As this unhappy young gentleman was one day walking with another, he met two Capuchin friars, and turning to his companion, when they had pa.s.sed, "what fools," said he, "are these, to think they shall gain heaven by wearing sackcloth and going barefoot! Fools indeed, if they think so, or that there is any merit in tormenting one"s self; they might as well live as we do, and they would get to heaven quite as soon." Who informed against him, whether the friars, his companion, or somebody else, I know not; for the inquisitors never tell the names of informers to the Counsellors, nor the names of the witnesses, lest they should except against them. It is to be observed, that all who hear any proposition that appears to them repugnant to, or inconsistent with the doctrines of holy mother church, are bound to reveal it to the Inquisitor, and also to discover the person by whom it was uttered; and, in this affair no regard is to be had to any ties, however sacred. The brother being bound to accuse the brother, the father the son, the son the father, the wife her husband, and the husband his wife; and all bound on pain of eternal d.a.m.nation, and of being treated as accomplices if they do not denounce in a certain time; and no confessor can absolve a person who has heard anything said in jest or in earnest, against the belief or practice of the church, till that person has informed the Inquisitor of it, and given him all the intelligence he can concerning the person by whom it was spoken.
Whoever it was that informed against my unhappy friend, whether the friars, his companion, or somebody else who might have overheard him, the Inquisitor acquainted the board one night, (for to be less observed, they commonly meet, out of Rome, in the night) that the above mentioned propositions had been advanced, and advanced gravely, at the sight of two poor Capuchins; that the evidence was unexceptionable; and that they were therefore met to determine the quality of the proposition, and proceed against the delinquent.
There are in each Inquisition twelve Counsellors, viz: four Divines, four Canonists, and four Civilians. It is chiefly the province of the divines to determine the quality of the proposition, whether it is heretical, or only savors of heresy; whether it is blasphemous and injurious to G.o.d and His saints or only erroneous, rash, schismatical, or offensive to pious ears. The part of the proposition, "Fools! if they think there is any merit in tormenting one"s self," was judged and declared heretical, as openly contradicting the doctrine and practice of holy mother church recommending austerities as highly meritorious. The Inquisitor observed, on this occasion, that by the proposition, "Fools indeed" &c., were taxing with folly, not only the holy fathers, who had all to a man practised great austerities, but St. Paul himself as the Inquisitor understood it, adding that the practice of whipping one"s self, so much recommended by all the founders of religious orders, was borrowed of the great apostle of the gentiles.
The proposition being declared heretical, it was unanimously agreed by the board that the person who had uttered it should be apprehended, and proceeded against agreeably to the laws of the Inquisition. And now the person was named; for, till it is determined whether the accused person should or should not be apprehended, his name is kept concealed from the counsellors, lest they should be biased, says the directory, in his favor, or against him. For, in many instances, they keep up an appearance of justice and equity, at the same time that, in truth, they act in direct opposition to all the known laws of justice and equity.
No words can express the concern and astonishment it gave me to hear, on such an occasion, the name of a friend for whom I had the greatest esteem and regard. The Inquisitor was apprised of it; and to give me an opportunity of practising what he had so often recommended to me, viz.
conquering nature with the a.s.sistance of grace, he appointed me to apprehend the criminal, as he styled him, and to lodge him safe, before daylight, in the prison of the holy inquisition. I offered to excuse myself, but with the greatest submission, from being in any way concerned in the execution of that order; an order, I said, which I entirely approved of, but only wished it might be put in execution by some other person; for your lordship knows, I said, the connection. But the Inquisitor shocked at the word, said with a stern look and angry tone of voice, "What! talk of connections where the faith is concerned?
