Chapter IVDon Bernardino de Cardenas, Bishop of Paraguay—His labours as apostolic missionary—His ambitions and cunning—Pretensions to saintliness—His attempts to acquire supreme power—Quarrels between Cardenas and Don Gregorio, the temporal GovernorDon Bernardino de Cardenas first saw the light in the town of La Plata,[115]capital of the province of Charcas in Bolivia, or, as it was then called, Alta Peru. The date of his birth is uncertain, but it would appear to have been in the early years of the seventeenth century. At an early age he entered the Franciscan Order.As the Franciscans had had the honour of having furnished to the calendar the first saint canonized in the New World, it seems to have been the dream of Cardenas from his earliest youth to emulate him. In this desire he seems to have acted in good faith, and all his life the dream of saintship haunted him. Charlevoix[116]says ‘he made a rather superficial study of theology, and then engaged in preaching, in which, with memory, assurance, and facility, he found it easy to succeed in a country where brilliant gifts are more esteemed than solid learning.’ Certainly a preacher without assurance, memory, and facility would scarcely have succeeded in any country; and in what country in the world is brilliancy not far esteemed above the deepest scholarship? Besides, ‘he was a man of visions (homme à visions) and revelations, which he took good care to publish.’ Visions are generally, in the case of saints, confined to the soul’s eye, and revelation to the inward ear; if, therefore, the recipient of them does not make them known, they run the risk of being lost. In a word, according to Charlevoix,[117]he was ‘one of the most complete and dangerous ecstatics that ever lived.’ ‘His first successes’ (whether as preacher or ecstatic are not specified) caused his superiors to name him guardian of their college of La Plata. They soon repented of their choice. No sooner was he named Superior than he sought to qualify himself for saintship by a sort of royal road. Saints are of several classes, and, in looking through the calendars, it strikes one how different seem to have been the methods by which they severally attained their goal.Prince Juan Manuel, in the preface to his ‘Fifty Pleasant Stories of Patronio’, says that, ‘amongst the many strange things our Lord God made, He thought good to make one marvellous in special—that is, that, of the numberless men who are on earth, not one entirely resembles any other in his face.’ He might have said the same of saints and of their ways. One, like St. Francis of Assisi, treats his father (as it seems to me) but scurvily, and yet to every other created man and all the animals he is a brother. The saint of Avila founds convents, mingles with men of business, and has visions in the intervals of her journeying through Spain upon an ass. Again, another preaches to the Indians or the Japanese, gives up his substance, begs his bread from door to door, and leaves the devil’s advocate scarcely a quillet or a quiddity against him. Lastly, you find against the names of some merely the docket ‘virgin’ or ‘martyr’, as their case or sex may serve.Don Bernardino adopted none of these methods of procedure. Carrying a heavy cross, with ashes on his head and shoulders bared, followed by all his priests, he sallied out one day to discipline himself in public. This plan did not succeed with all the world, for his superiors ordered him to remain inside his convent gates. There he remained, and, as his Life informs us, profited by his retreat to study Holy Scriptures, and to such good effect that, the next time he preached, he charmed his hearers by his eloquence. Soon after this the Archbishop of La Plata held a provincial council, with the object of reforming the morals of the Indians in his diocese. Cardenas, being a fluent speaker, was chosen for the post of Apostolic Missionary. From this time dates the beginning of his fame.In those days all the Indians of the Charcas, and generally of all Peru, were sunk in misery, but little removed from slaves, and their religion was a mixture of Christianity and paganism—just the kind of folk a fluent preacher of the style of Cardenas could work upon. All through the province he made his apostolic progress, preaching, converting, and confessing, everywhere preceded by his fame as seer of visions, miracle-worker, and recipient of celestial light. He took his way, dressed like a pilgrim, on foot, carrying a wooden cross, and followed by a multitude of Indians from town to town.Religion in America (Catholic or Protestant) has always tended to revert to the original Eastern form, from which, no doubt, it sprung. The influence of the vast plains and forests, and the great distances to travel, have introduced the system of camp meetings amongst the Protestants, whereas the Catholics have often held a sort of ambulatory mission, the people of one village following the preacher to the next, and so on, in the same fashion as in Palestine the people seem to have followed John the Baptist.Soon the news was spread about that the Indians who followed Cardenas had told him of rich mines, on the condition that he would not divulge the secret to the Spaniards. At that time the search for mines was carried almost to madness in Peru. Even to-day, in almost every mining town, a mysterious, poverty-stricken man sometimes approaches you with great precaution, and, drawing from his pocket an object wrapped in greasy paper, declares with oaths that it isrosicler(red silver ore), and that he knows where there are tons and tons of it. In Mexico the curious class of miners known asgambusinosrove through the valleys of the Sierra Madre armed with pick and pan, passing their lives in hunting mines, as pigs hunt truffles. If they come upon a mine, they never try to work it, but sell the secret for a trifling sum, and, drinking out the money, start on again to find the mines worked by the Aztecs, till an Apache bullet or arrow stops them, their El Dorado still ahead, or they are found beside their pick and shovel dead of thirst.Neither in Mexico nor in Peru do things grow less in telling, and we may well suppose the stories of the mines the Indians told to Cardenas became colossal; for at last the Alcalde of Cochabamba wrote on the subject to the Count of Salvatierra, the Viceroy of Peru.As Charlevoix says, ‘it seemed as if it all worked to the advantage of the holy missionary, who, not content with saving souls, did not forget the interests of his native land.’ In the middle of his triumphs, being recalled to Lima, no one doubted that it was in order to confer with the Viceroy about the supposititious mines. Others, again, imagined that a mitre was destined for the successful evangelist, and therefore many, even quite poor people, pressed forward to offer funds to help him on his way. With quite apostolic assurance, he took all that was offered to him, being certain, as some think, that, the mines being real, he could some day repay with usury all he had borrowed, or, as others said, being indifferent about the matter, and trusting to repay in that better country where no usury exists and where no gold corrupts.The Viceroy, being a man of little faith, sent to investigate the supposititious mines, but found them non-existent.The superiors of Cardenas, as judicious as the higher officers of the Franciscan Order often proved themselves throughout America, informed him that he had given offence to many by his public scourgings and processions carrying a cross, and, most of all, that in his sermons propositions had escaped him of a nature likely to bring him under the censure of the Holy Office. A convent in Lima was assigned to him as a retreat and place of meditation on the virtues of submission and obedience.As we may well believe, no man who felt he had the stuff within himself to make a saint ever cared much for obedience or submission, except in others; so in his convent, instead of meditating on his faults, he passed his time in writing a memorial to the Council of the Indies, setting forth his views on the way in which to spread the gospel amongst the Indians. Nothing was better calculated to win him favour. Every Indian baptized was so much yearly gain to the Spanish Government.Conversion and taxation always went hand-in-hand, and therefore Indians who, unbaptized, brought nothing to the treasury, having received the Gospel truths, were taxed so much a head to show them that from thenceforth they were Christians. Thus, we find that in the Paraguayan missions each Indian paid a dollar every year as a sort of poll-tax, and most of the disputes between the Viceroys of Paraguay and the Jesuits arose from the number of the Indians taxable. The Viceroys always alleged that the population of the missions never increased, on account of the Jesuits returning false numbers to avoid the tax.Cardenas specially inculcated, in his memorial to the Council of the Indies, that it was not expedient to place the Indians under the regular clergy, a theory of which he himself was destined to become a great antagonist. Promotion, as we know, cometh neither from the east nor from the west; so it fell out that during his retreat, through the influence of his friend Don Juan de Solorzano, a celebrated lawyer, who had heard him preach when Governor of Guancavelico, he found himself named Bishop of Asuncion del Paraguay. This piece of luck opened the doors of his convent to him, and he repaired at once to Potosi to wait the arrival of the Papal Bull authorizing him to take possession of his bishopric. There he appeared in the habit of his Order, a little wooden cross upon his breast, and a green hat upon his head, a costume which, if not quite fitting to his new dignity, was at least suited to the Indian taste.His biographer informs us that, without a word to anyone, he began to preach and hear confessions. Being absolutely without resources, he was reduced to distribute indulgences and little objects of piety, and at the end of every sermon to send his green hat round the audience. His talent for preaching stood him in good stead, and after every sermon gifts were showered upon him, and a crowd accompanied him home.The priest of Potosi being just dead, Don Bernardino took his place without permission, and set himself up in the double character of parish priest and Bishop to hold a visitation throughout the diocese.Some people took this conduct as evidence of his saint-like humility in condescending, though a Bishop, to officiate as a mere priest. The Archbishop had a different opinion, but, as Don Bernardino had a great following, he thought it best to dissemble his resentment. Cardenas himself, by his imprudence, furnished the Archbishop with an excuse to get him out of the bishopric.A rich Indian, whom Cardenas confessed upon his death-bed, left him ten thousand crowns. Not content with that, he influenced one Diego Vargas to change his will and leave him money. On this the Archbishop wrote to him, requesting that he would go and govern his own see. He had to go, but left the town, which he had entered without a farthing, with a long train of mules