This business being despatched, I went, at the invitation of the marchese, to a small cottage he possessed at no great distance from my own house. Its situation was so private and retired, that few persons knew or could perceive that there was any building on the spot. Here therefore I could remain in the most perfect safety. I felt myself unaccountably impelled to stay and witness the catastrophe of the tragedy. I should not have been satisfied to continue in uncertainty as to what it would prove. After all that had passed, like the marchese, I should have been apt to accuse myself of cowardice, and a mind soured and degenerate, if the mob had not put their threats in execution. The marchese himself was well pleased with my determination in this respect. He was not yet convinced that I had not painted to myself a danger, which had no adequate counterpart in the world of realities.
I had not long to wait. The night had no sooner spread an even-coloured and almost impervious veil over the world, than the marchese, as if moved by a secret impulse to witness what he yet refused to believe, came to me at the cottage. He had scarcely arrived, when he heard the confused murmurs and turbulence of the populace; for we were near enough to distinguish almost every thing. As they did not meet with the defence of the preceding evening, the work they had undertaken was presently despatched. We saw the flames ascend. We recognised the shouts of infernal joy with which they witnessed the catastrophe. When the marchese beheld what, till seen, he would never admit to be possible, he burst out into a sort of transport of misanthropy. He exclaimed that no innocence, and no merit, could defend a man from the unrelenting antipathy of his fellows. He saw that there was a principle in the human mind destined to be eternally at war with improvementand science. No sooner did a man devote himself to the pursuit of discoveries which, if ascertained, would prove the highest benefit to his species, than his whole species became armed against him. The midnight oil was held to be the signal of infernal machinations. The paleness of study and the furrows of thought were adjudged to be the tokens of diabolical alliance. He saw, in the transactions of that night, a pledge of the eternal triumph of ignorance over wisdom. Above all, he regretted that his countrymen, his dear Italians, should for ever blot their honour and their character by such savage outrages. Though myself the principal sufferer, I was obliged to perform the part of the comforter and consoler, and endeavour to calm the transport of agony that seized upon the susceptible Filosanto. He was astonished, shocked, and beside himself: I viewed the whole with the gloomy firmness of a desperate resolution.
The worst event of this detested evening remains yet unrecorded. Even now I tremble, while I attempt to commit the story to my harmless paper. So far as related to the mere destruction of my property, I looked on with a philosophical indifference. I had no reason, and I disdained to regret the loss of that which I had it in my power to repair in a moment. I thought I had taken care that no human life should be risqued upon this critical occasion. But I was mistaken. I learned the next morning with anguish inexpressible that Hector, the negro of the prison of Constance, was no more. He had eluded the vigilance of his keepers. No sooner was he at liberty, then he hastened, unknown to every one, to die, as he had declared he would, in the defence of my house. The mob had burst into the house; they seized him alive. They dragged him out in the midst of them; they insulted over him, as the special favourite of the infernal king. They inflicted on him every species of mockery and of torture; they killed him joint by joint, and limb by limb.——The pen drops from my lifeless hand.
What right had I to make this man the victim of my idle and unhallowed pursuits? What has the art and multiplication of gold in it, that should compensate thedestruction of so ingenuous, so simple-hearted, so noble a creature? If I had myself fallen into the hands of the populace, it had been well: I was a criminal, worthy of every retribution they could inflict upon me! Some men perhaps will ask, why I lamented so bitterly over so uncultivated and uninformed an individual as this negro. There was however something so truly tragical in the fate to which this creature in his generosity and remorse devoted himself, that I believe for the moment I felt a sharper pang in it, than in the strange and extraordinary loss of my only son, or perhaps in the premature death of my beloved Marguerite.
Before the dawn of the succeeding morning I turned my face towards Lucca. I beheld the last cloud of mingling smoke and flame ascend from the ashes of my villa. The blaze sunk, its materials were nearly consumed, and it yielded an uncertain and fitful light only, when I withdrew from being any longer the melancholy and heart-wounded spectator of the ruin. I took an everlasting leave of the marchese. I had been introduced to him under a friendly aspect, as the man who had had courage to perform the last offices of humanity to his unfortunate brother; and he had conceived a warm affection for me. The painful nature of the catastrophe he had witnessed melted his heart, and he earnestly pressed me to draw upon him for any supplies I wanted, or rather to receive from him a sum equivalent to the damage the superstition of his countrymen had inflicted on me. This I positively refused; but I found it impossible to silence his importunity, till I submitted to the duplicity of promising that, if I found myself reduced to any necessity, I would not fail to apply to him. It was in the very moment of our separation that intelligence was brought me of the fate of Hector. The reader may imagine with how heavy a heart I set out on my journey.
Lucca is about seventeen miles from the city of Pisa; from the place where I had spent the greater part of this memorable night it was twenty. The marchese made me promise to take a serpentine and circuitous route, the more completely to elude the possibility of future danger. An adventure occurred to me in this passage, with the relation of which I will not interrupt my narrative, which prevented me from arriving at Lucca till the noon of the following day. Suffice it to say, that it was of such a nature, that, impatient as I was under my present extraordinary circumstances to rejoin my family, I should have held myself destitute of every atom of humanity, if I had not submitted to this short delay.
Short as it was, I found, when I reached Lucca, that my evil genius had been busy to accumulate for me new misfortunes. Marguerite and her daughters were wholly unknown in this place; and the intelligence of the Pisan riot having reached Lucca in the course of the day, it was related to my wife, as to a hearer unconcerned, with all its horrid circumstances and the calamitous fate of our generous Hector, by the hostess of the inn. The rapidity of events, during the last part of our residence in the Pisan territory, was such as to have obliged me to say little of the effect they produced upon Marguerite. But the reader can scarcely be so inadvertent and unreflecting, as not easily to imagine to himself that she felt them in the highest degree painful and overwhelming. This last blow was too much. Marguerite had been some months pregnant. She was immediately seized with the pains of labour, and delivered of a dead child. The first intelligence communicated to me upon my arrival was that my wife was dying.
Lucca however did not witness the period of her existence. After having continued for several days upon the very extremity, as it were, between life and death, she grew perceptibly better; and in a week more, though in a very feeble state, it became apparent that her case was not a rapid one. We agreed to proceed upon our Spanish voyage. It appeared not improbable that the sea-air might be found beneficial, and the experiment was warmly recommended by her physicians. They were not howeveraware of the whole extent of her disorder. During the voyage her crisis returned with such malignant symptoms, as scarcely to permit us the hope she would reach the land alive. We debarked at Barcelona on the 14th of April 1546.