There is your guard," (pointing to the Sbirri or bailiffs in waiting) "let the criminal be secured in St. Luke"s cell," (one of the worst,) "before three in the morning." He then withdrew, and as he pa.s.sed me said, "Thus, nature is conquered." I had betrayed some weakness or sense of humanity, not long before, in fainting away while I attended the torture of one who was racked with the utmost barbarity, and I had on that occasion been reprimanded by the Inquisitor for suffering nature to get the better of grace; it being an inexcusable weakness, as he observed, to be in any degree affected with the suffering of the body, however great, when afflicted, as they ever are in the Holy Inquisition, for the good of the soul. And it was, I presume, to make trial of the effect of that reprimand, that the execution of this cruel order was committed to me. As I could by no possible means decline it, I summoned all my resolution, after pa.s.sing an hour by myself, I may say in the agonies of death, and set out a little after two in the morning for my unhappy friend"s house, attended by a notary of the Inquisition, and six armed Sbirri. We arrived at the house by different ways and knocking at the door, a maid-servant looked out of the window, and asked who knocked. "The Holy Inquisition," was the answer, and at the same time she was ordered to awake n.o.body, but to come down directly and open the door, on pain of excommunication. At these words, the servant hastened down, half naked as she was, and having with much ado, in her great fright, opened the door, she conducted us as she was ordered to her master"s chamber. She often looked very earnestly at me, as she knew me, and showed a great desire to speak with me; but of her I durst take no kind of notice. I entered the bed-chamber with the notary, followed by the Sbirri, when the lady awakening at the noise, and seeing the bed surrounded by armed men, screamed out aloud and continued screaming as out of her senses, till one of the Sbirri, provoked at the noise gave her a blow on the forehead that made the blood flow, and she swooned away. I rebuked the fellow severely, and ordered him to be whipped as soon as I returned to the Inquisition.
In the mean time, the husband awakening, and seeing me with my attendants, cried out, in the utmost surprise, "MR. BOWER!" He said no more, nor could I for some time utter a single word; and it was with much ado that, in the end I so far mastered my grief as to be able to let my unfortunate friend know that he was a prisoner of the Holy Inquisition. "Of the Holy Inquisition!" he replied. "Alas I what have I done? My dear friend, be my friend now." He said many affecting things; but as I knew it was not in my power to befriend him, I had not the courage to look him in the face, but turning my back to him, withdrew, while he dressed, to a corner of the room, to give vent to my grief. The notary stood by, quite unaffected. Indeed, to be void of all humanity, to be able to behold one"s fellow-creatures groaning under the most exquisite torments cruelty can invent, without being in the least affected with their sufferings, is one of the chief qualifications of an inquisitor, and what all who belong to the Inquisition must strive to attain to. It often happens, at that infernal tribunal, that while the unhappy, and probably innocent, person is crying out in their presence on the rack, and begging by all that is sacred for one moment"s relief, in a manner one would think no human heart could withstand, it often happens, I say, that the inquisitor and the rest of his infamous crew, quite unaffected with his complaints, and deaf to his groans, to his tears and entreaties, are entertaining one another with the news of the town; nay, sometimes they even insult, with unheard of barbarity, the unhappy wretches in the height of their torment.
To return to my unhappy prisoner. He was no sooner dressed than I ordered the Bargello, or head of the Sbirri, to tie his hands with a cord behind his back, as is practised on such occasions without distinction of persons; no more regard being paid to men of the first rank, when charged with heresy, than to the meanest offender. Heresy dissolves all friendship; so that I durst no longer look upon the man with whom I had lived in the greatest friendship and intimacy as my friend, or show him, on that account, the least regard or indulgence.
As we left the chamber, the countess, who had been conveyed out of the room, met us, and screaming out in the most pitiful manner upon seeing her husband with his hands tied behind his back like a thief or robber, flew to embrace him, and hanging on his neck, begged, with a flood of tears, we would be so merciful as to put an end to her life, that she might have the satisfaction--the only satisfaction she wished for in this world, of dying in the bosom of the man from whom she had vowed never to part. The count, overwhelmed with grief, did not utter a single word. I could not find it in my heart, nor was I in a condition to interpose; and indeed a scene of greater distress was never beheld by human eyes. However, I gave a signal to the notary to part them, which he did accordingly, quite unconcerned; but the countess fell into a swoon, and the count was meantime carried down stairs, and out of the house, amid the loud lamentations and sighs of his servants, on all sides, for he was a man remarkable for the sweetness of his temper, and his kindness to all around him.
