destructive principles in Spain and Portugal, and of restoring the Peninsula to the conditions prior to 1820.[982]Even yet intervention was not certain, for France was not eager for the task, and there were some negotiations looking to modifications of the Constitution, but the Liberals would not listen to such suggestions. Châteaubriand, however, that curious compound of idealism, bombast and vanity, who, as French foreign minister and representative at Verona, takes to himself all the credit for the enterprise, is especially careful to point out that its real object was the restoration of France to the hegemony of the Continent, after the abasement of the Restoration by foreign bayonets—an object which he assumes was fully accomplished.[983]
Early in January, 1823, four notes from the Allies were presented collectively, offering, in more or less offensive fashion, the alternative of a return to absolutism or invasion.[984]These portentous communications were received with the utmost nonchalance. On the night of their reception, Secretary of State San Miguel carried them to the Grand Orient and drew up his replies, in which Fernando is said to have cunningly stimulated defiance to banded Europe. Whatever might be the decision of France, San Miguel said, Spain would tranquilly follow the path of duty and justice; its rule of conduct would be firm adhesion to the Constitution of 1812 and refusal to recognize the right of intervention on any side.[985]
These would be dignified and resolute words in a united nation facing a coalition but, under the circumstances, they were mere idle vaporing. The Government, in fact, was barely able to make head against the insurrection, save in Catalonia. Navarre, Biscay and Aragon were in open civil war, with forces equally balanced. In Murcia, the famous robber Jaime Alfonso was posing as the defender of the faith; in Castile, the Cura Merino and el Rojo de Valderas were levying war; in Andalusia, Zaldivar held his own in spite of repeated defeats; in Toledo and Cuenca, Joaquincillo and the Cura Atanasio were maintaining the rebellion;in Sigüenza the insurrection of Cuesta was organizing and was soon to break out. In short, the whole of Spain was in convulsion.[986]
The only explanation of the attitude of the Liberals is that they were living in a fool’s paradise, and seem to have welcomed intervention in the belief that it would kindle national feeling and restore national unity. Hallucination was carried to the point that they anticipated a popular rising like that of 1808, that the forty thousand insurgents in arms would turn against the invader, even that the French troops would abandon their standards for those of Spain, and that England, which had calmly seen the Constitution overthrown in 1814, would provoke a war with all Europe in its defence. They closed their eyes to the fact that, in 1808, the clergy aroused the masses against the French and were now their warmest allies, eager to revenge systematic persecution; that the throne was secretly undermining them, and that they were without resources, for the treasury was exhausted, the army scarce existed save on paper, the magazines were empty, and the party in power was rent into bitterly opposing factions. A kind of delirium seized the deputies when San Miguel on January 9th laid the correspondence before the Córtes, and his replies were clamorously approved without distinction of party.[987]
THE FRENCH INVASION
Yet this effervescence soon subsided. A decisive victory gained by the insurgents at Brihuega, not far from Madrid, on January 24th, threw the capital into a tremor and, on February 16th, the Córtes adopted a decree looking to the transfer of the Government in case of necessity.[988]New Córtes opened their sessions March 1st and their first thought was to place themselves in safety, carrying with them Fernando, both as a hostage and as necessary to the assumption that the government of Spain travelled with them. Resistance on his part postponed the move until March 20th, when the exodus to Seville took place. There they remained until June, when the approach of the French necessitated a further flight and, on the 9th, Cádiz was selected as the place of refuge. This time Fernando resolutely refused to fly from his liberators and, as coercion of the monarch was incompatible with the theory that he was still governing, it was assumed that he was incapacitated by reason of a temporary delirium; he was deposed and a Regency was appointed which orderedthe transfer to Cádiz; on the 12th the king and royal family left Seville; the Córtes adjourned to meet in Cádiz June 18th; in four days Fernando was declared to be again in his right mind and the Regency resigned. The spectacle of a flying Government dragging with it a captive king, whom it recognized as still actively reigning, was worse than ludicrous; it gave to Fernando a claim on the sympathy which he had forfeited, and served as an incentive and an excuse for cruel reprisals.[989]