We had no sooner taken up our abode in this city than, fully aware of the state of her disease, she assembled her daughters, and poured forth to them without restraint that flood of affection, that ardent spirit of love, by which she was distinguished and elevated above every creature that lived. Her mind was clear, her intellectual powers were complete and entire. The enthusiasm with which she now expressed herself was not of that inconsiderate nature which should tend to make them feel with greater acuteness the loss they were about to sustain. It was bright, unclouded and serene. It was the eloquence as of a disembodied spirit, freed from the perturbation and alloy of human passions. She reminded them that they were sisters, and exhorted each to fulfil the duties of a sister and a mother to the other two. If wise and good, they would be happy in each other, and their little association would be a school, preparing them for the more genuine and venerable duties for which nature had destined them. Her views of all human things were altered by her present situation on the brink of the grave. Our reserves and misunderstandings had wrung her heart; but she forgave me. Things which had lately appeared of the highest magnitude and moment, faded in the distance, and mingled with the vulgar crowd of human concerns which was now retiring from her view: she must again return, she said, to life, before she could again feel the passions and the interests of this petty scene. For the sake of her daughters she had lately desired to live. She was now reconciled and content to die. She had formed the chain and link of connection between me and my girls; perhaps it was better that we should burst our fetters and be free. On the fourth day after our arrival at Barcelona Marguerite expired.
There is nothing in the vast variety of objects which this wretched world presents to our view so dreadful and distressing as the sight of one we have loved, but who is now no more. I saw, these eyes beheld, the lifeless corseof Marguerite. Great God of heaven! what is man? and of what are we made? Within that petty frame resided for years all that we worship, for there resided all that we know and can conceive of excellence. That heart is now still. Within the whole extent of that frame there exists no thought, no feeling, no virtue. It remains no longer, but to mock my sense and scoff at my sorrow, to rend my bosom with a woe, complicated, matchless and inexpressible. The cheek is pale and livid; the eyes are sunk and circled with blackness. Corruption and ruin have already seized their prey and turned it into horror. Draw, for heaven’s sake, draw the pall over those lifeless features! Bury, bury them deep in the bowels of the earth! Let not my imagination follow them into the chambers of the grave, and dwell amidst pestilential damps and all the series of destruction! Let me recollect all that Marguerite was as she lived, her numerous accomplishments, her unparalleled virtues,—ay, in all the magnitude and wealth of their detail,—for that is a divine and celestial madness: but let me not recollect her as I saw her on the bier, lest I become raving and blaspheme!
I have no power to talk of the situation in which I was now placed, and the reader must therefore explain it for himself,—if he can. I never loved but once; I never loved but Marguerite. All other affection is stillness and ice compared with this. This is the great crisis of my history, the gap between life and death, the gulf that cut me off for ever from every thing that deserves the name of human. Such was the legacy of the stranger! my son an exile, myself publicly arraigned as a murderer, the unmerited and tragical death of Hector, the premature and self-deriving loss of the better half of my soul! Who would have believed that this envenomed gift would, in less than two years, have thus dreadfully changed the face of my affairs, and destroyed every thing that composed the happiness of my life?
After some delay in this wretched and ill-omened town of Barcelona (such it has ever since appeared to my thoughts), we proceeded to Madrid. The reader will give me credit, when I tell him that, however eager I had lately felt toexhibit my magnificence and my wealth, I had no such eagerness now. I speak no more of the character of Marguerite; I attempt not to compose her panegyric. The story of her life is the best record of her virtues. Her defects, if defects she had, drew their pedigree from rectitude of sentiment and perception, from the most generous sensibility, from a heart pervaded and leavened with tenderness. A simple stone in the western aisle of the great church at Barcelona records her personal and her family name, with this single addition,THE PRESERVER OF HER FAMILY IN POVERTY AND RUIN, THE VICTIM OF HER DISCONSOLATE AND REPENTANT HUSBAND’S UNHALLOWED WEALTH.
But, dismissing for ever, and henceforth consigning to unviolated silence her excellencies, could I avoid feeling that I could never again form a similar, or indeed any real union, so long as I existed? Being now indeed more than forty years of age, having spent near twenty of that forty in a most enviable wedlock, and being blessed with a sufficiently numerous offspring, it may be thought perhaps I might be contented. But, without discussing the propriety of such a maxim as it relates to the species in general, it must be recollected in my case that my youth was to be recommenced by a perpetual series of renewals. I never gave credit to that axiom of a sickly sensibility, that it is a sacrilege, in him who has been engaged in one cordial and happy union, ever to turn his thoughts to another. Much more reasonable than this is the Indian doctrine, that the survivor ought to leap into the flames, and perish upon the funeral pyre of the deceased. While we live, it is one of our most imperious duties to seek our happiness. He that dedicates his days to an endless sorrow is the worst and most degraded of suicides. It is an important question in the economy of human life, up to what age we should allow ourselves to contract engagements to a wife and a probable offspring: but, separately from this consideration, I should hold that in many cases he who entered into a second marriage, by that action yielded a pure and honourable homage to the manes of the first. But from genuine marriage I was henceforth forever debarred. An immortal can form no true and real attachment to the insect of an hour.
Mourning, a depressing and speechless regret, was yet the inmate of our house. Grief does not commonly lay a strong and invincible hold of us in the morning of our days; and, though the temper of Julia was perhaps at her age the most tender and susceptible I ever knew, even she, who was now in her seventeenth year, reaped the benefit of that elasticity which in early life is the portion of humanity. Nothing material occurred to us in the first three months of our residence in Madrid. It was impossible for any one to be surrounded with a more lovely and blooming family than I was.
Yet from happiness I was immeasurably distant. Exclusively of my recent and in every sense irreparable loss, my mind was full of dark and gloomy forebodings. I feared not for myself, but I had an unconquerable alarm and apprehension for my children. My youngest was but ten years of age; the eldest was not seventeen. Sweet, tender blossoms, that the cruelty and hardness of mankind might so easily blight, and that required a concurrence of favourable circumstances to ripen into all they were capable of becoming! When I recollected what had happened in the course of the last two years, I could not flatter myself that our misfortunes were at an end, or that I had not, to speak moderately, many fierce trials yet to encounter. I seemed, like the far-famed tree of Java, to be destined to shelter only to destroy, and to prove a deadly poison to whatever sought its refuge under my protecting branches. In this melancholy frame of mind the last words of my adored Marguerite passed and repassed ten thousand times through my recollection. “She had formed the chain and link of connection between me and my girls; perhaps it was better that we should burst our fetters and be free.”
Whatever she had said was sacred to the present temper of my imagination: her last behest I would have died to execute. The idea contained in the sentence I have just repeated was ambiguous and obscure, rather hinted, than expressed. But was it worthy of the less attention, because its author, with her usual gentleness and sweetness,had modestly suggested an advice, instead, which she was well entitled to have done, of prescribing a will? I determined to part with my children, that I might no longer be to them a source of corroding misery and affliction. I believed that the cloud that now oppressed me was transitory. I seemed pursued for the present by a malignant genius; but a man, endowed as I was with unbounded wealth and immortal vigour, cannot easily be reduced to despair. When the tide of my prosperity should unfold its rich and ample current, I might easily communicate of its bounty to my daughters. If I parted with them now, I did not lose them as I had perhaps lost their brother for ever. I could turn to a particular point, and say, “There lies my soul!” I could cast my eye upon a projection of the globe, and put my finger upon their residence. Wherever I wandered, whether I were plunged in a dungeon or mounted a throne, my heart, like the mariner’s needle, would tremble towards that point as its cynosure. I had still something to love, something to pant for, something to dream about, and be happy.