Being arrived at the Inquisition, I consigned my prisoner into the hands of a gaoler, a lay brother of St. Dominic, who shut him up in the dungeon above-mentioned, and delivered the key to me. I lay that night at the palace of the Inquisition, where every counsellor has a room, and returned next morning the key to the inquisitor, telling him that his order had been punctually complied with. The inquisitor had been already informed of my conduct by the notary, and therefore, upon my delivering the key to him, he said, "You have acted like one who is at least desirous to overcome, with the a.s.sistance of grace, the inclinations of nature;" that is, like one who is desirous, by the a.s.sistance of grace, to metamorphose himself from a human creature into a brute or a devil.
In the Inquisition, every prisoner is kept the first week of his imprisonment in a dark narrow dungeon, so low that he cannot stand upright in it, without seeing anybody but the gaoler, who brings him, EVERY OTHER DAY, his portion of bread and water, the only food allowed him. This is done, they say, to tame him, and render him, thus weakened, more sensible of the torture, and less able to endure it. At the end of the week, he is brought in the night before the board to be examined; and on that occasion my poor friend appeared so altered, in a week"s time, that, had it not been for his dress, I should not have known him.
And indeed no wonder; a change of condition so sudden and unexpected; the unworthy and barbarous treatment he had already met with; the apprehension of what he might and probably should suffer; and perhaps, more than anything else, the distressed and forlorn condition of his once happy wife, whom he tenderly loved, whose company he had enjoyed only six months, could be attended with no other effect.
Being asked, according to custom, whether he had any enemies, and desired to name them, he answered, that he bore enmity to no man, and he hoped no man bore enmity to him. For, as in the Inquisition the person accused is not told of the charge brought against him, nor of the person by whom it is brought, the inquisitor asks him if he has any enemies, and desires him to name them. If he names the informer, all further proceedings are stopped until the informer is examined anew; and if the information is found to proceed from ill-will and no collateral proof can be produced, the prisoner is discharged. Of this piece of justice they frequently boast, at the same time that they admit, both as informers and witnesses, persons of the most infamous characters, and such as are excluded by all other courts. In the next place, the prisoner is ordered to swear that he will declare the truth, and conceal nothing from the holy tribunal, concerning himself or others, that he knows and the holy tribunal desires to know. He is then interrogated for what crime he has been apprehended and imprisoned by the Holy Court of the Inquisition, of all courts the most equitable, the most cautious, the most merciful. To that interrogatory the count answered, with a faint and trembling voice, that he was not conscious to himself of any crime, cognizable by the Holy Court, nor indeed by any other; that he believed and ever had believed whatever holy mother church believed or required him to believe. He had, it seems quite forgotten what he had unthinkingly said at the sight of the two friars. The inquisitor, therefore, finding that he did not remember or would not own his crime, after many deceitful interrogatories, and promises which he never intended to fulfil, ordered him back to his dungeon, and allowing him another week, as is customary in such cases, to recollect himself, told him that if he could not in that time prevail upon himself to declare the truth, agreeably to his oath, means would be found of forcing it from him; and he must expect no mercy.
At the end of the week he was brought again before the infernal tribunal; and being asked the same questions, returned the same answers, adding, that if he had done or said anything amiss, unwittingly or ignorantly, he was ready to own it, provided the least hint of it were given him by any there present, which he entreated them most earnestly to do. He often looked at me, and seemed to expect--which gave me such concern as no words can express--that I should say something in his favor. But I was not allowed to speak on this occasion, nor were any of the counsellors; and had I been allowed to speak, I durst not have said anything in his favor; the advocate appointed by the Inquisition, and commonly styled, "The Devil"s Advocate," being the only person that is suffered to speak for the prisoner. The advocate belongs to the Inquisition, receives a salary from the Inquisition, and is bound by an oath to abandon the defence of the prisoner, if he undertakes it, or not to undertake it, if he finds it cannot be defended agreeably to the laws of the Holy Inquisition; go that the whole is mere sham and imposition.
I have heard this advocate, on other occasions, allege something in favor of the person accused; but on this occasion he declared that he had nothing to offer in defence of the criminal.