carrying his money, plate, and furniture. Why he did not instantly go to Asuncion is not quite clear, for in America it was the custom, owing to the great distance from Rome, that Bishops, on receipt of the royal order of appointment, got themselves chosen by the chapter of their diocese to govern provisionally. Instead of doing that, he went to Tucuman, and thence to Salta, where he arrived in 1641.In Salta, his first visit was to the Jesuit college, where he laid his case before the Jesuit fathers, and showed them several letters, one from the Cardinal Antonio Barberini dated in 1638, and another from the King without a date, naming him Bishop of Asuncion. On the strength of these two letters he asked the Jesuits if he could get himself consecrated without the Papal Bulls. Charlevoix alleges that they dared not refuse to answer in the way he wished. Why this was so is not so easy to make out, as, even with his green hat and wooden cross, he could not at that time have been a formidable personage. Their written opinion he sent at once to the rector of the Jesuit college at Cordova, asking for his opinion and that of the doctors of the university. The answer reached him in Santiago del Estero, and was unfavourable. On reading the letter, Cardenas fell into a most unsaint-like fury, and tore it up without communicating it to anyone, not even to the Bishop of Tucuman, Don Melchior Maldonado. This was not strange, as he had counted on this Bishop to consecrate him.Notwithstanding what was at stake, he went on in the diocese of Tucuman just as he had done in that of Charcas, preaching, confessing, and celebrating Mass. Don Melchior Maldonado, a quiet man of no pretensions, wrote him a letter in which he said: ‘You came into my diocese like a St. Bernard; such is the reputation you have for holiness and preaching that my people pay me no respect, and only look on me as a man of common virtue and mediocre talents. Although I hope I am not jealous, still, I must remind you that you act as if you were St. Paul.’A Bishop of common virtue and of mediocre talents is, of course, a Bishop lost, and one can well conceive that poor Don Melchior Maldonado was placed in an unpleasant position during the stay of Cardenas in his diocese. Such were Don Bernardino’s powers of persuasion that at last the Bishop consecrated him. The ceremony was hardly over, when a letter arrived from the Rector of the University of Cordova advising Bishop Maldonado against the consecration. Unluckily for Paraguay, it was too late to undo the action, and Cardenas was now in a position to take possession of his see. Poor Melchior Maldonado, Bishop of Tucuman, had, as it happened, laid hands a little hastily upon the candidate. The Council of Trent pronounced upon the case, and found ‘that the consecration of the Bishop of Paraguay had been a valid one as touching the sacrament (ordination), and the impression of the character, but that it had been void as regards the power of discharging the functions attaching to the dignity, and that the Bishop and his consecrator had need of absolution, which the same holy congregation thinks ought to be accorded with the good pleasure of the Pope.’ As the same holy congregation had previously declared the taking possession of the diocese by Cardenas had been illegal, it is difficult for ordinary minds to grasp their real opinion of the case.Finding that he had failed with the University of Cordova, Don Bernardino took his way to Santa Fé, from whence he wrote an insulting letter to the poor rector. The letter was conceived in such outrageous terms that the Bishop of Tucuman wrote in expostulation, saying he expected to see something extraordinary happen in Paraguay if he gave way to such excess of passion.Don Bernardino’s usual luck attended him in Santa Fé. This town then formed part of the diocese of Buenos Ayres, though situated about four hundred miles from the metropolis. It happened that the see of Buenos Ayres was vacant, and the chapter of the cathedral invited Cardenas to visit that portion of the diocese through which he had to pass. Cardenas was, of course, delighted to show his talents for preaching, as he had done before in Charcas and in Potosi. When he arrived at Corrientes the enthusiasm for his holiness and talents was extraordinary. In Corrientes, Don Bernardino seems to have felt, for the first time, his calling and election really sure. At the time he landed (1642) the land was sunk in ignorance and superstition. Even to-day in Corrientes (the city of the seven currents), situated just at the junction of the rivers Paraná and Paraguay, close to the celebrated missions of the Jesuits, the inhabitants, living in a country almost tropical, are half Indians in type.What Corrientes looked like in Don Bernardino’s time is matter of conjecture. Perhaps it was not greatly different from some remote Spanish-American frontier towns some five-and-twenty years ago, save for the groups of Spanish soldiery, with their steel morions, trunk hose and heavy arquebuses lounging about, and in the matter of the scarcity of horses in the streets. No doubt the self-same listless air hung over everything, and in the place of the modern blue and white barred flags with a rising sun or cap of liberty stuck like a trade-mark in the corner, the blood and orange Spanish colours with the quarterings of castles and of lions flapped heavily against the flagstaff of the fort. The Indian women dressed all in white, their hair cut square across the forehead and hanging down their backs, sat with their baskets of fruit and flowers in the market-place. The town, as now, built chiefly of adobes, with a few wooden huts dotted about, was semi-oriental in design. On every church were cupolas after the eastern fashion, flat roofs on every house, and everything shone dazzling white against the dark, metallic-looking foliage of the trees. The streets, as now, were sandy water-courses, crossed here and there with traverses of rough-hewn stone to break the force of the water in the season of the rains.At night the fireflies glistened amongst the heavy leaves of the mamayes and the orange-trees, whilst from the Chaco rose the mysterious voices of the desert night, and from the outskirts of the town the wailing Indian Jarabis and Cielitos sung in a high falsetto key to the tinkling of a cracked guitar, but broken now and then by the sharp warning cry ‘Alerta centinela!’ of the soldiers on the walls. Could one have landed there, one would have felt much as a sailor feels, dropped on the beach of Eromango or on some yet unbemissionaried island of the Paumotus Group.Embarking from Corrientes up the river Paraguay, the Bishop met two vessels sent from Asuncion to do him honour. When night approached he put in practice one of the manœuvres which in Peru had stood him in good stead. On every side a swarm of launches and canoes accompanied the ship to see the Bishop, whom already many believed a saint. He asked them all to retire a little from his ship. All did so but the guard of honour sent from Asuncion. Towards the middle of the night the sound of scourging wakened them. It was their Bishop trying to prepare himself for the duties that awaited him. Every succeeding night the same thing happened. During the day he celebrated Mass pontifically upon the deck. Voyages upon the river Paraguay before the days of steamers took a considerable time, especially as every night the custom was to anchor or to make fast the vessel to a tree. Soon the rumour reached Asuncion that a second St. Thomas was on his way to visit them. St. Thomas, as is said, once visited Paraguay, and a cave in the vicinity of a town called Paraguari, where he once lived, exists to-day to prove the passage of the saint.Fate seemed determined that the Bishop should always meet the Jesuits, no matter where he went.Becoming weary of the slow progress of the ships, he disembarked four leagues below Asuncion, at a farm belonging to the Company. He managed to dissemble his resentment so perfectly that no one knew he had a grudge against them. Arrived at the capital, he went at once to the church of San Blas, then to the Cathedral, where he celebrated Mass and preached, his mitre on his head. After service he dismissed the people to their homes to dine, saying, however, that he himself was nourished by an invisible food and by a beverage which men could not perceive. ‘My food’ (he said) ‘is but to do the work and will of Him who sent me.’ Therefore he remained in prayer and meditation until vespers, and that office finished, he retired to the palace accompanied by a shouting crowd.In his position his conduct was most adroit, for, as his Bulls had not arrived, he must have known he had no legal status, and that, in default of that, he had to conquer public sympathy. The chapter never doubted that Don Bernardino would place himself entirely in their hands as his Bulls had not arrived. He, however, seems to have thought that the act of celebrating Mass pontifically in the Cathedral had put him in possession of his powers. So he named one Cristobal Sanchez as his Vicar-General. Two of the members of the chapter, Don Diego Ponce de Leon and Don Fernando Sanchez, remonstrated, but a considerable portion of the chapter sided with Cardenas. The stronger party left the Cathedral and celebrated Mass in the church belonging to the Jesuits, thus giving Cardenas a second cause of offence against the Company.The Bishop, not being secure of his position, had recourse to every art[118]to catch the public eye: fasting and scourging, prayers before the altar, two Masses every day, barefoot processions—himself the central figure, carrying a cross—each had their turn. Along the deep red roads between the orange-gardens which lead from Asuncion towards the Recoleta and the Campo Grande, he used to take his way accompanied by Indians crowned with flowers, giving his benediction as he passed, to turn away (according to himself) the plague and to insure a fertile harvest. Not being content with the opportunities which life afforded, he instituted an evening service in a church in order to prepare for death.Soon, as was to be expected in such a country, this service proved the occasion of much scandal, and, instead of showing people how to leave the world, became the means of introducing many into life in a clandestine way. The rector of the Jesuit college thought it his duty to inform the Bishop; but he, like all good men, thought nothing bad could spring from anything that he himself originated. No doubt he put it down to malice, as good people will when worldlings put the finger on the weak spot of a religious institution; but anyhow, regardless of the scandals, he continued his nocturnal rites.The Governor of Paraguay at that time was one Gregorio de Hinostrosa, an officer born in Chile, an honest, pious, wooden-headed man, and much beloved by the inhabitants of Paraguay. On his arrival Don Bernardino tried to conciliate him. Unluckily, a friendship with the Bishop was impossible without a blind submission to his will. In the beginning all was flattery; when Don Gregorio attended Mass, the Bishop used to meet him at the