Having ruminated insatiably upon the last expressions of Marguerite, having formed my commentary, and fixed my predilection, I recollected a person, then a young woman upon my paternal estate, for whom my wife had conceived a remarkable friendship. She was the daughter of a peasant, her birth had been low, and her education confined. But she had taste, she had discretion, she had integrity, I think I may add, she had genius. As Marguerite had discovered her merits, and distinguished her from her equals, she had been of great use to this extraordinary rustic in unfolding her mind, and guiding her propensities. This was not so much a matter of deliberate and meditated purpose inla dame du seigneur; it rose out of the circumstances of their situation. They were almost of an age; and Marguerite frequently invited her to be the associate of her studies and amusements. Mariana, that was her name, did not perhaps resemble my wife considerably in her features, but her stature was the same, her complexion and the colour of her hair. The similarity in carriage and gesture, Mariana having never had anopportunity of contemplating the accomplishments she admired in any one but madame de St. Leon, was still more striking. There were points indeed in which no human creature could compare with Marguerite, the expressive and flexible tone of her voice, and those cadences, which sprung from, and communicated to every susceptible hearer, the divinest sensibility. One of the unhappy consequences of our exile from the Bordelois was the misfortunes of Mariana. Her father had fallen to decay. To relieve his distress she had contracted a marriage, not of sentiment and predilection, but with a man who had promised her that her father should never come to want. This marriage had been unhappy. The husband was a prodigal and a profligate. A period of seven years however delivered her from her Egyptian bondage. She had but lately become a widow; and the prudence and integrity of her conduct had rendered this alliance, which to many women would have proved a rock of destruction, an additional source of honour and respect. Mariana, at the death of her husband, had no children; she had buried her father; she was consequently entirely alone.
It was this woman I fixed upon as the protector of my daughters. I was better pleased with the meanness of her extraction, than I should have been with one of the high-born descendants of the houses of St. Leon or Damville, had it been my fortune to have had in the female line any near relations on either side. My daughters were no longer children; they were singularly prudent, considerate, and unimpeachable in their conduct and propensities. They wanted a protector in the eye of the world; it was desirable for them that they should have an adviser; but I should have been grieved and mortified to give them a dictator.
I wrote to Mariana Chabot, communicating my project, and requesting her to give us the meeting at St. Lizier on the frontiers of France. She was delighted with the office I tendered to her acceptance, and readily consented to every thing I required. I conducted my daughters to the place of rendezvous without imparting to them the design by which I was actuated; I believed that they would of their own motion conceive a partiality for the friend of theirmother. I was not deceived in my prognostic; the meeting was an interesting one. The eyes of Mariana overflowed at meeting, after so long an interval, the husband and progeny of the dearest and most revered friend she had ever known; the mourning we wore reminded her how lately her incomparable patroness had been committed to the grave. My girls were struck with the resemblance of Mariana to their mother. Accident had prevented us from cultivating almost any intimate connections out of our own family from the period of our exile; my girls had therefore never met with a person who approached in any degree so near their mother in accomplishments, in skill, in turn of thinking and opinion. Mariana came up to my warmest hopes as a protector and companion for my children; her unhappy marriage, by concentrating her thoughts and expectations in herself, had perhaps rendered her more exemplary in carriage, and more elevated in sentiment, than she would ever have been without it.
At St. Lizier I passed myself for monsieur Valmier, the guardian of the orphan heiresses of St. Leon. It fortunately happened that my paternal estate was at this time upon sale. I determined to become the purchaser, and to settle my girls in the scene of their nativity. I procured an agent, and despatched him with an ample commission for that purpose. Having adjusted this point, I resolved to make a tour with my daughters, through Languedoc, Dauphiné, and the provinces usually known by the denomination of the south of France. I wished to familiarise them to the society of madame Chabot, and to assist them in discerning her merits under a variety of points of view. I asked them whether they would not be delighted to obtain her as a companion, who might assist and conduct them in such points as only a woman of understanding and experience is competent to. They, every one of them, listened to the idea with pleasure.
At length I received the information that the purchase of St. Leon was completed, and I proceeded to the critical disclosure that my daughters were on the point of being separated from their father. They listened to the communication with astonishment and terror. They had enteredsuccessively into the feelings of their deceased mother, and I am well persuaded felt a less ardent attachment to my person than they had done at the cottage of the lake of Constance. But, culpable and criminal as I had been, I was not destitute of every virtue, and they could not extinguish in themselves the respect they had so long entertained for me. Habit has a resistless empire over the human mind; and, when we reflect with how much reluctance we consent to the removal of a tree or a hedge, to the sight of which we have been accustomed, it will not be wondered at that my daughters could not calmly think of so complete a separation from their father. The impression of their mother’s death was yet green, and to lose me, was to become orphans a second time. But I had fully meditated my plan, and was peremptory. That I might withhold from them no advantage it was in my power to confer, I gave them Bernardin for their superintending bailiff and steward of their property. Our parting was not less painful and melancholy, than its occasion was extraordinary and its mode uncommon. It took place at the town of Montauban.
I saw my dear children set forward on their journey, and I knew not that I should ever behold them more. I was determined never again to see them to their injury; and I could not take to myself the consolation,—on such a day, in such a month, or even after such a lapse of years, I will again have the joy to embrace them. In a little while they were out of sight, and I was alone. The reader will perhaps agree with me, that no man had more exquisitely enjoyed the dearest ties of society than I had, and that perhaps few men were ever better formed to enjoy them. This complete and dreadful separation, this stroke that seemed to cut me off abruptly from every thing most valuable that the earth contains, was not the result of any of the ordinary necessities of human life. Still less was it the dictate of alienation or indifference. No; it was the pure effect of love, of a love so strong, complete, and uncontrollable, as inflexibly to refuse every thing that could be injurious to its objects. I own I could not thus have parted with Marguerite. Her idea was mingled with thevital springs of my existence; and scarcely any power less resistless than death could have made me consent to pass an entire day without her society. But then it is to be considered, that my daughters were in the morning of life; their hopes were untarnished, their prospects not obscured by a single cloud; and that the crime would probably have been greater, obstinately to have made them the partners of my misfortunes and disgrace. There are persons who will regard this passage in my history as culpable, and the testimony of a cold and unsusceptible heart. I contemplate it, even at this distance of time, as the noblest and most virtuous effort of my life; and a thousand circumstances have occurred since, to induce me to congratulate myself that I had the courage to achieve my purpose.
Nineteen years had now elapsed from the day that had witnessed my union with Marguerite de Damville. In all that time I had never been alone. Alone in a certain sense indeed I had stood at Paris in the period that had led to my exile, and at Soleure in that which immediately succeeded it. In each case I was solitary, and my solitude was unhappy. But my unhappiness was then in a certain sense spontaneous; my solitude was a luxury in which I felt myself impelled to indulge. He that has experienced both, will readily acknowledge the extreme difference between the misery we embrace and the misery from which we shrink with abhorrence and loathing. I relinquished in the former instances my dearest connections, my proper post and situation; but I felt that I could return to the one and resume the other at pleasure. I repeat it therefore, Then I had not been alone, and now I was alone. The same motive, which in this instance made me cut myself off from my daughters that I might not be the cause of their misery, forbad me to be the parent of a future offspring upon whom I might entail similar misfortune. Tell methen, was I not alone? I recollected the words of the stranger, wrung from him by the excess of his misery at the summer-house of the lake, “Alone—alone!—friendless—friendless!” I began to penetrate the enigma of his history.