Meanwhile the army of invasion had been gathering on the border under the Duke of Angoulême, nephew of Louis XIV. From Bayonne, on April 2d, he issued a manifesto to the effect that he did not come to make war but to liberate a captive king, to restore the Altar and the Throne, to release the priesthood from exile, and the whole people from a domination that was preparing the destruction of Spain. On April 7th the army crossed the Bidassoa, consisting of 91,000 men, of whom 35,000 were Spanish royalists. Its discipline was perfect and its conduct admirable. Everywhere it was received as a liberator, with cries of “Viva el Rey absoluto, Viva la Religion y la Inquisicion.” Resistance was impossible and, although five armies had been organized, none worthy of mention was attempted, except in Catalonia, where the indomitable Mina prolonged the useless struggle until November, and at Cádiz, where the so-called Government was battling for existence. Siege was laid there on June 23d, and was prolonged until October 1st, when Fernando was ceremoniously conveyed to the camp of his French deliverers. Yet, if rhetoric could have repelled the invaders, they would have been glad to escape from the eloquence which accompanied a solemn declaration of war on April 29th, when Flórez Calderon boasted that the breasts of the deputies would make an impenetrable rampart around the constitutional King and his family.[990]
If the French came as pacifiers, they made a mistake in bringing with them a Junta Provisional of four rabid royalists, formally installed at Ozarzun, April 9th. It assumed to be the Government and issued a manifesto rescinding all the acts of the Revolution and restoring the conditions prior to March 7, 1820.[991]Itused its authority in such unsparing proscriptions that even the royalists became alarmed and appealed to de Martignac, the royal commissioner accompanying Angoulême, pointing out the evils to be apprehended from such ferocity. Quarrels within the Junta afforded an excuse for superseding it, and Angoulême, on reaching Madrid, empowered the Councils of Castile and Indias to nominate a Regency, at the head of which was the Duke del Infantado. This body, on June 4th, published a manifesto promising to use its power to prevent persecutions and excesses, to maintain internal peace, execute the laws and make the royal power respected.[992]
These were fair words, belied by acts. The whole arrangement had been dictated by secret instructions from Fernando, and proscription and persecution continued as active as ever. The Regency confirmed a measure of the Junta organizing bodies of so-called Royalist Volunteers, whose duties consisted in arresting and imprisoning all whom greed or malevolence might designate as objects of suspicion, in which work they were aided by the mob, always ready for violence and rapine. In Saragossa fifteen hundred persons were dragged to prison by the populace led by priests and frailes. In Navarre, the guerrilla chief known as el Trapense committed revolting excesses. In Madrid and Córdova the gaols were crowded with prisoners. This work went on in most of the towns, as the national forces retreated, the victims being mostly citizens of wealth and position, while the pulpits resounded with exhortations to persecution and extermination and the French troops, in so far as they could, restrained the outrages.[993]
RELEASE OF FERNANDO
Despite his reluctance to interfere, Angoulême felt called upon to put an end to the cruelty and impolicy of these persecutions and, on his way to Cádiz, he issued from Andujar, August 8th, a decree forbidding arrests by the Spanish authorities without authorization from the commandants of the troops of the districts, who were instructed to liberate all political prisoners, and to arrest those who contravened these orders, while all periodicals were subjected to the inspection of the commandants. The foreign ministers, however, protested against this as an invasion of Spanish independence, which emboldened the Regency to remonstrate in a haughty and insolent manner. The RoyalistVolunteers of Navarre, in a manifesto of August 20th, were prodigal of insults and menaces to the duke; a memorial addressed to him, August 23d, signed by Eguia and a large number of military chiefs and priests, stigmatized his effort at pacification as an attempt to perpetuate an impious faction, and demanded the restoration of the Inquisition. Wherever there were no French troops the decree was ignored and finally Angoulême, whether instructed by his court or afraid openly to oppose the Regency, issued an explanatory order, which virtually annulled the decree. Evidently there was to be no peace for the distracted land.[994]Even the Regency felt it necessary to disclaim responsibility for the horrors enacting on every hand. August 10th, it ordered the prosecution of the rioters who, at Alcalá, Guadalajara and Torrejon had committed terrible excesses under pretext of avenging the transfer of the king to Cádiz and, on August 13th, it commanded the people to restrain their zeal in making arrests but, while it was powerful to excite passion it was powerless to enforce order.[995]