church door. Not to be outdone, the Governor returned the Bishop’s politeness in a similar way, but went so far in his complaisance that Don Bernardino ceased to respect him. Soon there arose bickerings and jealousies, and at length they hated one another fervently.Nor was the Bishop more successful with his clergy. Some of them laughed at his pretensions to be a saint, and called him an ambitious schemer. Again, amongst the laity, many did not quite understand his habit of celebrating two Masses every day. He answered that he never celebrated without releasing a soul from purgatory, and that there had been saints who celebrated nine Masses every day, and, moreover, that he was Pope in his own diocese. This cut the ground from under the feet of his detractors, for in a town of the calibre of Asuncion the people looked on a service in a church as a welcome means of getting through the day, and had he celebrated a dozen masses they would but have been more delighted with their new Bishop.Under the pretext that there were not enough priests to serve the churches, he, by degrees, took several parishes into his own hands, and went from church to church to celebrate his Mass in each, whilst not forgetting to draw the various stipends for his work. But, not content with this, he began to ordain young men who knew no Latin, and even criminals, setting forth the view that ordination was a sort of second baptism, which purged all crimes—a most convenient theory, and one which is not half enough insisted on in these degenerate days.The position of Asuncion gave him an opportunity of an almost unique kind to show his talents in another sphere. Across the river Paraguay, there about one mile broad, extends the country called the Chaco, a vast domain of swamp and forest, inhabited in those days, as at present, by tribes of wandering Indians. From the city walls, whilst listening to the church-bells, one can see the smoke of Indian encampments across the river only a mile away.Of all the Indian tribes in the time of Cardenas, the most ferocious were the Guaycurús. The Jesuits had laboured almost in vain amongst them. Missions had been founded, and all gone well for months, and even years, when on a sudden, and without reason, the Guaycurús had burned the houses, killed the priests, and gone back to the wilds. From Santa Fé up to the province of Matto Grosso they kept the frontier in a turmoil, crossing the river and feeding like locusts on the settlements in Paraguay.Not long before his arrival the Guaycurús had intimated their intention of holding a conference with Don Gregorio Hinostrosa. Don Bernardino thought the chance too good to lose, and at once declared that, as a Bishop, it was his place to carry on negotiations with the barbarians. Dressed in his robes and with an escort furnished by the Governor, he met the chiefs—who no doubt looked on him as a new kind of medicine-man—preached to them through an interpreter, curiously being without the gift of tongues, but notwithstanding that a reasonable number of them were baptized. On his return, he wrote to the King that by his efforts he had appeased the most ferocious Indians within his Majesty’s domains.Within a week the Guaycurús surprised and burned a settlement a little higher up the stream. Not content with this Caligulesque apostolate to the Guaycurús, the Bishop longed for serious occupation, and caused it to be rumoured about the city that he did nothing except by the direct authority of the Holy Ghost, an allegation hard to confute, and if allowed, likely to lead to difficulties even in Paraguay.Some years before the advent of Don Bernardino the Dominicans had built a convent in Asuncion. As they had no license to build, they were in the position of religious squatters on the domain of God. The citizens had applied to the Audiencia of Charcas, the supreme court on all such matters in South America, situated, with true Spanish unpracticality, in one of the most secluded districts of the continent. The Audiencia had refused the license, but had taken the matterad advisandumfor ten years. To take a matter into consideration for ten years, even in Spain or South America, where the law’s delay is generally more mortal than in any other country, was as good as giving a permission. So the Dominicans construed it, and no one dreamed of now molesting them.One day the Bishop, dressed in his robes, proceeded from his palace to the convent, informing the Governor that he wanted him to meet him there. Entering the convent church, he took the sacrament from off the altar and stripped the church of all its ornaments, setting a gang of workmen to demolish both the convent and the church. When the work was over, he went to a neighbouring church, and then and there, without confession, celebrated Mass, remarking to the faithful that there was no need for him to make confession, as he was satisfied of the condition of his conscience. Some murmured; but the greater portion of the people, always ready to take a saint at his own valuation, were delighted with his act. Doubts must have crossed his mind, as shortly afterwards he wrote to Don Melchior Maldonado, Bishop of Tucuman, for his opinion. That Bishop answered rather tartly that his zeal appeared to him to savour more of the zeal of Elias than of Jesus Christ, and that in a country where churches were so few it seemed imprudent to pull down rather than to build. ‘However,’ he added, ‘my light is not so brilliant as the light your lordship is illumined by.’When once a man is well convinced that all he does comes from the Holy Ghost, there is but little that he cannot do with satisfaction to himself. Self-murderers, according to the custom of those times, were not allowed admission into holy ground, as if the fact of having found their life unbearable debarred them from the right to be considered men. Such a man a few years previously had been buried at a cross-road. It now occurred to Cardenas to have a special revelation on the subject; and, curiously enough, this special revelation was on the side of common-sense. ‘This body,’ said the Bishop, ‘is that of a Christian, and I feel pretty sure his soul is now in bliss.’ He gave no reason for his opinion, as is the way of most religious folk, but, as he had special means of communication with heaven, most people were contented. Incontinently he had the corpse dug up and buried in the church of the Incarnation, himself performing all the funeral rites.Although a miracle or two would have shocked nobody, still, in the matter of the suicide he had gone too far for the simple people of the place. They murmured, and for a moment the Bishop’s prestige was in jeopardy; but in the nick of time his Bulls arrived, brought by his nephew, Pedro de Cardenas, who, like himself, was a Franciscan friar. This saved him, and gave the people something new to think of, though at the same time he incurred a new anxiety.In the Bulls there was a passage to the effect that, if at his consecration any irregularity had been incurred, he was liable to suspension from all his functions. This the Jesuit who translated the documents into Spanish for the purpose of publication drew his attention to. However, Cardenas was not a man to be intimidated by so small a matter, but read the translation to the people in the Cathedral, and intimated to them that the Pope had given him unlimited power in Paraguay, both in matters spiritual and temporal.Though Don Gregorio, the Governor, was present at the ceremony, he made no protest at the assumption of temporal power by Cardenas. He had remarked it, though, and secretly determined to show him that his pretensions were unfounded. His nephew, Don Pedro de Cardenas, furnished the occasion. This young man had been despatched to Spain to get the Bulls. Upon the voyage he seems to have conducted himself with scant propriety. On his return, when passing Corrientes, he took on board a lady whom Charlevoix, quite in the spirit of the author of the Book of Proverbs, describes as ‘une jeune femme bien faite’. Having some qualms of conscience, he put on a secular dress, and on nearing Asuncion put his religious habit over it. In such a climate this double costume must have been inconvenient, and why he should have worn one dress above the other does not appear. His uncle, in his delight at the forthcoming of the Bulls, most probably paid little attention to his appearance. He lodged him in the palace, and assigned him a prebendary which was vacant. Where the ‘jeune femme bien faite’ was lodged is not set down, and the people of Asuncion no doubt looked leniently on such affairs, as does society to-day in England. After his usual fashion, the Bishop set all down to calumny.About this time the Governor had put in prison one Ambrosio Morales, a sub-official of the Inquisition, who had had a quarrel with an officer. Cardenas, being informed of this, could not lose so good a chance of exercising the power he arrogated in temporal affairs. Holding a monstrance in his hands, he went to the prison and asked for the prisoner, placing the monstrance on a table at the prison gate. The rector of the Jesuit college came and expostulated with him, saying that it was not fitting to expose the body of Jesus Christ in such a place, and that it was not decent that the Bishop himself should stay there. Considering his position, and the times in which he lived, it seems the rector was judicious in his expostulation. Cardenas replied that he would stay there till the prisoner was released. The rector, knowing him to be as obstinate as a male mule, went and begged the Governor to let Morales out. This he did at once, and then the Bishop, cross in hand, returned in triumph to the palace with the rescued Inquisitor following amongst his train. The people, whose lives were dull, snatched at the opportunity for some amusement, and said that it was good luck the Governor and Bishop were not always of one mind, for that their agreement had caused the demolition of a church and convent, and their quarrel the setting of a prisoner free.This little triumph emboldened the Bishop to go further. He admitted Morales into minor orders, gave him the tonsure, and thus, having placed him above the temporal power, enabled him to brave the Governor openly. The Bishop’s nephew, taking the Governor’s kindness for weakness, broke publicly into insulting terms about him. The Governor’s brother, Father Hinostrosa, pressed him to vindicate his dignity, but he refused, saying he wanted peace at any price. This policy the Bishop did not understand, for all concessions he set down as weakness, and they encouraged him to fresh exactions and more violence.Dining with the Governor, the Bishop chanced to see upon the table a fine pair of silver candlesticks. To see and to desire with Cardenas was to ask, and so he intimated to the Governor his wish to have them. The Governor, thinking, perhaps, to wipe out the remembrance of the difficulty about Morales, sent them to the palace with his compliments. The Bishop took the present, and, turning to the man who brought them, said, ‘I should now be quite content if I only had the silver ewer and flagon which I noticed in your master’s house.’ The Governor, we may suppose, on hearing this made what the Spaniards call ‘la risa del conejo’; but sent the plate and a message, saying all his house contained was at the Bishop’s service. Don Bernardino, who, though he may have been a saint, as his friends proclaimed, was certainly far from a gentleman, sent for the flagon and the ewer, which he received at once, together with a friendly message from the Governor.But even this free-will offering brought no quiet, for a new quarrel soon arose between the Bishop and the unlucky wielder of the temporal power. The Society of the Holy Sacrament enjoyed anencomiendaat or near Asuncion. The Bishop, no doubt thinking he was most fitted to indoctrinate the Indians, endeavoured to persuade the Governor to get the Society of the Holy Sacrament to make their Indians over to himself. The Governor, who knew his fellow-countrymen, flatly refused, and upon this Don Bernardino fell into a fury, and reproached him with such bitterness that Don Gregorio, too, overstepped the bounds of prudence, and threw the conduct of his nephew with the ‘jeune femme bien faite’ into the Bishop’s teeth.Hell has been said to have no fury equal to a woman scorned, but a Bishop thwarted makes a very tolerable show. Don Bernardino was one of those who think an insult to themselves carries with it a challenge to God, an outrage on religion, and generally conceive the honour of Heaven is attacked by any contradiction of themselves. To animadvert upon the actions of a Bishop’s nephew is as bad as heresy—far worse than simony—and the man who does it cannot but be a heretic at heart. So, at least, Don Bernardino thought; for, with candle, bell, and book, and what was requisite, he excommunicated the poor Governor, and declared him incompetent to bear the royal standard in a religious festival which was shortly to take place. Excommunication was at least as serious then as bankruptcy is now, though in Spanish America it did not carry with it such direful consequences as in European States.Not wishing to use force, the Governor yielded the point, and did not trouble the procession. His moderate conduct gained him many partisans, and put many people against the Cardenas. The nephew, Pedro de Cardenas, thought it a good occasion to insult the Governor in public; so one day in the street he followed him, casting reflections on his mother and his female relatives. Don Gregorio, who was a man of tried courage, having served for years against the Indians of Arauco, the bravest race of all the Indians of America, controlled his temper, and, turning to the young Franciscan, said, ‘Go with God, my father; but do not try me any more.’ It was not to be expected that in those times and such a place a man like Don Gregorio de Hinostrosa, who had passed his life upon the frontiers, and who held supreme authority, would quietly submit to such a public insult; so one night he appeared at the Bishop’s palace, accompanied by soldiers, to arrest Don Pedro. Out came Cardenas, and excommunicated the Governor and all his soldiers on the spot, and Don Pedro pointed a pistol at his head. He, seeing himself obliged either to make a public scandal or retire, being for peace at any price, retired, and the triumphant Bishop published his edict of excommunication, which he extended with a fine of fifty crowns to every soldier who had been present at the scene. On reflection, thinking, perhaps, it was unwise to excommunicate so many soldiers, who might be needed to repel an Indian attack, he sent and told the Governor he was ready to absolve him upon easy terms. The Governor, who had made light of the first excommunication, was rather staggered when he found the second posted at the Cathedral door. And now a comedy ensued; for Don Gregorio went to the Bishop, and on his knees asked for forgiveness. He, taken unawares, also knelt down, and, when the Governor kissed his hand, wished to return the compliment, and would have done so had the rector of the Jesuit college not prevented him.As Charlevoix says, ‘to see them on their knees, no one could have imagined which one it was who asked the other’s grace.’ The Bishop granted absolution to the Governor; but the soldiers’ action had been flat sacrilege at least, for every one of them was forced to pay the fine.Two excommunications in a week were almost, one would think, enough to satisfy a Pope; but having nominated one Diego Hernandez, a Portuguese, to the post of Alguacil Mayor of the Inquisition, and given him the right to wear a sword in virtue of his office, the Governor, meeting the man in the street wearing a sword against his regulations, made him a prisoner. At once Don Bernardino launched another excommunication. But this time he had gone too far; the Governor laughed at his thunder, and condemned the prisoner to be hanged. At his wits’ end, the Bishop sent a servant to the man, and told him to fear nothing, for that, if he suffered death, he was a martyr, and that he himself would preach his funeral sermon. The Governor, who was perhaps a humorist, laughed at the message, which, he said, was not consoling, and then himself let Hernandez out of prison under heavy bail. The excommunication was then taken off, and peace once more reigned in Asuncion.As well as being not given to wine, it is essential that a Bishop shall know how to keep his own counsel—as Lorenzo Gracian expresses it,[119]‘not to lie, but not for that to speak out always the whole truth.’ Everyone who knew the Bishop and his hasty temper was astonished at his behaviour to the Jesuits. No one imagined he had forgotten the attitude the rector of the University of Cordova had assumed towards his consecration, and still the Bishop seemed to show more favour to the Jesuits in Asuncion than to the members of the other religious communities. Perhaps he felt the want of partisans amongst the educated classes, for his quarrel with the Governor had lost him many friends. Certainly in Asuncion it was of great importance that the Jesuits should not declare against him openly.He praised them fulsomely both in the pulpit and in conversation, went in procession to their church, and treated them in public with marked consideration. As a contemporaneous Jesuit has left a record, they were not his dupes, but still endeavoured to live up to the praises he dispensed to them. He went so far as in a letter to the King, Philip IV., to say that the Jesuits only in all Paraguay were really fitted to have the care of Indians, and he advised the King to transfer the Indians who were under other religious bodies, as well as those under the secular clergy, to the care and guidance of that Order. No doubt in this the Bishop was right, even if not sincere. One of the qualifications the Jesuits had for the care of Indians was that the Indians did not look on them as Spaniards.As in the same way that in Matabeleland, perhaps, a German, Frenchman, or Italian is less hateful to the natives than an Englishman, so in Paraguay the Indians liked the Jesuits better than the other Orders, for there were many foreigners amongst their ranks. The Jesuits soon comprehended that the Bishop wished to make them odious to the public by overpraise. To set to work in such a manner almost requires an early training in a seminary, and that such tactics should have been put in force against such skilled diplomatists as were the Jesuits argues no ordinary capacity for diplomatic work in Cardenas. With him, however, the Spanish proverb, ‘Betwixt the word and deed the space is great’, had little application. The vicar of a place called Arecayá, close to Asuncion, had fallen into disgrace; the Bishop removed him from his parish, and asked the rector of the Jesuit college to send a priest to take his place. The answer he received was politic, and to the effect that there was no Jesuit who could be spared, and even if there was it ill-befitted any Jesuit to infringe upon the duties of the secular clergy; but that, if Cardenas intended to found a new reduction with all the privileges that the King had always given to that kind of establishment, the rector himself would ask permission from his Provincial to undertake the work. A splendid answer, and one which proved that the man who gave it was a man wasted in Paraguay, and that his place by rights was Rome or, at the least, some court.Don Bernardino, who in matters such as these was quite as cunning as the rector, thanked him, and said he did not want a saint, but a priest to take the duty of another priest for a short time. The rector, seeing his diplomacy had failed, told Father Mansilla, who was at Itatines, to transfer himself to Arecayá, and, writing to the Bishop, told him that he had no doubt Mansilla would do all that was fitting in the case. The Bishop, who had gained his point and saw no further use for diplomacy, said: ‘Of that I am quite sure, and if he does not I shall excommunicate him, and lay the district of the Itatines under an interdict.’ Nothing appeared to give Don Bernardino such unmitigated pleasure as an excommunication; on the slightest protest he was ready, so that during his episcopate someone or other in Asuncion must have always been under the ban of Holy Mother Church. The rector felt instinctively that Don Bernardino had not done with him. This was the case, for soon another order came to send two Jesuits to undertake the guidance of a mission near Villa Rica. As at the time the Jesuits had no missions near Villa Rica, the order was most unpleasant to him. Firstly, the two who went—Fathers Gomez and Domenecchi—had to leave their missions and undertake a lengthy journey in the wilds. On reaching Villa Rica, they found not only that the inhabitants looked on them with great disfavour as interlopers, but that the Indians, whom they were sent to guide, were under theencomiendasystem, thus forcing them to wink at that which they disapproved. The resolution that they took did them great honour; it was to leave the town of Villa Rica and live out in the forests with the Indians.The Jesuits of the college at Asuncion felt the situation keenly. People began to murmur at them for their invasion of the spiritual domains of others, and the rector, in despair, sent to the Bishop, and begged him not to praise them in his sermons. Nothing cost Cardenas so little as to promise, so he promised not to mention them again, and next time that he preached he spent an hour in telling of the wonders that the Jesuits had done in saving souls, not only amongst Catholics, but also amongst the infidels and Turks. The tactics of the Bishop were so marked that at last a rumour reached Don Melchior Maldonado, the Bishop of Tucuman, of whom Don Bernardino always stood in dread. His letter somehow became public, and as in it he spoke most warmly of the Jesuits, and praised the rector, the public turned again upon their side. Just at this time, however, the sleeping feud between the Bishop and the Governor broke out anew with so much fury that attention was directed from the Jesuits for the time being; but on them the situation still was hung, and both sides made advances to them for support.