I fixed my daughters with an ample revenue in the château of St. Leon; I re-purchased for them all my paternal property. I waited some time at Montauban to hear of the event of my project, and their final settlement. I learned with pleasure that they found their situation peaceful, easy, and reputable; I enjoined them that they should speak and think of me as dead. I led them to suppose, when I left Montauban, that I should set out upon an extensive tour, that I should traverse the Indus and the Ganges, and penetrate into the furthest extremities of the East. How uncommon, how pitiable a fate! I became prematurely dead to my country and my race, because I was destined never to die! The first sensation I derived from their prosperity, as I have already said, was pleasure: my second was that which the devil might have felt, when he entered paradise for the seduction of our first parents. I contemplated with some degree of malignant envy a happiness of which it was little probable I should ever partake. Let me not be censured for this: let any man put himself in my situation, and say, whether the pleasure he feels at contemplating the separated happiness of those he loves be not a mingled sensation? With heavy heart I sought again the road of Madrid.
Though my spirits underwent an extreme depression, I determined not to desert myself or the advantages I had purchased at so inestimable a price. I exerted myself to shake off my lethargy, and rouse the faculties of my soul. I refused to give way to omens of evil portent, and resolved to see what might yet be made of my endowments. There is no misfortune that has not in it some slight mixture of good. My being now alone, and detached from every relative tie, left me at liberty to pursue my projects with a bolder enterprise. The mistake of which I accused myself in the former instance, was the entering too precipitately into the exercise of the gifts of the stranger, before I hadproperly measured my strength, and investigated the use and application of my tools. I had suffered sufficiently from the past uncertainty and irresoluteness of my march. I determined, as far as human precaution could secure its ends, to encounter no more misfortunes, to subject myself to no further miscarriages, but to take care that henceforth the tide of my pursuits should move smoothly onward. I dedicated the six months immediately succeeding my separation from my daughters, to the joint contemplation of morals and natural philosophy. I was resolved to ascertain the simplest mode of manufacturing wealth, the wisest methods for lulling the suspicions and controlling the passions of mankind, and the true science of the use of riches. Alas! I had in the sequel frequent occasions to confess, that, though I had fortuitously entered into possession of the leading secrets of natural magic, I was a mere tyro in the science of man, at least in the degree in which the exercise of these secrets required the possession of it.
Nothing material occurred to interrupt the occupations of the winter. My apathy—intellectual activity, palsy of the heart,—went evenly forward. I made no acquaintance; I was a mere spectator of the busy scenes that passed around me. I was resolved not to entangle myself with rashly formed connections; and it will commonly be found, that he, whose contemplations are principally employed upon some secret and guarded hoard of reflection, has little propensity to communicate upon idle and indifferent matters.
A slight incident indeed disturbed me for a few days during this interval; but it passed away, and for the present I thought of it no more. During the festival of Christmas it happened that I felt an inclination to be the spectator of a celebrated bull-fight, that was exhibited before the emperor and his court. For the most part I was studious of privacy; I therefore felt the less scruple in indulging this unusual caprice. At the commencement of the spectacle, I was attentive only to the exhibition. I was delighted with the form and beauty of the animals, with the freedom and grandeur of their motion, with the terrible energy of their assault and repulse. It was not long, however, before my eye was transiently caught by an individual, who sat ina gallery at no great distance, and who seemed to view me attentively. His figure bespoke some degree of refinement; but his eye was fiery, malicious, and savage. Presently however I turned again towards the area, and thought of him no more. Some time after by mere accident I looked towards the same gallery, and observed this man still in an attitude to examine me. It seemed as if he had not removed his eyes from me during the whole interval. This was repeated three or four times. Without knowing why, I became anxious and uneasy. I had a confused feeling that I had seen the man before, but whether in France, Switzerland, or Italy, I could not tell. I experienced that sort of disagreeable sensation from looking at his face, which arises in the mind from an association of the object present, with some mischief or suffering that was contemporary with its being perceived in a preceding instance. I am now persuaded that this man was one of the multitude to whom I had addressed myself from the bench on the hill a short time before my flight from Pisa, and that he was among the most eager to interrupt and molest me. But he was apparently a Spaniard by birth, and I could not at this time develope the mystery that hung about his features. Finding that I could neither rid myself of his curious and watchful observation, nor of the disturbance it gave me, I withdrew from the gallery where I had hitherto been sitting, and removed to another gallery on the opposite side of the area. About half an hour after, looking accidentally round, I saw this very man at my elbow. I then accosted him with the enquiry, “Do you know me, sir?” to which he immediately returned, with a pure Castilian accent, “No, señor!” He then began to be more reserved in his attention to me, without however entirely withdrawing it.
As soon as the entertainment was over, I went away, and saw no more of my Spaniard. I began to tax myself with pusillanimity in suffering so insignificant an incident to disturb me. A few days after however I suddenly lighted upon him in the street. He was talking to three or four of his countrymen, and in the progress of his discourse frequently pointed to me. I could now perceive something particularly hostile and ferocious in his countenance. Thefirst impulse I felt was, that I would no longer suffer the unquietness and anxiety the sight of him produced in me, but would go up to him, and force him to an explanation. I believed however that, in the temper he indicated, this could not be done without involving myself in a quarrel; and I thought it wiser to endeavour to conquer in silence an unreasonable sensation. I therefore passed on; he immediately broke from his company, and attempted to follow me. This I determined not to endure. I laid my hand on my sword with a peremptory look, and waved to him to desist. His countenance then assumed an air of diabolical malignity, he shook his head furiously, and turned down another street. A strange sort of animosity this, between two persons utter strangers to each other, and which had as yet not deigned to express itself by a word! But such is the world! We hate we know not why. We are ready to cut each other’s throats, because we do not like the turn of a feature, or the adjustment of a sword-knot. Prejudice, party, difference of countries, difference of religions, and a thousand wild chimeras of fanaticism or superstition, are continually arming us against a man, of whose virtues and qualities we are ignorant, and into whose benevolent or evil intentions we disdain to enquire.
I saw this Spaniard but once more. It was as I was on the point of entering the house, a part of which I occupied. I was particularly mortified at this circumstance. It was plain the man entertained, for whatever reason, a determined animosity against me; and I was grieved to furnish him with that advantage for injuring me, which consisted in being acquainted with the place of my residence. I would have turned away and gone down the street; but I had too fully marked my design of entering the house, before I reconnoitered my enemy. The displeasure I felt was so unaccountably great, that it was with difficulty my courage got the better of it; and I determined not to change the place of my abode. In a short time however, as I have already said, I thought of this incident no more. That it should have disturbed and unhinged me, in the degree that it had done, even for a moment, was a thing I could not account for. Had the calamities in which the legacy ofthe stranger involved me, converted me in so short a time, from a knight and a soldier, into a character of that morbid timidity, as to tremble at every shadow? Or, is there in some human countenances a fascination, a sort of mysterious sympathy and presentiment, that makes us cower and quail whenever we meet their eye-beams?