In the Inquisition, the person accused is always supposed guilty, unless he has named the accuser among his enemies. And he is put to the torture if he does not plead guilty, and own the crime that is laid to his charge, without being so much as told what it is; whereas, in all other courts, where tortures are used, the charge is declared to the party accused before he is tortured; nor are they ever inflicted without a credible evidence of his guilt. But in the Inquisition, a man is frequently tortured upon the deposition of a person whose evidence would be admitted in no other court, and in all cases without hearing the charge. As my unfortunate friend continued to maintain his innocence, not recollecting what he had said, he was, agreeably to the laws of the Inquisition, put to the torture. He had scarcely borne it twenty minutes, crying out the whole time, "Jesus Maria!" when his voice failed him at once, and he fainted away. He was then supported, as he hung by his arms, by two of the Sbirri, whose province it is to manage the torture, till he returned to himself. He still continued to declare that he could not recollect his having said or done anything contrary to the Catholic faith, and earnestly begged they would let him know with what he was charged, being ready to own it if it was true.
The Inquisitor was then so gracious as to put him in mind of what he had said on seeing the two Capuchins. The reason why they so long conceal from the party accused the crime he is charged with, is, that if he should be conscious to himself of his having ever said or done anything contrary to the faith, which he is not charged with, he may discover that too, imagining it to be the very crime he is accused of. After a short pause, the poor gentleman owned that he had said something to that purpose; but, as he had said it with no evil intention, he had never more thought of it, from that time to the present. He added, but with a voice so faint, as scarce could be heard, that for his rashness he was willing to undergo what punishment soever the holy tribunal should, think fit to impose on him; and he again fainted away. Being eased for a while of his torment, and returned to himself, he was interrogated by the promoter fiscal (whose business it is to accuse and to prosecute, as neither the informer nor the witnesses, are ever to appear,) concerning his intention. For in the Inquisition, it is not enough for the party accused to confess the fact, he must declare whether his intention was heretical or not; and many, to redeem themselves from the torments they, can no longer endure, own their intention was heretical, though it really was not. My poor friend often told us, he was ready to say whatever he pleased, but as he never directly acknowledged his intention to have been heretical, as is required by the rules of the court, he was kept on the torture still, quite overcome with the violence of the anguish, he was ready to expire. Being taken down, he was carried quite senseless, back to his dungeon, and there, on the third day, death put an end to his sufferings. The Inquisitor wrote a note to his widow, to desire her to pray for the soul of her late husband, and warn her not to complain of the holy Inquisition, as capable of any injustice or cruelty. The estate was confiscated to the Inquisition, and a small jointure allowed out of it to the widow. As they had only been married six months, and some part of the fortune was not yet paid, the inquisitor sent an order to the Constantini family, at Ferno, to pay the holy office, and without delay, what they owed to the late Count Della Torre. The effects of heretics are all ipso facto confiscated to the Inquisition from the very day, not of their conviction, but of their crime, so that all donations made after that time are void; and whatever they may have given, is claimed by the Inquisition, into whatsoever hands it may have pa.s.sed; even the fortunes they have given to their daughters in marriage, have been declared to belong to, and are claimed by the Inquisition; nor can it be doubted, that the desire of those confiscations is one great cause of the injustice and cruelty of that court.
The death of the unhappy Count Della Torre was soon publicly known; but no man cared to speak of it, not even his nearest relations, nor so much as to mention his name, lest anything should inadvertently escape them that might be construed into a disapprobation of the proceedings of the most holy tribunal; so great is the awe all men live in of that jealous and merciless court.
The deep impression that the death of my unhappy friend, the barbarous and inhuman treatment he had met with, and the part I had been obliged to act in so affecting a tragedy, made on my mind, got at once the better of my fears, so that, forgetting in a manner the dangers I had till then so much apprehended, I resolved, without further delay to put in execution the design I had formed, of quitting the Inquisition, and bidding forever adieu to Italy. To execute that design with some safety, I proposed to beg leave to visit the Virgin of Loretto, but thirteen miles distant, and to pa.s.s a week there; but in the mean time, to make the best of my way out of the reach of the Inquisition.