Don Bernardino de Cardenas, Bishop of Paraguay—His labours as apostolic missionary—His ambitions and cunning—Pretensions to saintliness—His attempts to acquire supreme power—Quarrels between Cardenas and Don Gregorio, the temporal Governor
Don Bernardino de Cardenas first saw the light in the town of La Plata,[115]capital of the province of Charcas in Bolivia, or, as it was then called, Alta Peru. The date of his birth is uncertain, but it would appear to have been in the early years of the seventeenth century. At an early age he entered the Franciscan Order.
As the Franciscans had had the honour of having furnished to the calendar the first saint canonized in the New World, it seems to have been the dream of Cardenas from his earliest youth to emulate him. In this desire he seems to have acted in good faith, and all his life the dream of saintship haunted him. Charlevoix[116]says ‘he made a rather superficial study of theology, and then engaged in preaching, in which, with memory, assurance, and facility, he found it easy to succeed in a country where brilliant gifts are more esteemed than solid learning.’ Certainly a preacher without assurance, memory, and facility would scarcely have succeeded in any country; and in what country in the world is brilliancy not far esteemed above the deepest scholarship? Besides, ‘he was a man of visions (homme à visions) and revelations, which he took good care to publish.’ Visions are generally, in the case of saints, confined to the soul’s eye, and revelation to the inward ear; if, therefore, the recipient of them does not make them known, they run the risk of being lost. In a word, according to Charlevoix,[117]he was ‘one of the most complete and dangerous ecstatics that ever lived.’ ‘His first successes’ (whether as preacher or ecstatic are not specified) caused his superiors to name him guardian of their college of La Plata. They soon repented of their choice. No sooner was he named Superior than he sought to qualify himself for saintship by a sort of royal road. Saints are of several classes, and, in looking through the calendars, it strikes one how different seem to have been the methods by which they severally attained their goal.
Prince Juan Manuel, in the preface to his ‘Fifty Pleasant Stories of Patronio’, says that, ‘amongst the many strange things our Lord God made, He thought good to make one marvellous in special—that is, that, of the numberless men who are on earth, not one entirely resembles any other in his face.’ He might have said the same of saints and of their ways. One, like St. Francis of Assisi, treats his father (as it seems to me) but scurvily, and yet to every other created man and all the animals he is a brother. The saint of Avila founds convents, mingles with men of business, and has visions in the intervals of her journeying through Spain upon an ass. Again, another preaches to the Indians or the Japanese, gives up his substance, begs his bread from door to door, and leaves the devil’s advocate scarcely a quillet or a quiddity against him. Lastly, you find against the names of some merely the docket ‘virgin’ or ‘martyr’, as their case or sex may serve.
Don Bernardino adopted none of these methods of procedure. Carrying a heavy cross, with ashes on his head and shoulders bared, followed by all his priests, he sallied out one day to discipline himself in public. This plan did not succeed with all the world, for his superiors ordered him to remain inside his convent gates. There he remained, and, as his Life informs us, profited by his retreat to study Holy Scriptures, and to such good effect that, the next time he preached, he charmed his hearers by his eloquence. Soon after this the Archbishop of La Plata held a provincial council, with the object of reforming the morals of the Indians in his diocese. Cardenas, being a fluent speaker, was chosen for the post of Apostolic Missionary. From this time dates the beginning of his fame.
In those days all the Indians of the Charcas, and generally of all Peru, were sunk in misery, but little removed from slaves, and their religion was a mixture of Christianity and paganism—just the kind of folk a fluent preacher of the style of Cardenas could work upon. All through the province he made his apostolic progress, preaching, converting, and confessing, everywhere preceded by his fame as seer of visions, miracle-worker, and recipient of celestial light. He took his way, dressed like a pilgrim, on foot, carrying a wooden cross, and followed by a multitude of Indians from town to town.
Religion in America (Catholic or Protestant) has always tended to revert to the original Eastern form, from which, no doubt, it sprung. The influence of the vast plains and forests, and the great distances to travel, have introduced the system of camp meetings amongst the Protestants, whereas the Catholics have often held a sort of ambulatory mission, the people of one village following the preacher to the next, and so on, in the same fashion as in Palestine the people seem to have followed John the Baptist.
Soon the news was spread about that the Indians who followed Cardenas had told him of rich mines, on the condition that he would not divulge the secret to the Spaniards. At that time the search for mines was carried almost to madness in Peru. Even to-day, in almost every mining town, a mysterious, poverty-stricken man sometimes approaches you with great precaution, and, drawing from his pocket an object wrapped in greasy paper, declares with oaths that it isrosicler(red silver ore), and that he knows where there are tons and tons of it. In Mexico the curious class of miners known asgambusinosrove through the valleys of the Sierra Madre armed with pick and pan, passing their lives in hunting mines, as pigs hunt truffles. If they come upon a mine, they never try to work it, but sell the secret for a trifling sum, and, drinking out the money, start on again to find the mines worked by the Aztecs, till an Apache bullet or arrow stops them, their El Dorado still ahead, or they are found beside their pick and shovel dead of thirst.
Neither in Mexico nor in Peru do things grow less in telling, and we may well suppose the stories of the mines the Indians told to Cardenas became colossal; for at last the Alcalde of Cochabamba wrote on the subject to the Count of Salvatierra, the Viceroy of Peru.
As Charlevoix says, ‘it seemed as if it all worked to the advantage of the holy missionary, who, not content with saving souls, did not forget the interests of his native land.’ In the middle of his triumphs, being recalled to Lima, no one doubted that it was in order to confer with the Viceroy about the supposititious mines. Others, again, imagined that a mitre was destined for the successful evangelist, and therefore many, even quite poor people, pressed forward to offer funds to help him on his way. With quite apostolic assurance, he took all that was offered to him, being certain, as some think, that, the mines being real, he could some day repay with usury all he had borrowed, or, as others said, being indifferent about the matter, and trusting to repay in that better country where no usury exists and where no gold corrupts.
The Viceroy, being a man of little faith, sent to investigate the supposititious mines, but found them non-existent.
The superiors of Cardenas, as judicious as the higher officers of the Franciscan Order often proved themselves throughout America, informed him that he had given offence to many by his public scourgings and processions carrying a cross, and, most of all, that in his sermons propositions had escaped him of a nature likely to bring him under the censure of the Holy Office. A convent in Lima was assigned to him as a retreat and place of meditation on the virtues of submission and obedience.
As we may well believe, no man who felt he had the stuff within himself to make a saint ever cared much for obedience or submission, except in others; so in his convent, instead of meditating on his faults, he passed his time in writing a memorial to the Council of the Indies, setting forth his views on the way in which to spread the gospel amongst the Indians. Nothing was better calculated to win him favour. Every Indian baptized was so much yearly gain to the Spanish Government.
Conversion and taxation always went hand-in-hand, and therefore Indians who, unbaptized, brought nothing to the treasury, having received the Gospel truths, were taxed so much a head to show them that from thenceforth they were Christians. Thus, we find that in the Paraguayan missions each Indian paid a dollar every year as a sort of poll-tax, and most of the disputes between the Viceroys of Paraguay and the Jesuits arose from the number of the Indians taxable. The Viceroys always alleged that the population of the missions never increased, on account of the Jesuits returning false numbers to avoid the tax.
Cardenas specially inculcated, in his memorial to the Council of the Indies, that it was not expedient to place the Indians under the regular clergy, a theory of which he himself was destined to become a great antagonist. Promotion, as we know, cometh neither from the east nor from the west; so it fell out that during his retreat, through the influence of his friend Don Juan de Solorzano, a celebrated lawyer, who had heard him preach when Governor of Guancavelico, he found himself named Bishop of Asuncion del Paraguay. This piece of luck opened the doors of his convent to him, and he repaired at once to Potosi to wait the arrival of the Papal Bull authorizing him to take possession of his bishopric. There he appeared in the habit of his Order, a little wooden cross upon his breast, and a green hat upon his head, a costume which, if not quite fitting to his new dignity, was at least suited to the Indian taste.
His biographer informs us that, without a word to anyone, he began to preach and hear confessions. Being absolutely without resources, he was reduced to distribute indulgences and little objects of piety, and at the end of every sermon to send his green hat round the audience. His talent for preaching stood him in good stead, and after every sermon gifts were showered upon him, and a crowd accompanied him home.
The priest of Potosi being just dead, Don Bernardino took his place without permission, and set himself up in the double character of parish priest and Bishop to hold a visitation throughout the diocese.
Some people took this conduct as evidence of his saint-like humility in condescending, though a Bishop, to officiate as a mere priest. The Archbishop had a different opinion, but, as Don Bernardino had a great following, he thought it best to dissemble his resentment. Cardenas himself, by his imprudence, furnished the Archbishop with an excuse to get him out of the bishopric.
A rich Indian, whom Cardenas confessed upon his death-bed, left him ten thousand crowns. Not content with that, he influenced one Diego Vargas to change his will and leave him money. On this the Archbishop wrote to him, requesting that he would go and govern his own see. He had to go, but left the town, which he had entered without a farthing, with a long train of mules carrying his money, plate, and furniture. Why he did not instantly go to Asuncion is not quite clear, for in America it was the custom, owing to the great distance from Rome, that Bishops, on receipt of the royal order of appointment, got themselves chosen by the chapter of their diocese to govern provisionally. Instead of doing that, he went to Tucuman, and thence to Salta, where he arrived in 1641.