Several weeks now passed away, and I had nearly forgotten all the circumstances of this seemingly foolish story, when, in a little excursion I chanced to make from Madrid to a place about twelve miles distant, I was overtaken upon the road by a cavalier of respectable appearance, who presently took occasion to enter into conversation with me. He explained to me several of the objects that presented themselves on either side, told the names of the different nobility and grandees who occupied the villas we saw, and sometimes entered into the particulars of their history. I at first gave little encouragement to this communicative traveller; but there was something so polite in his manner, and intelligent in his discourse, that I could not prevail upon myself to treat him with rudeness or disrespect. After having talked for some time upon indifferent topics, he led to the general state of literature in Europe. Few subjects could appear less dangerous than this, as there were few upon which I felt myself better qualified to converse. By degrees I threw off some of my original reserve, and I found my companion well informed and ingenious, lively in his manner, and pertinent in his remarks.
By this time the unknown, having discovered that I had only come from Madrid for a day’s relaxation, invited himself to dine with me at my inn. I departed from my established system of conduct on this occasion, and admitted his overture. After dinner he gave me some account of himself and his family, and seemed to expect from me a similar explicitness. I was less pleased with him in this particular, than I had been with his frank and undesigning conversation on the road. Strictly speaking however the expectation implied was only a breach of politeness; I had no reason to suppose that he foresaw it to be particularly offensive to me. Observing my backwardness, he immediately changed the subject. Presently he remarked, thatby my physiognomy and accent he perceived I was a Frenchman, and asked me if I had known Cornelius Agrippa, who died about twelve years before at Grenoble. I answered in the negative. The unknown then entered into a warm eulogium of the talents of Agrippa, inveighed against the illiberal treatment he had experienced in consequence of his supposed proficiency in magic, and spoke with great asperity of the priests and inquisitors who had been his persecutors. I became attentive, watchful, and suspicious. He went on to expatiate upon the praises of the art magic, which nothing, he said, but the jealousy of churchmen had brought into disrepute; affirmed that it had been treated with respect, and counted illustrious, by the ancients, in the instance of Pythagoras, Apollonius Tyaneus, and others; and expressed a great desire to become a student of the art himself. This kind of discourse made me repent that I had been drawn in so far as to sit down with this unknown, and admit him as my companion of the day. During the whole time he was the principal speaker. Sometimes he paused, with a seeming desire to hear my sentiments. But I had now formed my resolution, and gave him no encouragement. Presently after I called for my horse. I should have observed, that his servant who followed him engaged in conversation with mine, at the same time that the dialogue began between their masters. Seeing me about to depart, the unknown motioned as if to accompany me. Upon this I became serious.
“Señor caballero,” said I, “I have now had the pleasure of your company to dinner: I am going home, and have the honour to bid you farewell. It is neither my disposition, nor the habit of the grave and dignified nation among whom I at present reside, to form permanent acquaintances upon casual rencounters: you will not therefore think I violate the hospitality for which I am indebted to them, if I intimate to you my desire to return alone.”
All this I said with the grave and formal tone becoming a Spaniard, and the unknown had nothing to reply. It was evident however that my dryness chagrined him; and he even muttered words of resentment between his teeth. I could observe now a degree of hostility and fury in hiscountenance, which remarkably contrasted with the pliancy and obligingness of his preceding demeanour. I took no notice however of these circumstances, and rode away. I have since had sufficient reasons to convince me that these two persons, whose story, but for that explanation, may appear to the reader exceedingly frivolous, were the one an informer, and the other a spy of the holy inquisition. The man who had seen me at Pisa had his imagination terrified and his superstition set in arms by all that he had heard of me in that place; and thought he could not perform a more meritorious work, than by giving intelligence to the fathers what sort of person had taken refuge in the metropolis of this most Catholic kingdom. It was with this view he had watched me, and at length, by an accident he deemed peculiarly fortunate, lodged me in my proper habitation. Having given in his denunciation, my travelling companion was next fastened on me by the contrivance and zeal of the fathers inquisitors. He was a familiar of the holy office; and it is well known that persons of the fairest prospects and most polite education in Spain are led by their religious impressions to place a pride in performing menial and even perfidious offices in the service of the inquisition. The kind of dishonour I put upon him in parting, though of a nature he could not openly resent, I fear conspired with his zeal for God’s and the church’s honour, to induce him to relate a story concerning me, more modelled by the bitterness of his personal feelings, than distinguished by a regard to truth.
Such was the snare, woven and drawing close round me on all sides for my destruction. I was made uneasy by the rencounter of the traveller, but by no means aware of the whole extent of the mischief that impended over me. When I came to retrace, point by point, the discourse he had held, I could not conceive that the turn it had taken originated in accident. I perceived, with no little grief of heart and concern, that I was known. It was however necessary that I should reflect maturely upon the conduct to be pursued by me. I ought not gratuitously to expose myself to danger. But then, on the other hand, it is a point of general wisdom, and was particularly incumbent inmy extraordinary circumstances, not to suffer vigilance to degenerate into restless anxiety. It would be easy for me, if I were not strictly on my guard, continually to find food for suspicion, and to surround myself with imaginary plots and dangers. This was a vice that I was willing enough to pity in others; but there was no character that I more cordially disdained for myself. There was none more pointedly in opposition to that gallant, generous, confiding spirit, which had distinguished those military heroes of my native soil, who had been the exclusive object of my earliest admiration, and whom, in my present dejected and deserted situation, I still desired to resemble. When I came to reflect, I easily perceived that this vice was particularly allied to a life of solitude; and that he who is cut off from the genuine and happy connections of husband, father, and friend, is of all men most liable, in their absence, to conjure up for himself the unnatural intercourses and reciprocations of hostility. It was thus that I artificially reconciled myself to my situation, and obstinately closed my eyes upon those equivocal demonstrations of danger which from time to time were presented to my view.
Such was the state of my mind, when it happened, one gloomy evening in the latter end of March, that my valet announced to me three gentlemen who were come to visit me. It was strange: I had no visitors; I indulged no relaxation but that of the street, and of public places. Do you know who they are? said I. I accidentally looked up, and saw paleness and terror written in his countenance. He had not however time to reply, before they burst into the room. They were alguazils of the inquisition. They told me their errand was to conduct me to the holy office.
I submitted, and accompanied them. It was already dark. They put me into a litter with the curtains drawn, and then arranged themselves in silence, one on each side,while one brought up the rear. I was taken by surprise: nothing could be further from my expectation than such an event. As we passed along, I ruminated with myself on the line of conduct it was incumbent on me to pursue. To make an immediate experiment of the fidelity of my guides was a doubtful attempt. If, for want of time and the opportunity of a tranquil hearing, I miscarried with them, the trial would be converted into evidence against me. If I succeeded, I had then to escape out of Spain, in the centre of which I now was, from the hostility of a tribunal, which was said to surpass all the tribunals on the face of the earth in activity and vigilance. I knew of nothing that the fathers of the inquisition could have against me. I had lived in the most entire seclusion; and I could defy any one to report a single action of mine, since I had entered Spain, to my prejudice. I had been wholly occupied with melancholy reflections on the past, and solitary inventions and devices which I purposed to bring forward for the future. I determined not to live for ever the slave of fear. I believed that the best method for defeating a danger, in many cases, was undauntedly to encounter it; and I did not imagine that I could have a more favourable opportunity for that purpose than the present. I had heard much indeed of the terrors of the inquisition; but a generous and liberal spirit lends no very attentive ear to horrors, the trite and vulgar rumour of which only has reached him. I disdained to be blown down with a breath. I believed that the inquisition itself would not venture to proceed criminally against a man against whom nothing criminal had been alleged. In every event, I believed it would never be too late to have recourse to my peculiar prerogatives.