Having, therefore, after many conflicts with myself, asked leave to visit the neighboring sanctuary, and obtained it, I set out on horseback the very next morning, leaving, as I proposed to keep the horse, his full value with the owner. I took the road to Loretto, but turned out of it a short distance from Recanati, after a most violent struggle with myself, the attempt appearing to me at that juncture, quite desperate and impracticable; and the dreadful doom reserved for me should I miscarry, presented itself to my mind in the strongest light. But the reflection that I had it in my power to avoid being taken alive, and a persuasion that a man in my situation might lawfully avoid it, when every other means failed him, at the expense of his life, revived my staggered resolution; and all my fears ceasing at once, I steered my course, leaving Loretto behind me, to Rocca Contrada, to Fos...o...b..one, to Calvi in the dukedom of Urbino, and from thence through the Romagna into Bolognese, keeping the by-roads, and at a good distance from the cities through which the high road pa.s.sed.
Thus I advanced very slowly, travelling in very bad roads, and often in places where there was no road at all, to avoid, not only the cities, and towns, but also the villages. In the mean time I seldom had any other support but some coa.r.s.e provisions, and a very small quant.i.ty even, of them, that the poor shepherds, the countrymen or wood cleavers I met in those unfrequented by-places, could spare me. My horse fared not much better than myself; but, in choosing my sleeping-place I consulted his convenience as much as my own, pa.s.sing the night where I found most shelter for myself, and most gra.s.s for him. In Italy there are very few solitary farm-houses or cottages, the country people all living together in villages; and I thought it far safer to lie where I could be in any way sheltered, than to venture into any of them. Thus I spent seventeen days before I got out of the ecclesiastical state; and I very narrowly escaped being taken or murdered, on the very borders of that state; it happened thus.
I had pa.s.sed two whole days without any kind of subsistence whatever, meeting with no one in the by-roads that could supply me with any, and fearing to come near any house, as I was not far from the borders of the dominions of the Pope. I thought I should be able to hold out till I got into the Modanese, where I believed I should be in less danger than while I remained in the papal dominions. But finding myself, about noon of the third day, extremely weak and ready to faint away, I came into the high road that leads from Bologna to Florence, a few miles distant from the former city, and alighted at a post house, that stood quite by itself. Having asked the woman of the house whether she had any victuals, and being told that she had, I went to open the door of the only room in the house, (that being a place where gentlemen only stop to change horses,) and saw to my great surprise, a placard pasted on it, with a minute description of my whole person, sad a promise of a reward of 900 crowns (about 200 pounds English money) for delivering me up alive to the Inquisition, being a fugitive from that holy tribunal, and of 600 crowns for my head. By the same placard, all persons were forbidden, on pain of the greater excommunication, to receive or harbor, entertain, conceal, or screen me, or to be in any way aiding, or a.s.sisting me to make my escape. This greatly alarmed me, as the reader may well imagine; but I was still more frightened, when entering the room, I saw two fellows drinking there, who, fixing their eyes on me as soon as I went in, continued looking at me very steadfastly. I strove, by wiping my face and blowing my nose, and by looking out of the window, to prevent their having a full view of my features. But, one of them saying, "The gentleman seems afraid to be seen," I put up my handkerchief, and turning to the fellow, said boldly, "What do you mean you rascal? Look at me; am I afraid to be seen?" He said nothing, but looking again steadfastly at me, and nodding his head, went out, and his companion immediately followed him. I watched them, and seeing them, with two or three more, in close conference, and no doubt consulting whether they should apprehend me or not, I walked that moment into the stable, mounted my horse un.o.bserved by them, and while they were deliberating in an orchard behind the house, rode off at full speed, and in a few hours got into the Modanese, where I refreshed both with food and rest, as I was there in no immediate danger, my horse and myself. I was indeed surprised to find that those fellows did not pursue me, nor can I in any other way account for it, but by supposing, what is not improbable, that, as they were strangers as well as myself, and had all the appearance of banditti or ruffians flying out of the dominions of the Pope, the woman of the house did not care to trust them with her horses. From the Modanese I continued my journey, more leisurely through the Parmesan, the Milanese, and part of the Venetian territory, to Chiavenna, subject to the Grisons, who abhor the very name of the Inquisition, and are ever ready to receive and protect all who, flying from it, take refuge, as many Italians do, in their dominions. Still I carefully concealed who I was, and whence I came, for, though no Inquisition prevails among the Swiss, yet the Pope"s nuncio who resides at Lucerne, (a popish canton through which I was to pa.s.s,) might have persuaded the magistrate to stop me as an apostate and deserter from the order.