In Salta, his first visit was to the Jesuit college, where he laid his case before the Jesuit fathers, and showed them several letters, one from the Cardinal Antonio Barberini dated in 1638, and another from the King without a date, naming him Bishop of Asuncion. On the strength of these two letters he asked the Jesuits if he could get himself consecrated without the Papal Bulls. Charlevoix alleges that they dared not refuse to answer in the way he wished. Why this was so is not so easy to make out, as, even with his green hat and wooden cross, he could not at that time have been a formidable personage. Their written opinion he sent at once to the rector of the Jesuit college at Cordova, asking for his opinion and that of the doctors of the university. The answer reached him in Santiago del Estero, and was unfavourable. On reading the letter, Cardenas fell into a most unsaint-like fury, and tore it up without communicating it to anyone, not even to the Bishop of Tucuman, Don Melchior Maldonado. This was not strange, as he had counted on this Bishop to consecrate him.
Notwithstanding what was at stake, he went on in the diocese of Tucuman just as he had done in that of Charcas, preaching, confessing, and celebrating Mass. Don Melchior Maldonado, a quiet man of no pretensions, wrote him a letter in which he said: ‘You came into my diocese like a St. Bernard; such is the reputation you have for holiness and preaching that my people pay me no respect, and only look on me as a man of common virtue and mediocre talents. Although I hope I am not jealous, still, I must remind you that you act as if you were St. Paul.’
A Bishop of common virtue and of mediocre talents is, of course, a Bishop lost, and one can well conceive that poor Don Melchior Maldonado was placed in an unpleasant position during the stay of Cardenas in his diocese. Such were Don Bernardino’s powers of persuasion that at last the Bishop consecrated him. The ceremony was hardly over, when a letter arrived from the Rector of the University of Cordova advising Bishop Maldonado against the consecration. Unluckily for Paraguay, it was too late to undo the action, and Cardenas was now in a position to take possession of his see. Poor Melchior Maldonado, Bishop of Tucuman, had, as it happened, laid hands a little hastily upon the candidate. The Council of Trent pronounced upon the case, and found ‘that the consecration of the Bishop of Paraguay had been a valid one as touching the sacrament (ordination), and the impression of the character, but that it had been void as regards the power of discharging the functions attaching to the dignity, and that the Bishop and his consecrator had need of absolution, which the same holy congregation thinks ought to be accorded with the good pleasure of the Pope.’ As the same holy congregation had previously declared the taking possession of the diocese by Cardenas had been illegal, it is difficult for ordinary minds to grasp their real opinion of the case.
Finding that he had failed with the University of Cordova, Don Bernardino took his way to Santa Fé, from whence he wrote an insulting letter to the poor rector. The letter was conceived in such outrageous terms that the Bishop of Tucuman wrote in expostulation, saying he expected to see something extraordinary happen in Paraguay if he gave way to such excess of passion.
Don Bernardino’s usual luck attended him in Santa Fé. This town then formed part of the diocese of Buenos Ayres, though situated about four hundred miles from the metropolis. It happened that the see of Buenos Ayres was vacant, and the chapter of the cathedral invited Cardenas to visit that portion of the diocese through which he had to pass. Cardenas was, of course, delighted to show his talents for preaching, as he had done before in Charcas and in Potosi. When he arrived at Corrientes the enthusiasm for his holiness and talents was extraordinary. In Corrientes, Don Bernardino seems to have felt, for the first time, his calling and election really sure. At the time he landed (1642) the land was sunk in ignorance and superstition. Even to-day in Corrientes (the city of the seven currents), situated just at the junction of the rivers Paraná and Paraguay, close to the celebrated missions of the Jesuits, the inhabitants, living in a country almost tropical, are half Indians in type.
What Corrientes looked like in Don Bernardino’s time is matter of conjecture. Perhaps it was not greatly different from some remote Spanish-American frontier towns some five-and-twenty years ago, save for the groups of Spanish soldiery, with their steel morions, trunk hose and heavy arquebuses lounging about, and in the matter of the scarcity of horses in the streets. No doubt the self-same listless air hung over everything, and in the place of the modern blue and white barred flags with a rising sun or cap of liberty stuck like a trade-mark in the corner, the blood and orange Spanish colours with the quarterings of castles and of lions flapped heavily against the flagstaff of the fort. The Indian women dressed all in white, their hair cut square across the forehead and hanging down their backs, sat with their baskets of fruit and flowers in the market-place. The town, as now, built chiefly of adobes, with a few wooden huts dotted about, was semi-oriental in design. On every church were cupolas after the eastern fashion, flat roofs on every house, and everything shone dazzling white against the dark, metallic-looking foliage of the trees. The streets, as now, were sandy water-courses, crossed here and there with traverses of rough-hewn stone to break the force of the water in the season of the rains.
At night the fireflies glistened amongst the heavy leaves of the mamayes and the orange-trees, whilst from the Chaco rose the mysterious voices of the desert night, and from the outskirts of the town the wailing Indian Jarabis and Cielitos sung in a high falsetto key to the tinkling of a cracked guitar, but broken now and then by the sharp warning cry ‘Alerta centinela!’ of the soldiers on the walls. Could one have landed there, one would have felt much as a sailor feels, dropped on the beach of Eromango or on some yet unbemissionaried island of the Paumotus Group.
Embarking from Corrientes up the river Paraguay, the Bishop met two vessels sent from Asuncion to do him honour. When night approached he put in practice one of the manœuvres which in Peru had stood him in good stead. On every side a swarm of launches and canoes accompanied the ship to see the Bishop, whom already many believed a saint. He asked them all to retire a little from his ship. All did so but the guard of honour sent from Asuncion. Towards the middle of the night the sound of scourging wakened them. It was their Bishop trying to prepare himself for the duties that awaited him. Every succeeding night the same thing happened. During the day he celebrated Mass pontifically upon the deck. Voyages upon the river Paraguay before the days of steamers took a considerable time, especially as every night the custom was to anchor or to make fast the vessel to a tree. Soon the rumour reached Asuncion that a second St. Thomas was on his way to visit them. St. Thomas, as is said, once visited Paraguay, and a cave in the vicinity of a town called Paraguari, where he once lived, exists to-day to prove the passage of the saint.
Fate seemed determined that the Bishop should always meet the Jesuits, no matter where he went.
Becoming weary of the slow progress of the ships, he disembarked four leagues below Asuncion, at a farm belonging to the Company. He managed to dissemble his resentment so perfectly that no one knew he had a grudge against them. Arrived at the capital, he went at once to the church of San Blas, then to the Cathedral, where he celebrated Mass and preached, his mitre on his head. After service he dismissed the people to their homes to dine, saying, however, that he himself was nourished by an invisible food and by a beverage which men could not perceive. ‘My food’ (he said) ‘is but to do the work and will of Him who sent me.’ Therefore he remained in prayer and meditation until vespers, and that office finished, he retired to the palace accompanied by a shouting crowd.
In his position his conduct was most adroit, for, as his Bulls had not arrived, he must have known he had no legal status, and that, in default of that, he had to conquer public sympathy. The chapter never doubted that Don Bernardino would place himself entirely in their hands as his Bulls had not arrived. He, however, seems to have thought that the act of celebrating Mass pontifically in the Cathedral had put him in possession of his powers. So he named one Cristobal Sanchez as his Vicar-General. Two of the members of the chapter, Don Diego Ponce de Leon and Don Fernando Sanchez, remonstrated, but a considerable portion of the chapter sided with Cardenas. The stronger party left the Cathedral and celebrated Mass in the church belonging to the Jesuits, thus giving Cardenas a second cause of offence against the Company.
The Bishop, not being secure of his position, had recourse to every art[118]to catch the public eye: fasting and scourging, prayers before the altar, two Masses every day, barefoot processions—himself the central figure, carrying a cross—each had their turn. Along the deep red roads between the orange-gardens which lead from Asuncion towards the Recoleta and the Campo Grande, he used to take his way accompanied by Indians crowned with flowers, giving his benediction as he passed, to turn away (according to himself) the plague and to insure a fertile harvest. Not being content with the opportunities which life afforded, he instituted an evening service in a church in order to prepare for death.
Soon, as was to be expected in such a country, this service proved the occasion of much scandal, and, instead of showing people how to leave the world, became the means of introducing many into life in a clandestine way. The rector of the Jesuit college thought it his duty to inform the Bishop; but he, like all good men, thought nothing bad could spring from anything that he himself originated. No doubt he put it down to malice, as good people will when worldlings put the finger on the weak spot of a religious institution; but anyhow, regardless of the scandals, he continued his nocturnal rites.
The Governor of Paraguay at that time was one Gregorio de Hinostrosa, an officer born in Chile, an honest, pious, wooden-headed man, and much beloved by the inhabitants of Paraguay. On his arrival Don Bernardino tried to conciliate him. Unluckily, a friendship with the Bishop was impossible without a blind submission to his will. In the beginning all was flattery; when Don Gregorio attended Mass, the Bishop used to meet him at the church door. Not to be outdone, the Governor returned the Bishop’s politeness in a similar way, but went so far in his complaisance that Don Bernardino ceased to respect him. Soon there arose bickerings and jealousies, and at length they hated one another fervently.