Upon entering the prison of the inquisition I was first conducted to a solitary cell. It is not my intention to treat of those particulars of the holy office which are already to be found in innumerable publications. I have no pleasure in reviving the images of this sojourn of horrors. I know it is unreasonable to despise a man for the miseries and wretchedness he has endured; but I know that such is the human heart, and I will not expose myself to be scoffed at and trampled upon for my misfortunes. I found myselfunder the necessity, while in the inquisition, of submitting to that most profligate of all impositions, an oath of secrecy as to what I had seen, and what I had suffered; and, whatever may be the strict morality of such an obligation, I will not ambitiously thrust myself forward in violation of it. I will restrict the story I have to relate to the peculiarities that characterised my case, and enter as little as possible into the general policy of this frontier intrenchment of the Christian faith.
When I was brought up to be interrogated, I was assailed with innumerable questions, the obvious purport of which was, as much as possible, to extort from me evidence of every kind that might be injurious to my cause. The object of the inquisition is to defend our holy mother, the church, from whatever might defile her sanctity and whiteness. Every thing that calls into question the truth of her doctrines, that pollutes and turns from their original purpose any of her ordinances, or that implies commerce and league with the invisible enemy of saints, it is its peculiar province to investigate. The fathers are therefore particularly cautious that they may not, by confining their questions too much to a single object, preclude themselves from the chance of discovering danger under all the forms it may assume. It is presumed that he who is a corrupt member of the church of Christ in one point is unsound and unfaithful in others.
The inquisitor who examined me, first demanded, whether I were informed for what cause I was brought before that tribunal? Whether I did not find myself able to conjecture the nature of my offence? Whether I did not know the sort of crimes for which men were detained in that prison? He then desired me to recollect myself, and consider, whether I were not conscious of offence against the holy Catholic church? Whether I had never asserted or maintained any doctrines contrary to what mother church asserts and maintains? Whether I had never, to my knowledge, defiled any of the ordinances of God, or applied things sacred to unholy and profane purposes? Whether I had never invocated the devil? Whether I had never held any commerce, or entered into any league,with the enemy of saints? Whether I had never performed, or sought to perform, preternatural and miraculous acts by unholy means? Whether I had never vexed, or sought to vex, those against whom I had enmity, by secret and forbidden arts? Whether I had never resided in countries the inhabitants of which were heretics, and whether I had never listened to their discourses and arguments? Whether, when I inhabited such countries, I had never assisted at the celebration of divine ordinances performed by heretics, or in a form which holy church disapproves or condemns?
Finding that he could gain nothing upon me by these general interrogatories, the inquisitor next descended to particulars. He enquired concerning the incidents of my Pisan story, which, having first assured myself from the train of his questions that some representation of that unfortunate affair had reached his ear, I willingly related, to the same extent that I had previously done to the marchese Filosanto.
He then proceeded to a great number of questions, the source of which is to be traced to the commonly received notions respecting sorcerers and necromancers. They were so artfully contrived, and so large in their scope, that it was not easy to guess whether they related to any particular accusation alleged against me, or were formed entirely on general principles. Yet some of them were so minute, so connected, and arranged so perfectly in series, that I could not but believe they were an echo of the calumnies invented against me at Pisa, of which, however, as I had never collected any regular and detailed account, I could not accurately trace the influence on the present occasion.
The inquisitor demanded of me, Whether I had never seen or held conversation with any supernatural being, or the spirit of a man departed? Whether I had never practised diabolical arts to raise the dead? Whether I had never had a familiar in the form of some insect, domestic animal, or reptile? He was particularly subtle and copious in his questions respecting the history of my unfortunate dog, endeavouring to surprise me in some slip or contradiction in what I affirmed on the subject. He asked, Whether I had never assumed a form different from my real one, either a different age and appearance, or a different speciesof animal? Whether I had never, by the agency of my demon, inflicted sickness, convulsion-fits, or death? Whether I had never caused the mortality of cattle? Whether I had not the power of being in two places at once? Whether I had never been seen riding through the air? Whether I had never been wounded in my absence, by a blow aimed at my astral spirit or apparition? Whether I had never possessed books of conjuration or the art magic? Whether it had never happened to me that an indifferent person, indiscreetly perusing a spell or incantation in my possession, had been maimed or killed by the spirits he had undesignedly evoked?
A further object particularly pursued in my interrogatory, was the detection of my property; and the questions constructed for this purpose were uncommonly artful and multiplied. The inquisitor told me that the holy office was, by the nature of its institution, the guardian and administrator of every person that fell under its animadversion. Shut up, he said, as I must be, during the pendency of my cause, and separated from the rest of mankind, I was wholly incapable of superintending my worldly affairs, which, unless they were properly looked into, might in the interval be materially injured. I ought therefore implicitly and without reserve to refer myself in this point to the care of the fathers. If my innocence were established, as he hoped, and earnestly prayed to the mother of God, and the saints of Jesus, might ultimately happen, I should find the holy office a faithful and qualified steward. If, on the contrary, I should be proved a heretic and an alien to the Most High, I ought then to rejoice in the beneficent interference of the fathers, who, by dedicating my wealth to consecrated purposes, would mitigate in the eye of the just Judge of heaven and earth the duration or fierceness of my punishments in a future world. The inquisitor had apparently heard various reports of my riches, and was inexpressibly chagrined that he should be found so unskilful a member of his profession, as not to be able to extort from me a full confession on that head. After having employed every artifice of menace and terror, after having endeavoured to soothe and cajole me by blandishments and persuasion, and finding all his expedients fruitless, he pouredupon me the full storm of his indignation. He said, it was apparent that I was dealing disingenuously and fraudulently with the delegated guardians of religion; it was impossible that the expenditure I was well known more or less to have incurred could be supported without considerable funds; and my evident duplicity and concealment in this point must be regarded as a full confirmation of every crime my accusers had alleged against me.