When, in view of the hopelessness of further resistance at Cádiz, Fernando was informed, September 28th, that he was at liberty to seek the French camp, a tumult arose and a demand for guarantees. He summoned the ministers, telling them that he desired to give assurances and ordering José María Calatrava to draw up a decree declaring of his own free will and, on the faith of his royal word, that he would adopt a form of government assuring the happiness of the nation, the personal security, the property and the civil liberty of Spaniards, with complete oblivion of the past. The amnesty was rendered complete with elaborate details and, when it was presented to him for signature on the 30th, he said that, to remove all doubts, he would make some changes with his own hand, which he accordingly did, rendering some of the clauses clearer and more emphatic.[996]When, on the next day, he was received by Angoulême, he shut himself up with the Duke del Infantado and Victor Damien Saez, his former confessor, whom he appointed universal minister and, before the colloquy was over, there was drawn up and signed a decree of two articles; the first declared null and void all acts since March 7, 1820; the secondconfirmed the proscriptions of the Junta of Ozarzun and the Regency. Printed copies of this, together with that of the day before, were circulated to the no small perplexity of all concerned. Then General Bourmont, the French commander, learned that Ferdinand had passed secret sentence of death on some prominent liberals there present, whereupon they were conveyed on naval vessels to Gibraltar and saved from his sanguinary vengeance. This was but a foretaste of the wrath to come.[997]Prescriptive and oppressive measures followed each other and the persecution inaugurated by the Regency was sharpened and systematized.
The French had already discovered that they had raised a demon whom they could not exorcise. They had restored unconditionally to absolute power a prince who was utterly faithless, whom no promises could bind, who cared only for the gratification of his passions, and who was surrounded by vindictive counsellors, eager for the blood and spoils of their countrymen. The prisons were crowded to repletion and the untamed ferocity of the multitude, stimulated by the pulpit, was let loose upon defenceless victims. It was a scandal in the face of all Europe and was felt acutely. Effort was made to repair the mischief, but with scant success. Fernando, on leaving Cádiz, had written to Louis XVIII, expressing his gratitude, and Louis seized the opportunity, in his reply, to impress on him his own example and that of their ancestor Henry IV, as the only means of bringing peace to a distracted land, warning him that a blind despotism weakened instead of strengthening royal power. Angoulême had manifested his disapprobation of the decree of October 1st, and a coolness arose between him and Fernando, which went on increasing. They parted, October 11th, Angoulême refusing all honors on his homeward journey, and leaving Bourmont in command. The French army was gradually reduced, but the last detachments did not leave Spain until November, 1827.
CHÂTEAUBRIAND’S FAILURE
Secure in this protection, Fernando was deaf to remonstrances. It is true that, when the ambassadors of the powers met him in Seville, under their pressure, he issued a decree, October 22d,holding out expectations of what he would do on reaching Madrid, but promises cost him nothing and these were as futile as those of September 30th. To emphasize the necessity of conciliation, the French cabinet prevailed upon the Russian ambassador, Pozzo di Borgo, to visit Madrid, in the name of the Holy Alliance. He arrived there October 28th and held long conferences with Fernando and Victor Saez, urging clemency and a general amnesty, but he met, in reply, with nothing but vague generalizations.[998]