Having rested a few days at Chiavenna, I resumed my journey quite refreshed, continuing it through the country of the Grisons, and the two small cantons of Ury and Underwald, to the canton of Lucerne. There I missed my way, as I was quite unacquainted with the country, and discovering a city at a distance, was advancing to it, but slowly, as I knew not where I was, when a countryman whom I met, informed me that the city before me was Lucerne. Upon that intelligence, I turned out of the road as soon as the countryman was out of sight, and that night I pa.s.sed with a good natured shepherd in his cottage, who supplied me with sheep"s milk, and my horse with plenty of gra.s.s. I set out early next morning, making my way westward, as I knew that Berne lay west of Lucerne. But, after a few miles, the country proved very mountainous, and having travelled the whole day over mountains I was overtaken among them by night. As I was looking out for a place where I might shelter myself during the night, against the snow and rain, (for it both snowed and rained,) I perceived a light at a distance, and making towards it, I got into a kind of foot-path, but so narrow and rugged that I was obliged to lead my horse, and feel my way with one foot, (having no light to direct me,) before I durst move the other. Thus, with much difficulty I reached the place where the light was, a poor little cottage, and knocking at the door, was asked by a man within who I was, and what I wanted? I answered that I was a stranger and had lost my way.
"Lost your way!" exclaimed the man, "There is no way here to lose." I then asked him what canton I was in? and upon his answering that I was in the canton of Berne, I cried out transported with joy, "I thank G.o.d that I am." The good man answered, "And so do I." I then told him who I was, and that I was going to Berne but had quite lost myself by keeping out of all the high roads, to avoid falling into the hands of those who sought my destruction. He thereupon opened the door, received and entertained me with all the hospitality his poverty would admit of; regaled me with sour crout and some new laid eggs, the only provision he had, and clean straw with a kind of rug for a bed, he having no other for himself and wife. The good woman expressed as much good nature as her husband, and said many kind things in the Swiss language, which her husband interpreted to me in the Italian; for that language he well understood, having learned it in his youth, while servant in a public home on the borders of Italy, where both languages are spoken. I never pa.s.sed a more comfortable night; and no sooner did I begin to stir in the morning, than the good man and his wife both came to know how I rested; and, wishing they had been able to accommodate me better, obliged me to breakfast on two eggs, which providence, they said, had sent them for that purpose. I took leave of the wife, who seemed most sincerely to wish me a good journey. As for the husband, he would by all means attend me to the high road leading to Berne; which road he said was but two miles distant from that place. But he insisted on my first going back with him, to see the way I had come the night before; the only way, he said, I could have possibly come from the neighboring canton of Lucerne. I saw it, and shuddered at the danger I had escaped; for I found I had walked and led my horse a good way along a very narrow path on the brink of a very dangerous precipice. The man made so many pertinent and pious remarks on the occasion, as both charmed and surprised me. I no less admired his disinterestedness than his piety; for, upon our parting, after he had attended me till I was out of all danger of losing my way, I could by no means prevail upon him to accept of any reward for his trouble. He had the satisfaction, he said, of having relieved me in the greatest distress, which was in itself a sufficient reward, and he wished for no other.
Having at length got safe into French Flanders, I there repaired to the college of the Scotch Jesuits at Douay, and discovering myself to the rector, I acquainted him with the cause of my sudden departure from Italy, and begged him to give notice of my arrival, as well as the motives of my flight to Michael Angelo Tambuvini, general of the order, and my very particular friend.