In the course of my examinations, the inquisitor who questioned me gave himself the trouble of entering into a full vindication of the tribunal of which he was a member. He said, that every thing that was valuable to mankind, not only in a future state, but also in the present, depended upon preserving in full vigour and strength the sacred institutions of the Christian faith; and that those who were endowed with powers sufficient for that purpose would be in the highest degree inexcusable in the sight of God, if they did not vigilantly and inflexibly maintain the exertion of those powers. It was an egregious mistake of self-willed and opinionated men, to suppose that the maintenance of our holy religion was sufficiently provided for by the clearness of its evidence. It was no less dangerous, to pretend that the stability and duration of the church of Christ might be confided to the providence of God. Providence acts by human means; and it was presumptuous for those who neglected the means to trust that they should nevertheless see the end adequately secured. Why had Providence thought proper to generate an alliance between church and state, and to place the powers and authority of human society in the hands of the adherents of the Christian faith? Magistrates and governments were thus made the vicars of Heaven, and great would be their condemnation if they neglected the trust reposed in them. The great adversary of mankind was incessantly watchful for the destruction of souls; and, while he spread abroad his delusions, it was folly to imagine that evidence alone was powerful enough to counteract them. What judges were the great mass of mankind of the integrity and validity of evidence? The jest of the scorner was ever at hand to turn into ridicule the most sacred mysteries. The opposers of our holy faith were indefatigablein their industry, and as anxious in their exertions to deprive their fellow-men of every comfort and hope, as if infidelity, which was the curse of the human species, were the greatest blessing that could be conferred on them. The devil was a hard task-master, and granted no vacation, night or day, to those who enlisted themselves in the support of his cause. It might answer well enough the purpose of the vain-glorious theorist, to suppose that man was a rational animal; but they who had regarded human society with an observing eye knew that it was otherwise. Delusion would ever be too hard for evidence, and the grossest falsehoods prove victorious over the most sacred truths, if what was illiberally and maliciously styled persecution were not brought in aid of the cause of religion. The passions of mankind were on the side of falsehood; man, unrestrained by law, was a wild, ferocious, and most pernicious beast, and, were it not for the wholesome curb of authority, would speedily throw off all ties and limitations, human and divine. Nothing could more clearly prove, that the heretical followers of Luther and Calvin, who had lately sprung up for the plague of mankind, whatever they might pretend, were in reality the determined enemies of all revelation, than their continual demand, that the cause should be tried by discussion, and that every man should be defended in the exercise of his private judgment. They could not but know,—every man not totally robbed of all power of discernment must know,—that, if this demand were once granted, it would prove a blow at the root of every sentiment of religion. The inquisition therefore was the most salutary institution that had ever been devised; and the future welfare of mankind wholly depended upon the maintenance of its powers and its maxims. By a moderate and judicious exhibition of terror, it superseded the necessity of innumerable punishments. The inquisition was not capricious and uncertain in its policy; it acted under the direction of immutable laws; it held a tender, but a firm rein upon the extravagances and madness of mankind. Nothing was more notorious, than that a regular and systematical proceeding was both more effectual and more generous thanone that was fickle. He defied the whole history of the world to produce an example of so merciful a tribunal. The great end of its policy was the reclaiming of sinners and the multiplication of penitents, who, after a gentle and salutary discipline, were again by holy church received into her bosom; and even when they delivered the finally impenitent to the flames, it was to the flames of a purifying fire, which by destroying the flesh redeemed or diminished the punishments of a future world. He knew that an outcry had been artfully raised against the proceedings of the holy office. But it was easy to see that its enemies, under the pretence of compassion for its victims, concealed an inveterate animosity against property, religion, and civil society. The anabaptists had thrown off the mask, and discovered their true designs; and the rest were only more plausible and specious, in proportion as they were more timid. The present was the most important crisis that ever occurred in the history of the world. There was a spirit at work, that aimed at dissolving all the bonds of civil society, and converting mankind into beasts and savages. Who had not heard of the levellers, millenarians, and fifth-monarchy-men, who, under the specious guise of disinterestedness and an universal love of mankind, had nothing in view but the most sacrilegious and unprincipled depredations? It was true that the preachers of these doctrines were utterly contemptible both for numbers and talent: but it would be found a short-sighted policy, to overlook these desperate assailants on account of the poorness and meanness of their qualifications. For his own part he did not hesitate to say, that human society would owe its preservation, if it were preserved, to the merciful yet vigorous proceedings of the court of inquisition. The misrepresentations that were invidiously made of the present firm and vigilant system of policy would be heard for a day, and then universally abandoned. Posterity, he was well assured, would do full justice to the sagacity and soundness of the conduct of this calumniated and much injured institution.
The reader will forgive me if the panegyric thus elaborately pronounced by the inquisitor who examined me,upon the court of which he was a member, had not all the weight with my mind at the moment I heard it which he will probably ascribe to it in the calmness of the closet. It is so difficult to be impartial in our own cause! The candid mind will no doubt make a large allowance for the unhappy situation in which I now stood, and the bitter and galling thoughts that preyed upon my memory. But, if I am chargeable with temporary injustice in the judgment I then passed on the arguments of the inquisitor, I flatter myself that I have been able, after the interval that has elapsed, to give a true and adequate statement of them.
Beside these reasonings on the necessity of a wholesome restraint on the privileges of speaking and writing, the father in another of my examinations condescended to delineate to me the mysteries of the world of spirits. He reminded me that in the first grand rebellion upon record, that of the fallen angels, of which he considered the present defection under Luther and Calvin as in some measure a counterpart, a third of the host of heaven had been thrust out of the celestial mansions. These accursed spirits had since been permitted to pursue their machinations on the face of our earth. “The devil, like a roaring lion, goeth about, seeking whom he may devour.” The oracles of the heathens, the temptations of Job and of our Saviour, and the demoniacs of sacred writ, were examples of the extensive power which Heaven had thought fit to allow him. Men of a sceptical and feeble understanding had been tempted to doubt whether this was consistent with the wisdom and goodness of God. But, though it was in vain for us to pretend to fathom the depth of the divine mysteries, there were certain reasons that were sufficiently obvious to every ingenuous mind. There were persons in all ages of the world, who, like the Sadducees in the time of our blessed Saviour, were inclined to affirm “that there was no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit;” and God permitted the lying wonders of infernal agents the more completely to confound the unbelief of his enemies. He who witnessed the wonderful operations of witchcraft, or saw the ghost of a man departed, could not doubt of the interference of invisible agents in the concerns of ournether world; and, if there were devils and apparitions, it would be to the last degree unreasonable to deny the existence of God, or the miracles of Christ. These were to be received as the grounds of the divine permission of sorcerers, necromancers, and witches. But the rules of the divine conduct were not to constitute the rules of ours. He might permit the agency of invisible malice, because he saw things upon an unlimited scale, his judgments were infallible, and he could say to Beelzebub himself, “Thus far shalt thou go, and no further.” Those to whose care was intrusted the welfare of mankind here or hereafter were bound as far as possible to oppose themselves to the empire of Satan. His power was given him only for a time, and, if not strictly restrained of God and the powers ordained of God, it would over-run every thing, and replunge all this beautiful scene of creation in its original chaos. There was an endless and eternal war between God and the devil, and the governors of the church were Heaven’s field-officers and pioneers for carrying it on. Of all the crimes, he added, to which the depravity of human nature had given birth, the most astonishing and the most horrible was that of diabolical commerce. That human creatures should be so far infatuated, as to enter into league with the declared enemy of souls, and for the possession of a short-lived and precarious power to sign away their spirits to eternal damnation, was so extraordinary as to have been wholly unworthy of credit, were it not supported by evidence as strong and irresistible as that of the miracles of Jesus Christ himself. The persons who thus voluntarily made themselves accursed before God deserved to be regarded with alienation and horror by the whole human race. Every man that saw them was bound by his baptismal engagements to destroy them; and whoever administered to them the smallest portion of food, drink, or comfort, thereby rendered himself a party to their guilt. The inquisition especially had declared against this race of men eternal war, and considered their crime as more complicated, audacious, and pestilential, than any other branch of heresy. Having, for his own part, no doubt that I was one of these noxious and enormous reprobates, he exhortedme to make a voluntary confession of my evil deeds, and, by submitting readily to the tortures and punishments of this world, endeavour to free myself, if it were yet possible, from those of the world to come.