If the welfare of a nation had not been at stake, the reflections of Châteaubriand on the success of his enterprise, and his correspondence with Talaru, the French ambassador, might well raise a smile. He was disgusted, he said, with having to do with a monarch who would burn his kingdom in a cigar, and he declared that the sovereigns of today seem specially created to destroy a society ready to perish. In Spain, the political sore is the king and it is almost impossible to apply a remedy. At first he assumed that he could dictate a policy, and asserted that he would not tolerate the follies of the king nor allow France to appear as an accomplice in stupidity and fanaticism. Talaru was to speak as a master; if the ministry was not to his mind, he was to have it changed, the threatened withdrawal of the troops being what would force Fernando to listen to reason. He soon found, however, that behind the ministry was the camarilla—the real power that could not be dislodged—and that the clergy was also a body to be reckoned with. Châteaubriand’s effervescence wore itself out against the impenetrability to reason and argument of Fernando and his advisers, and his demands shrank to asking for a decree of amnesty—it would be badly framed, he knew, but at least it would have the appearance of doing something. After months of urgency, at last Fernando agreed to it. A fairly liberal scheme was drawn up but, after it had been submitted to the revision of the friends of Don Carlos, of the bishops, of the secret Junta de Estado and of the Council of Castile, its framers could scarce recognize it. While it offered pardon to all participants in the disturbances since 1820 in support of the Constitution, there were fifteen excepted classes, some of them vague and comprehensive. It ordered the discharge of all prisoners not comprised within the exceptions, but this was not obeyed. It ordered the bishops to contribute to bring about union, but few of them did so.It was dated May 1, 1824, but was not published until the 20th, and the interval was employed all over Spain in gathering evidence to bring individuals under the excepted classes, so that they could be arrested simultaneously with the publication of the decree; the prisons were filled with new victims, and the courts were overwhelmed with prosecutions. The courts, moreover, were supplemented with military commissions, whose procedure was informal and summary. TheGaceta de Madrid, between August 24th and October 12, 1824, chronicled 112 executions by shooting or hanging. Whatever scanty favor was shown to Liberals in the decree was more than counterbalanced by another of July 1st, granting pardon for all assaults and injuries committed on them or their property except when murder had resulted.[999]The Royalist Volunteers thus had full licence, and the Liberals were virtually outlawed.
DEMANDS FOR THE INQUISITION
Proscription and persecution were systematized in a manner without precedent, by the compilation of lists of all suspects. During the constitutional period, Fernando had kept a Libro Verde, noting down the names of all who displeased him, thus marking them for future vengeance. On his restoration to power, a secret Junta de Estado, consisting chiefly of ecclesiastics, was formed, whose business it was to gather information against all who were opposed to absolutism. Denunciations were invited from priests and frailes, from enemies and from the lowest class of informers, to whom inviolable secrecy was promised, and all the scandal and false evidence thus accumulated was recorded opposite the name of the party, for use as occasion might require. The list was divided into districts, and copies were sent to the respective intendants of police, who contributed such further names and charges as they could gather from all sources however vile. Thus every man’s liberty and property were at the mercy of secret and irresponsible informers. It was a Libro Verde on a scale which the Inquisition itself had never imagined, and the system was more thorough and more dangerous to the innocent than that of the Inquisition.[1000]Such was the condition of Spain during the terrible ten years, from 1823 to 1833, known as theEpocha de Chaperon—Chaperon being the president of the military commission of Madrid and notorious for his cruelty.
One result of this is well set forth in a singularly outspoken representation addressed by Javier de Burgos to Fernando, January 24, 1826. He had been sent to Paris to negotiate a loan, and he ascribes his failure, not so much to the poverty of the land, as to the absence of peace essential to prosperity, and this arose from the successive proscriptions which had desolated Spain. Now, he says, simple police orders deprive of common rights whole classes, and subject them to penalties which in well-ordered countries can be inflicted only by tribunals. Much is said of the league of European bankers against Spanish credit, but this has only been made invincible by the efforts of the six or eight thousand proscribed exiles in England, France and Belgium. A few days ago the journal which represents commerce and industry said “As for Spain, it continues to fall rapidly into barbarism. It is a second Turkey, only more miserable and worse governed.” Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile obtain loans, even though their independence is not recognized, but Spain cannot get a maravedí.[1001]It is creditable to Fernando that he took this plain-speaking good-naturedly and subsequently gave the writer the cross of Carlos III, but he was impervious to the good advice.