Nor was the Bishop more successful with his clergy. Some of them laughed at his pretensions to be a saint, and called him an ambitious schemer. Again, amongst the laity, many did not quite understand his habit of celebrating two Masses every day. He answered that he never celebrated without releasing a soul from purgatory, and that there had been saints who celebrated nine Masses every day, and, moreover, that he was Pope in his own diocese. This cut the ground from under the feet of his detractors, for in a town of the calibre of Asuncion the people looked on a service in a church as a welcome means of getting through the day, and had he celebrated a dozen masses they would but have been more delighted with their new Bishop.
Under the pretext that there were not enough priests to serve the churches, he, by degrees, took several parishes into his own hands, and went from church to church to celebrate his Mass in each, whilst not forgetting to draw the various stipends for his work. But, not content with this, he began to ordain young men who knew no Latin, and even criminals, setting forth the view that ordination was a sort of second baptism, which purged all crimes—a most convenient theory, and one which is not half enough insisted on in these degenerate days.
The position of Asuncion gave him an opportunity of an almost unique kind to show his talents in another sphere. Across the river Paraguay, there about one mile broad, extends the country called the Chaco, a vast domain of swamp and forest, inhabited in those days, as at present, by tribes of wandering Indians. From the city walls, whilst listening to the church-bells, one can see the smoke of Indian encampments across the river only a mile away.
Of all the Indian tribes in the time of Cardenas, the most ferocious were the Guaycurús. The Jesuits had laboured almost in vain amongst them. Missions had been founded, and all gone well for months, and even years, when on a sudden, and without reason, the Guaycurús had burned the houses, killed the priests, and gone back to the wilds. From Santa Fé up to the province of Matto Grosso they kept the frontier in a turmoil, crossing the river and feeding like locusts on the settlements in Paraguay.
Not long before his arrival the Guaycurús had intimated their intention of holding a conference with Don Gregorio Hinostrosa. Don Bernardino thought the chance too good to lose, and at once declared that, as a Bishop, it was his place to carry on negotiations with the barbarians. Dressed in his robes and with an escort furnished by the Governor, he met the chiefs—who no doubt looked on him as a new kind of medicine-man—preached to them through an interpreter, curiously being without the gift of tongues, but notwithstanding that a reasonable number of them were baptized. On his return, he wrote to the King that by his efforts he had appeased the most ferocious Indians within his Majesty’s domains.
Within a week the Guaycurús surprised and burned a settlement a little higher up the stream. Not content with this Caligulesque apostolate to the Guaycurús, the Bishop longed for serious occupation, and caused it to be rumoured about the city that he did nothing except by the direct authority of the Holy Ghost, an allegation hard to confute, and if allowed, likely to lead to difficulties even in Paraguay.
Some years before the advent of Don Bernardino the Dominicans had built a convent in Asuncion. As they had no license to build, they were in the position of religious squatters on the domain of God. The citizens had applied to the Audiencia of Charcas, the supreme court on all such matters in South America, situated, with true Spanish unpracticality, in one of the most secluded districts of the continent. The Audiencia had refused the license, but had taken the matterad advisandumfor ten years. To take a matter into consideration for ten years, even in Spain or South America, where the law’s delay is generally more mortal than in any other country, was as good as giving a permission. So the Dominicans construed it, and no one dreamed of now molesting them.
One day the Bishop, dressed in his robes, proceeded from his palace to the convent, informing the Governor that he wanted him to meet him there. Entering the convent church, he took the sacrament from off the altar and stripped the church of all its ornaments, setting a gang of workmen to demolish both the convent and the church. When the work was over, he went to a neighbouring church, and then and there, without confession, celebrated Mass, remarking to the faithful that there was no need for him to make confession, as he was satisfied of the condition of his conscience. Some murmured; but the greater portion of the people, always ready to take a saint at his own valuation, were delighted with his act. Doubts must have crossed his mind, as shortly afterwards he wrote to Don Melchior Maldonado, Bishop of Tucuman, for his opinion. That Bishop answered rather tartly that his zeal appeared to him to savour more of the zeal of Elias than of Jesus Christ, and that in a country where churches were so few it seemed imprudent to pull down rather than to build. ‘However,’ he added, ‘my light is not so brilliant as the light your lordship is illumined by.’
When once a man is well convinced that all he does comes from the Holy Ghost, there is but little that he cannot do with satisfaction to himself. Self-murderers, according to the custom of those times, were not allowed admission into holy ground, as if the fact of having found their life unbearable debarred them from the right to be considered men. Such a man a few years previously had been buried at a cross-road. It now occurred to Cardenas to have a special revelation on the subject; and, curiously enough, this special revelation was on the side of common-sense. ‘This body,’ said the Bishop, ‘is that of a Christian, and I feel pretty sure his soul is now in bliss.’ He gave no reason for his opinion, as is the way of most religious folk, but, as he had special means of communication with heaven, most people were contented. Incontinently he had the corpse dug up and buried in the church of the Incarnation, himself performing all the funeral rites.
Although a miracle or two would have shocked nobody, still, in the matter of the suicide he had gone too far for the simple people of the place. They murmured, and for a moment the Bishop’s prestige was in jeopardy; but in the nick of time his Bulls arrived, brought by his nephew, Pedro de Cardenas, who, like himself, was a Franciscan friar. This saved him, and gave the people something new to think of, though at the same time he incurred a new anxiety.
In the Bulls there was a passage to the effect that, if at his consecration any irregularity had been incurred, he was liable to suspension from all his functions. This the Jesuit who translated the documents into Spanish for the purpose of publication drew his attention to. However, Cardenas was not a man to be intimidated by so small a matter, but read the translation to the people in the Cathedral, and intimated to them that the Pope had given him unlimited power in Paraguay, both in matters spiritual and temporal.
Though Don Gregorio, the Governor, was present at the ceremony, he made no protest at the assumption of temporal power by Cardenas. He had remarked it, though, and secretly determined to show him that his pretensions were unfounded. His nephew, Don Pedro de Cardenas, furnished the occasion. This young man had been despatched to Spain to get the Bulls. Upon the voyage he seems to have conducted himself with scant propriety. On his return, when passing Corrientes, he took on board a lady whom Charlevoix, quite in the spirit of the author of the Book of Proverbs, describes as ‘une jeune femme bien faite’. Having some qualms of conscience, he put on a secular dress, and on nearing Asuncion put his religious habit over it. In such a climate this double costume must have been inconvenient, and why he should have worn one dress above the other does not appear. His uncle, in his delight at the forthcoming of the Bulls, most probably paid little attention to his appearance. He lodged him in the palace, and assigned him a prebendary which was vacant. Where the ‘jeune femme bien faite’ was lodged is not set down, and the people of Asuncion no doubt looked leniently on such affairs, as does society to-day in England. After his usual fashion, the Bishop set all down to calumny.
About this time the Governor had put in prison one Ambrosio Morales, a sub-official of the Inquisition, who had had a quarrel with an officer. Cardenas, being informed of this, could not lose so good a chance of exercising the power he arrogated in temporal affairs. Holding a monstrance in his hands, he went to the prison and asked for the prisoner, placing the monstrance on a table at the prison gate. The rector of the Jesuit college came and expostulated with him, saying that it was not fitting to expose the body of Jesus Christ in such a place, and that it was not decent that the Bishop himself should stay there. Considering his position, and the times in which he lived, it seems the rector was judicious in his expostulation. Cardenas replied that he would stay there till the prisoner was released. The rector, knowing him to be as obstinate as a male mule, went and begged the Governor to let Morales out. This he did at once, and then the Bishop, cross in hand, returned in triumph to the palace with the rescued Inquisitor following amongst his train. The people, whose lives were dull, snatched at the opportunity for some amusement, and said that it was good luck the Governor and Bishop were not always of one mind, for that their agreement had caused the demolition of a church and convent, and their quarrel the setting of a prisoner free.
This little triumph emboldened the Bishop to go further. He admitted Morales into minor orders, gave him the tonsure, and thus, having placed him above the temporal power, enabled him to brave the Governor openly. The Bishop’s nephew, taking the Governor’s kindness for weakness, broke publicly into insulting terms about him. The Governor’s brother, Father Hinostrosa, pressed him to vindicate his dignity, but he refused, saying he wanted peace at any price. This policy the Bishop did not understand, for all concessions he set down as weakness, and they encouraged him to fresh exactions and more violence.
Dining with the Governor, the Bishop chanced to see upon the table a fine pair of silver candlesticks. To see and to desire with Cardenas was to ask, and so he intimated to the Governor his wish to have them. The Governor, thinking, perhaps, to wipe out the remembrance of the difficulty about Morales, sent them to the palace with his compliments. The Bishop took the present, and, turning to the man who brought them, said, ‘I should now be quite content if I only had the silver ewer and flagon which I noticed in your master’s house.’ The Governor, we may suppose, on hearing this made what the Spaniards call ‘la risa del conejo’; but sent the plate and a message, saying all his house contained was at the Bishop’s service. Don Bernardino, who, though he may have been a saint, as his friends proclaimed, was certainly far from a gentleman, sent for the flagon and the ewer, which he received at once, together with a friendly message from the Governor.