These discourses of the inquisitor were variously interspersed through the three examinations to which I was subjected a short time after I became an inhabitant of the holy house. On my part I endeavoured to the best of my power to repel the imputations cast upon me, to establish my innocence, and to confound the severity of my oppressors. I told the inquisitor, whatever might be the force of his arguments respecting heresy and dealings with the devil, they were nothing to me. I was no Lutheran, no anabaptist, no necromancer, no underminer of the faith of others, or ally of the prince of the infernal regions. I proudly and earnestly demanded to be confronted with my accusers. I asked my examiner in his turn, What sort of justice that was, which pretended to proceed capitally against its prisoners upon secret and unavowed accusations? He endeavoured to stop me. He told me that I was not brought there to arraign the methods and practices of their court; that it did not become a prisoner put upon his defence to insult his judges; that this contumacy could not be regarded but as an aggravation of my guilt; and that I was bound strictly and simply to answer the interrogatories that were proposed to me. The rebuke of the inquisitor was unavailing. My spirit was wrought to too high a pitch to be thus restrained; I was too firmly resolved to give the utmost force of mind and truth to the topics of my just defence. It is the practice of the inquisition for the prisoner to sit during his examination. I started upon my feet.
“The mode of your proceeding,” cried I, “is the mockery of a trial. From your fatal bar no man can go forth acquitted. How is a story to be refuted, when hardly and with difficulty you suffer your prisoner to collect the slightest fragments of it? If I would detect a calumny, is it not requisite that I should be acquainted with its history, and know its authors and propagators? Then I may perhaps be able to confound their forgeries, to show the groundlessness of their allegations, to expose the baseness of their purposesand the profligacy of their characters. I am informed of nothing; yet I am bid, first to be my own accuser, and then to answer the accusations of others. It is only by following a falsehood through all its doublings that it can be effectually destroyed. You bid me unravel a web, and will not suffer me to touch it with one of my fingers. The defence of the purest innocence is often difficult, sometimes impossible, against the artfulness of a malicious tale, or the fortuitous concurrence of unfavourable appearances. But you strip innocence of those consecrated weapons by which only it can be defended. Give to an accusation the particulars with which what really happens must always be attended, give to it the circumstances of place and of time, lay aside the ambiguity and generalities in which you shelter yourselves, and then, perhaps then only, it can be victoriously repelled. You ask me a thousand various and artfully constructed questions. What sort of a man do you imagine me to be? I am not a fool, that I should be inveigled; I am not a boy, that I should be menaced into confessions. Cease your base and unprincipled arts! I will furnish no materials against myself. If you know anything against me, avow it! Propose it, and I will answer. Think not to patch up a miserable accusation out of the words which inadvertence or weariness may cause me to utter. Shame on your institution! May infamy overtake the system of your proceedings! That religion which is supported by such means is viler than atheism. That civilisation which has its basis in despotism, is more worthless and hateful than the state of savages running wild in their woods.
“Do you not perceive that the language I am now holding to you is the exclusive privilege of conscious innocence? The indignation I express is no artificial rage, studiously contrived to overbear accusation. You have it, as it flows spontaneously to my tongue, warm from the promptings of an honest heart. If I could have consulted a friend, it is probable he would have dissuaded me from my present demeanour as impolitic. If I were governed by the dictates of an ordinary prudence, I should have displayed less ardour, less resentment. But I am willing to try whether shame cannot yet be lighted up even in the cheek of an inquisitor.”
The father who examined me, having in vain endeavoured to check the current of my invective, changed his manner, and assumed a tone diametrically the reverse of mine. He professed that he felt much compassion and interest for my misfortune, and should deem himself happy if he could be the instrument of my deliverance. The language I had uttered was highly indecorous, and such as seemed in itself to call for a rigorous penance. But he should not think himself worthy the name of a man, if he did not make suitable allowance for the bitter and extravagant sentiments, that would occasionally find their way into the mind of one in my unfortunate situation. So circumstanced, men would often mistake their friends for their enemies. I regarded the inquisition as my enemy: it was in reality my firm and disinterested friend; zealously watchful for my body, my soul, and my estate. Other courts had other maxims of proceeding, because their motives of action were different; and it was but just that they should furnish their prisoners with a defence against their frailty. But the breast of an inquisitor was accessible to no sentiment but that of love; a burning love of God; love of the church; love of the prisoner, who might be wrongfully accused; love of the penitent, whom he reconciled to our common mother, the church; love even of the incorrigible heretic whose body he burned for the good of his soul. The inquisitor did not discover to the prisoner the evidence adduced against him; that was between God and the inquisitor’s conscience. But the suppression which was thus practised rendered him doubly scrupulous and sceptical as to the evidence he received; he sifted it with a severity that the prisoner would in vain endeavour to imitate; and the rules of evidence in that court were so guarded, punctilious, and minute, as to render any mistake in its proceedings altogether impossible. For a man to be once a prisoner of the court of inquisition, by a salutary prejudice which prevailed through the catholic world, rendered him for ever infamous. This was another cause of the extreme wariness and caution, with which that court was accustomed to proceed. They first listened to the accuser, who was obliged to give in his information on oath. They then instituted a secret enquiry against theparty accused; and, till they had collected abundant ground for their proceeding, they did not venture to touch a hair of his head. They elaborately classed all the different degrees of evidence into half proof, full proof, proof less than half, and proof less than full. When these things were duly considered, it would appear certain that no court that had at any time existed on earth, had ever been so tender in its proceedings, so pure in its incitements, and so every way superior to the attacks of calumny and malice, as the court of inquisition.
With respect to myself in particular, he said, they had not apprehended me and put me upon my defence, without previously assembling a large body of miscellaneous and circumstantial evidence. The evidence they had drawn from myself was negative only, but it was strong: the obscurity that hung about my person, who I was, and whence I came; and the obscurity that hung about my fortune, a great visible expenditure in Spain or in Italy, and no visible means. These were not the signatures and tokens of innocence. They tended strongly to confirm the accusation under which I laboured. Yet so tender was the inquisition in its proceeding, and so chary of its reputation, that upon these accumulated proofs and presumptions, they were not prepared to pronounce against me. They would hear me again and again. They would give me time to recollect myself, and for this purpose they would order for me a coarse and scanty fare, and a solitary cell. I might depend upon it my contumacy should be overcome. The fundamental principle of their proceedings was borrowed from that humane and compassionate maxim of the old Roman law,De vita hominis nulla cunctatio est longa; and I should accordingly find them free from all precipitation and impatience, and ready to indulge me with a residence, however long, in their prisons, till my case had been sifted to the bottom.