The decrees of the Regency and of Fernando, restoring the conditions prior to March 7, 1820, and invalidating all subsequent acts, seemed necessarily to revive the Inquisition. Its officials, however, hesitated to resume their functions without positive orders, and it was known that the French were opposed to its restoration. Numerous petitions for it were made to Angoulême, but he evaded categorical replies, saying that he would procure the liberation of the king and leave him to determine what would best promote the happiness of the nation.[1002]After Fernando’s release, felicitations came pouring in, warmly thanking him for his proscriptive measures and among these were many urgingthat the Inquisition should be set to work. If, at the moment, he desired to meet these wishes, he was restrained by the earnest opposition of the Allies, who especially shrank from the responsibility of resuscitating an institution so universally abhorred. As Châteaubriand wrote to Talaru, December 1st, “We will not permit our victories to be dishonored by proscriptions or that the fires of the Inquisition be raised as altars to our triumphs” and, on December 11th, he declared it to be necessary that the royal confessor should not be an inquisitor.[1003]
Fernando, however, seems already to have questioned whether the Inquisition would really be of service to him politically and, as religion with him was merely a matter of policy, he preferred to let the question slumber, without committing himself. It is related that once, when a bishop of extreme views was urging upon him the utility which the Inquisition had always been to the crown, he walked across the room to a balcony and, looking up at the serene sky, exclaimed “What a cloud! a great storm is coming.”[1004]His intentions, however, were indirectly manifested, by a decree of January 1, 1824, which withdrew from theCrédito públicothe administration of the property of the Inquisition and placed it with theColector-general de Espolios, who was charged to pay the salaries of all the officials of the tribunals.[1005]This indicated that there was no intention to restore the institution to activity, and to this Fernando adhered, notwithstanding the urgency which continued.
THE INQUISITION DORMANT
In fact, as the reaction established itself, Fernando could not but recognize that he had nothing to gain from the Inquisition and might risk something. His one object was unlimited absolutism. Circumstances had enabled him to attain this to a degree which none of his predecessors had enjoyed. The defeat of the Liberals was so complete, and the servility of the Royalists so great, that he could disregard whatever remnants of the old Spanish institutions had still placed some restraints on the crown. There was no secret made of this. A royal order of October 17, 1824, destroyed at a blow all the municipal self-government of Spain; theAyuntamientosof the towns were no longer to be elective; those in office were to choose their successors in thirds at a time, and the appointees were subjected to revision by the royalAudiencias while, in the preamble, the object of this was openly stated to be that there should disappear for ever from Spanish soil the most remote idea that sovereignty resided elsewhere than in the royal person, and the people should know that not the slightest alteration would ever be made in the fundamental laws of the monarchy.[1006]
The only claim of the Inquisition to efficiency, greater than that of the police and royal tribunals, was in its delegated faculties from the pope and, to a monarch thus resolved to concentrate in his own hands all power, it was naturally distasteful to employ for political ends foreign authority which, nominally at least, was not under his own control. This objection he might have disregarded, if he had reason to expect from the Inquisition any special service, but such there was not. While there still was law in Spain the Inquisition might be useful as being above the law, but now that law was merely the sic volo, sic jubeo, the Inquisition was superfluous, while its secret procedure was more tardy and cumbrous—perhaps even less certain—than that of the military commissions; and the system described above of lists of suspects with evidence gathered from every source by thousands of informers was far more comprehensive in plan and in detail than anything that the inquisitorial organization had ever attempted.
The Inquisition thus had nothing to offer and, careless as was Fernando of the public opinion of Europe, even he could recognize the wisdom of avoiding the odium of re-establishing an institution so generally condemned. To the victims it made little difference whether their judges were called military commissioners or inquisitors; their offences were justiciable by either, for the pulpits resounded with the doctrine that all Constitutionalists and Liberals were Jansenists and heretics—a doctrine justified by a royal order of May 2, 1824, to the bishops, requiring them to celebrate, in their dioceses, Missions calling the Liberals to repentance.[1007]
Yet there was a lurking Jansenism in this tacit assumption that the regalías enabled the king to prolong at his pleasure that suppression of the Holy Office which, in 1813, had been proved by learned theologians to be in violation of the canons and of theauthority of the Holy See. The clerical party was restless and dissatisfied, the more so because, as Fernando’s theory of government was to render his own power secure by promoting discord among his followers, he occasionally favored the moderate Royalists against the extremists. The latter were not content even with the prevailing cruel persecution, and longed for one more searching with the Inquisition as its instrument. The secret organization known as theJunta Apostólica, orAngel Exterminador, had cast its eyes upon Don Carlos as a leader who could realize their aspirations, for he was completely under priestly influence and belonged to the extreme faction, besides being heir presumptive in the probable case of Fernando dying without issue. Carlos, however, though not a man of strong character, was strictly honorable and was bound to Fernando with ties of a mutual affection which endured to the end. He was quite content to await the chances of succession, but his wife Francisca of Portugal and her sister the Princess of Beira, widow of the Infante Pedro, were ambitious. His apartments in the royal palace were the centre of intrigues, in which he did not personally participate, while Fernando who, through his spies, was kept informed of them, did not interfere, confiding in his brother’s loyalty and his own ability to crush attempts against himself.