But even this free-will offering brought no quiet, for a new quarrel soon arose between the Bishop and the unlucky wielder of the temporal power. The Society of the Holy Sacrament enjoyed anencomiendaat or near Asuncion. The Bishop, no doubt thinking he was most fitted to indoctrinate the Indians, endeavoured to persuade the Governor to get the Society of the Holy Sacrament to make their Indians over to himself. The Governor, who knew his fellow-countrymen, flatly refused, and upon this Don Bernardino fell into a fury, and reproached him with such bitterness that Don Gregorio, too, overstepped the bounds of prudence, and threw the conduct of his nephew with the ‘jeune femme bien faite’ into the Bishop’s teeth.
Hell has been said to have no fury equal to a woman scorned, but a Bishop thwarted makes a very tolerable show. Don Bernardino was one of those who think an insult to themselves carries with it a challenge to God, an outrage on religion, and generally conceive the honour of Heaven is attacked by any contradiction of themselves. To animadvert upon the actions of a Bishop’s nephew is as bad as heresy—far worse than simony—and the man who does it cannot but be a heretic at heart. So, at least, Don Bernardino thought; for, with candle, bell, and book, and what was requisite, he excommunicated the poor Governor, and declared him incompetent to bear the royal standard in a religious festival which was shortly to take place. Excommunication was at least as serious then as bankruptcy is now, though in Spanish America it did not carry with it such direful consequences as in European States.
Not wishing to use force, the Governor yielded the point, and did not trouble the procession. His moderate conduct gained him many partisans, and put many people against the Cardenas. The nephew, Pedro de Cardenas, thought it a good occasion to insult the Governor in public; so one day in the street he followed him, casting reflections on his mother and his female relatives. Don Gregorio, who was a man of tried courage, having served for years against the Indians of Arauco, the bravest race of all the Indians of America, controlled his temper, and, turning to the young Franciscan, said, ‘Go with God, my father; but do not try me any more.’ It was not to be expected that in those times and such a place a man like Don Gregorio de Hinostrosa, who had passed his life upon the frontiers, and who held supreme authority, would quietly submit to such a public insult; so one night he appeared at the Bishop’s palace, accompanied by soldiers, to arrest Don Pedro. Out came Cardenas, and excommunicated the Governor and all his soldiers on the spot, and Don Pedro pointed a pistol at his head. He, seeing himself obliged either to make a public scandal or retire, being for peace at any price, retired, and the triumphant Bishop published his edict of excommunication, which he extended with a fine of fifty crowns to every soldier who had been present at the scene. On reflection, thinking, perhaps, it was unwise to excommunicate so many soldiers, who might be needed to repel an Indian attack, he sent and told the Governor he was ready to absolve him upon easy terms. The Governor, who had made light of the first excommunication, was rather staggered when he found the second posted at the Cathedral door. And now a comedy ensued; for Don Gregorio went to the Bishop, and on his knees asked for forgiveness. He, taken unawares, also knelt down, and, when the Governor kissed his hand, wished to return the compliment, and would have done so had the rector of the Jesuit college not prevented him.
As Charlevoix says, ‘to see them on their knees, no one could have imagined which one it was who asked the other’s grace.’ The Bishop granted absolution to the Governor; but the soldiers’ action had been flat sacrilege at least, for every one of them was forced to pay the fine.
Two excommunications in a week were almost, one would think, enough to satisfy a Pope; but having nominated one Diego Hernandez, a Portuguese, to the post of Alguacil Mayor of the Inquisition, and given him the right to wear a sword in virtue of his office, the Governor, meeting the man in the street wearing a sword against his regulations, made him a prisoner. At once Don Bernardino launched another excommunication. But this time he had gone too far; the Governor laughed at his thunder, and condemned the prisoner to be hanged. At his wits’ end, the Bishop sent a servant to the man, and told him to fear nothing, for that, if he suffered death, he was a martyr, and that he himself would preach his funeral sermon. The Governor, who was perhaps a humorist, laughed at the message, which, he said, was not consoling, and then himself let Hernandez out of prison under heavy bail. The excommunication was then taken off, and peace once more reigned in Asuncion.
As well as being not given to wine, it is essential that a Bishop shall know how to keep his own counsel—as Lorenzo Gracian expresses it,[119]‘not to lie, but not for that to speak out always the whole truth.’ Everyone who knew the Bishop and his hasty temper was astonished at his behaviour to the Jesuits. No one imagined he had forgotten the attitude the rector of the University of Cordova had assumed towards his consecration, and still the Bishop seemed to show more favour to the Jesuits in Asuncion than to the members of the other religious communities. Perhaps he felt the want of partisans amongst the educated classes, for his quarrel with the Governor had lost him many friends. Certainly in Asuncion it was of great importance that the Jesuits should not declare against him openly.
He praised them fulsomely both in the pulpit and in conversation, went in procession to their church, and treated them in public with marked consideration. As a contemporaneous Jesuit has left a record, they were not his dupes, but still endeavoured to live up to the praises he dispensed to them. He went so far as in a letter to the King, Philip IV., to say that the Jesuits only in all Paraguay were really fitted to have the care of Indians, and he advised the King to transfer the Indians who were under other religious bodies, as well as those under the secular clergy, to the care and guidance of that Order. No doubt in this the Bishop was right, even if not sincere. One of the qualifications the Jesuits had for the care of Indians was that the Indians did not look on them as Spaniards.
As in the same way that in Matabeleland, perhaps, a German, Frenchman, or Italian is less hateful to the natives than an Englishman, so in Paraguay the Indians liked the Jesuits better than the other Orders, for there were many foreigners amongst their ranks. The Jesuits soon comprehended that the Bishop wished to make them odious to the public by overpraise. To set to work in such a manner almost requires an early training in a seminary, and that such tactics should have been put in force against such skilled diplomatists as were the Jesuits argues no ordinary capacity for diplomatic work in Cardenas. With him, however, the Spanish proverb, ‘Betwixt the word and deed the space is great’, had little application. The vicar of a place called Arecayá, close to Asuncion, had fallen into disgrace; the Bishop removed him from his parish, and asked the rector of the Jesuit college to send a priest to take his place. The answer he received was politic, and to the effect that there was no Jesuit who could be spared, and even if there was it ill-befitted any Jesuit to infringe upon the duties of the secular clergy; but that, if Cardenas intended to found a new reduction with all the privileges that the King had always given to that kind of establishment, the rector himself would ask permission from his Provincial to undertake the work. A splendid answer, and one which proved that the man who gave it was a man wasted in Paraguay, and that his place by rights was Rome or, at the least, some court.
Don Bernardino, who in matters such as these was quite as cunning as the rector, thanked him, and said he did not want a saint, but a priest to take the duty of another priest for a short time. The rector, seeing his diplomacy had failed, told Father Mansilla, who was at Itatines, to transfer himself to Arecayá, and, writing to the Bishop, told him that he had no doubt Mansilla would do all that was fitting in the case. The Bishop, who had gained his point and saw no further use for diplomacy, said: ‘Of that I am quite sure, and if he does not I shall excommunicate him, and lay the district of the Itatines under an interdict.’ Nothing appeared to give Don Bernardino such unmitigated pleasure as an excommunication; on the slightest protest he was ready, so that during his episcopate someone or other in Asuncion must have always been under the ban of Holy Mother Church. The rector felt instinctively that Don Bernardino had not done with him. This was the case, for soon another order came to send two Jesuits to undertake the guidance of a mission near Villa Rica. As at the time the Jesuits had no missions near Villa Rica, the order was most unpleasant to him. Firstly, the two who went—Fathers Gomez and Domenecchi—had to leave their missions and undertake a lengthy journey in the wilds. On reaching Villa Rica, they found not only that the inhabitants looked on them with great disfavour as interlopers, but that the Indians, whom they were sent to guide, were under theencomiendasystem, thus forcing them to wink at that which they disapproved. The resolution that they took did them great honour; it was to leave the town of Villa Rica and live out in the forests with the Indians.
The Jesuits of the college at Asuncion felt the situation keenly. People began to murmur at them for their invasion of the spiritual domains of others, and the rector, in despair, sent to the Bishop, and begged him not to praise them in his sermons. Nothing cost Cardenas so little as to promise, so he promised not to mention them again, and next time that he preached he spent an hour in telling of the wonders that the Jesuits had done in saving souls, not only amongst Catholics, but also amongst the infidels and Turks. The tactics of the Bishop were so marked that at last a rumour reached Don Melchior Maldonado, the Bishop of Tucuman, of whom Don Bernardino always stood in dread. His letter somehow became public, and as in it he spoke most warmly of the Jesuits, and praised the rector, the public turned again upon their side. Just at this time, however, the sleeping feud between the Bishop and the Governor broke out anew with so much fury that attention was directed from the Jesuits for the time being; but on them the situation still was hung, and both sides made advances to them for support.