RISING IN CATALONIA
In 1824 and 1825 there were movements and risings of the extremists in various provinces, which indicated concerted action and were suppressed with more or less facility, except in Catalonia. There the hidden leaders of the conspiracy found a population discontented with what they deemed the lukewarmness of the Government, which they were told was now controlled by Free-Masons. The old members of the Army of the Faith, moreover, deemed themselves insufficiently rewarded for their services, and organized under the name ofAgraviados, forming the nucleus of a “Federacion de Realistas puros,” more royalist than the king. Towards the end of 1826 there was circulated a manifesto from the Federation urging the necessity of placing Don Carlos on the throne; its organization rapidly extended, and April 1, 1827, was appointed for the rising, which was readily suppressed and a free pardon was granted to the insurgents. The pacification was but temporary. In July, at Manresa, aJunta superiorwas formed, and in August the tolling of the bells summoned thesomatenesor leviesen masseto arms, when a portion of the troops joined the insurrection, which was soon supreme in Catalonia. A reportmade, August 27th, by Dehesa, fiscal of the court of Barcelona, states that the war-cry of the insurgents was “Long live the Inquisition! Death to the Constitution! Death to the negros! Death to the police!” They were told that the rising was by order of the pope and that the king was surrounded by Free-Masons; it was supposed to be the work of the clergy, who desired the re-establishment of the Inquisition, and to make themselves all-powerful by working on the fanaticism of the ignorant mountaineers.[1008]
That the situation was becoming dangerous is manifested by the only kingly act in Fernando’s record, for he resolved to visit Catalonia himself, after sending the Count de España there with full powers. He reached Tarragona September 28th, being received everywhere with enthusiasm, though there was an abortive project of abducting him by a large body of Royalist Volunteers assembled as though to do him honor. From Tarragona he issued a proclamation to the effect that those who should not lay down their arms within twenty-four hours must expect no mercy, and that he would deal with their leaders as he saw fit. The secret societies had already issued orders of pacification; organized resistance was abandoned, nine of the chiefs were hanged and the land was speedily at peace. Carlos took no part in the rising, but he knew of the plans and had not opposed them, and the name of Carlists was thereafter used to designate the extreme royalists.[1009]
It is significant that, when Fernando ordered the bishops to exhort their subjects to peace, some of them obeyed, but Pablo de Jesus de Corcuera y Caserta, the prelate of Vich, refused in a letter of October 6th, on the ground that he could not conscientiously do so. Fernando, he said, had not kept his promises; he had assembled a junta to examine all books in circulation, yet poisonous ones, like that of Thomas à Kempis, were allowed to be read; he had ordered the restoration of everything to the conditions prior to March 7, 1820, yet the Inquisition had not been re-established; other royal short-comings were pointed out and, in the face of all this it was impossible for a bishop not to take part in temporal matters; to preach obedience as required would be to compromise the episcopate and to become the instrument ofthe enemies of God, nor would it avail anything, for it would be impossible to make the people think otherwise. These outspoken sentiments of the fiery bishop explain much that is saddest in modern Spanish history; he was not punished for them but, when the Count de España came to Vich he summoned the recalcitrant prelate before him and reminded him of the fate of Acuña of Zamora, which might be repeated if it so pleased the Catholic king.[1010]
After this there was no further demand for the restoration of the Inquisition, as Fernando’s determination was recognized as unalterable. For awhile however it had not accepted its suppression as final, and it still sought to perform some of its functions in hopes of being again revived. This is demonstrated by the Valencia register, laboriously and faithfully compiled and brought up to the end of 1824, and the same seems to have been done in Madrid for, in a document of 1817, there is an appended note referring to the Madrid register of January 31, 1824. As the salaries were continued, an organization was kept up and a show was made of performing some kind of work. The Valencia register thus contains several cases in which it acted in 1824, though it modestly styles itself “este tribunal eclesiastico” and not “Santo Oficio.” Thus Valero Andreu was accused to it of a blasphemous proposition and was duly sentenced. The criminal court of Valencia regarded it as still functioning and, when in trials there came evidence of matters cognizable by the Inquisition, the proofs would be sent to the tribunal which would summon the offender and pass judgement on him, the penalty however being not more than a reprimand. Three cases of this kind are recorded, the latest being July 3, 1824.[1011]We may fairly assume that in some, at least, of the other tribunals, trivial work of this kind was similarly performed.
REMNANTS OF THE INQUISITION
Some papers connected with a quarrel between the officials of the Majorca tribunal give us an insight into its internal condition in 1830. Its business consisted in the collection of the censos and other sources of revenue. There were many of these—loans to towns and villages as well as to individuals throughout the islands; payments were apt to be tardy and the labor of collectionwas considerable, frequently involving legal proceedings. The inquisitor had disappeared, although from another document we learn that he was named Francisco Antonio Andraca and that he was drawing his salary elsewhere. The existing head of the tribunal was ajuez subdelegado, a representative of the old juez de bienes; there was a treasury and an auditing department with anadministrador tesorero, Juan Antonio Togores, who was disabled and represented by his son, José Antonio Togores. The secretary of the secreto was Bartolomé Serra y Bennassar, acting as auditorad interim, whose clerk was Pedro Mascaro, notary of sequestrations. The only other official was the portero, Sebastian Banza. Togores claims that, when the buildings were destroyed in 1820, he incurred many enmities by efforts to compel restitution of plundered materials—among others a Count of Ayamans was sued for purloining building stone. Togores constructed a wall around the site, and the heaps of stone and tiles still lay scattered there. Outside of the enclosure, a couple of small buildings were erected for offices, with a warehouse below for the storage of the rescued materials. One of the charges against him was that he had used the site of the old garden of the senior inquisitor to raise vegetables and flowers for himself.[1012]There is impressiveness in this glimpse of the old officials clinging to the ruins of what had once been so formidable.
From this quarrel we learn that the central authority of the Inquisition was the General Superintendent of the Property of the Inquisition—apparently a subordinate of the Colector-general de Espolios, to whom the assets were confided by the decree of January 1, 1824. In 1830 this General Superintendent was an old inquisitor, Valentin Zorilla, and he had as fiscal another inquisitor, Vicente Alonso de Verdejo. The Inquisitor-general, Gerónimo Cavillon y Salas, Bishop of Tarazona, was still drawing his salary of 71,491 reales 24 mrs. and did not die until 1835. Of the Suprema there were but two survivors, the Dean Ethenard and Cristobal Bencomo, Archbishop of Heraclea, who by 1833 had disappeared, leaving Ethenard alone. There was still arelator, a private secretary of the inquisitor-general, a keeper of the archives, and four minor officials. All these, however, were mere pensioners. The active organization consisted of the superintendent and his fiscal, with a treasurer and receiver-generalad interim, Don Angel Abad, whose accounts for 1830 show that he had received by drafts drawn upon the several tribunals
Logroño, Madrid, Cuenca and Llerena apparently contributed nothing. The sums credited to America and Canaries were probably old balances. The receipts from prebends must have gone directly to the Superintendent, for the decree of final extinction in 1834 shows that they were still held for the benefit of the Inquisition. There were other sources of revenue, principally from censos, of which the most notable was one of the Count of Altamira, from whom was collected, in 1830, the sum of 272,335 reales 25 mrs., being arrearages that seem to run back to 1818. He was still hereditary alguazil mayor of the Seville tribunal, in which capacity he was receiving a yearly salary of 4411 reales 26 mrs. The Duke of Medinaceli, as alguazil mayor of the Madrid tribunal, was still drawing his yearly stipend of a thousand reales and personally signing monthly receipts. There are scattering entries of payments to officials of various tribunals, showing that they were gradually thinning out, and refugees from the American Inquisitions were kept on the pay-roll.[1013]Such was the moribund condition of the Holy Office on the eve of its extinction.
While the Inquisition was thus suspended, the more zealous bishops replaced it with so-calledJuntas de fe, based on the same principles, with secrecy of procedure and exercising jurisdiction in the external as well as internal forum. No record of the proceedings of these anomalous tribunals seems to have been preserved except in the case of Valencia, where the archbishopric was held by Simon López, in reward for his defence of the Holy Office in the Córtes of Cádiz. Almost his earliest act on assuming his new dignity, in 1824, was to issue a pastoral confirming the junta de fe, established by his predecessor Veremundo Arias, and empowering it to receive denunciations. He took the presidency with Dr. Miguel Toranza, the former inquisitor of Valencia as his colleague, Dr. Juan Bautista Falcó as fiscal and Dr. José Royo as secretary.[1014]
JUNTAS DE FE
Thus the old tribunal was revived under another name, and it speedily proved that such juntas were more dangerous than those of the Inquisition, as they were not subject to the supervision and control of the Suprema. A poor schoolmaster of Rizaffa, named Cayetano Ripoll, had served in the War of Liberation and had been carried as a prisoner to France, where he became a pervert. He abandoned Christianity for Deism, while at the same time he was a living embodiment of the teachings of Christ, sharing his scanty pittance with the needy, and constantly repeating “Do not unto others what you would not have done unto you.” He did not seek to propagate his beliefs, but he was denounced to the Junta by a beata for not taking his scholars to mass, for not making them kneel to the passing viaticum, and for substituting in his school the ejaculation “Praise be to God” instead of “Ave Maria purissima.” He was arrested September 29, 1824, and his trial lasted for nearly two years. The testimony confirmed the denunciation and showed that the only religious instruction which he gave his pupils was the Ten Commandments. During his prolonged trial he made no complaints; he shared his meagre prison fare with his fellow-prisoners; he openly avowed his convictions, and the repeated efforts of the theologians to convert him were futile. The sentence bore that the tribunal had consulted with the Junta de Fe and concluded that he be relaxed, as a formal and contumacious heretic, which had been confirmed by the archbishop. There was no hypocritical plea for mercy, and the Sala del Crimen of the Audiencia, to which he was handed over, gave him no hearing or opportunity for defence. Its function was purely ministerial, and he knew nothing of its action until the sentence was announced to him that, within twenty-four hours, he was to be hanged and burnt, but the burning might be figurative by painting flames on a barrel, in which his body should be thrust into unconsecrated ground. He listened to this with the patient resignation that he had exhibited throughout his trial, and his last words on the gibbet, July 26, 1826, were “I die reconciled to God and man.”[1015]
This barbarity scandalized all Europe and proved to be the last execution for heresy in Spain. While it gratified the zealots, who were clamoring for the resurrection of the Inquisition, itdispleased Fernando, who caused the Audiencia to be notified that the Government recognized no such tribunals as the juntas de fe.[1016]In spite of this rebuke, the episcopal juntas continued to exercise an irregular and irresponsible jurisdiction, until the sufferers sought from the Holy See the protection denied to them at home. Pius VIII listened to their prayer, whether from motives of humanity or of establishing in Spain the jurisdiction which the Inquisition had sought so sedulously to exclude, and, in a constitution of October 5, 1829, he recited the numerous prayers reaching him from those persecuted in Spain for matters of faith, asking that they might have opportunity of appealing from sentences rendered by archbishops and bishops, before being subjected to punishment. To save them from the expenses and delays of appeals to Rome, he empowered the tribunal of the Rota, in the papal nunciature, to hear all appeals in matters of faith, even twice, thrice, four or five times in succession, until three concording sentences should be rendered.[1017]Fernando was less sensitive than his predecessors as to papal encroachments, and he gave this the force of law by a royal order of February 6, 1830.