The rector wrote as I desired him, to the general, and he, taking no notice of my flight, in his answer, (for he could not disapprove, and did not think it safe to approve of it,) ordered me to continue where I was till further notice. I arrived at Douay early in May, and continued there till the beginning of July, when the rector received a second letter from the general, acquainting him that he had been commanded by the congregation of the Inquisition, to order me, wherever I was, back into Italy; to promise me, in their name, full pardon and forgiveness if I obeyed, but if I did not obey, to treat me as an apostate. He added, that the same order had been transmitted, soon after my flight, to the nuncios at the different Roman Catholic courts; and he, therefore, advised me to consult my own safety without further delay.
Upon the receipt of the general"s kind letter, the rector was of opinion that I should repair by all means, and without loss of time, to England, not only as the safest asylum I could fly to, in my present situation, but as a place where I should soon recover my native language, and be usefully employed, either there or in Scotland. The place being thus agreed on, and it being at the same time settled between the rector and me, that I should set out the very next morning, I solemnly promised, at his request and desire, to take no kind of notice, after my arrival in England, of his having been in any way privy to my flight, or the general"s letter to him. This promise I have faithfully and honorably observed; and should have thought myself guilty of the blackest ingrat.i.tude if I had not observed it, being sensible that, had it been known at Rome, that, either the rector or general had been accessary to my flight, THE INQUISITION WOULD HAVE RESENTED IT SEVERELY IN BOTH. For although a Jesuit in France, in Flanders, or in Germany, is out of the reach of the Inquisition, the general is not; and the high tribunal not only have it in their power to punish the general himself, who resides constantly at Rome, but may oblige him to inflict what punishment they please on any of the order obnoxious to them.
The rector went that very night out of town, and in his absence, but not without his privity, I took one of the horses of the college, early next morning, as if I were going for a change of air, being somewhat indisposed, to pa.s.s a few days at Lisle; but steering a different course, I reached Aire that night and Calais the next day. I was there in no danger of being stopped and seized at the prosecution of the Inquisition, a tribunal no less abhorred in France than in England.
But being informed that the nuncios at the different courts had been ordered, soon after my flight, to cause me to be apprehended in Roman Catholic countries through which I must pa.s.s, as an apostate and deserter from the order, I was under no small apprehension of being discovered and apprehended as such even at Calais. No sooner, therefore, did I alight at the Inn, than I went down to the quay, and there as I was very little acquainted with the sea, and thought the pa.s.sage much shorter than it is, I endeavored to engage some fishermen to carry me that very night, in one of their small vessels, over to England. This alarmed the guards of the harbor, and I should have been certainly apprehended as a person guilty, or suspected of some great crime, fleeing from justice, had not Lord Baltimore, whom I had the good luck to meet in the Inn, informed me of my danger, and pitying my condition, attended me that moment, with all his company, to the port, and conveyed me immediately on board his yacht. There I lay that night, leaving every thing I had but the clothes on my back, in the Inn; and the next day his Lordship set me ash.o.r.e at Dover, from whence I came in the common stage to London.
In the year 1706, the Inquisition at Arragon was broken up by the French troops, under the command of the Duke of Orleans. The Holy Inquisitors were driven from their beautiful house, and in answer to their indignant remonstrance were told that the king wanted the house to quarter his troops in, and they were therefore compelled to leave it immediately.
The doors of the prisons were then thrown open, and among the four hundred prisoners who were set at liberty were sixty young women, very beautiful in person, and clad in the richest attire.
Anthony Gavin, formerly one of the Roman Catholic priests of Saragossa, Spain, relates (in a book published by him after his conversion) that when travelling in France he met one of those women in the inn at Rotchfort; the son of the inn-keeper, formerly an officer in the French army, having married her for her great beauty and superior intelligence.
In accordance with his request, she freely related to him the incidents of her prison life, from which we take the following extract:
"Early the next morning, Mary got up, and told me that n.o.body was up yet in the house; and that she would show me the DRY PAN and the GRADUAL FIRE, on condition that I should keep it a secret for her sake as well as my own. This I promised, and she took me along with her, and showed me a dark room with a thick iron door, and within it an oven and a large bra.s.s pan upon it, with a cover of the same and a lock to it. The oven was burning at the time, and I asked Mary for what purpose the pan was there. Without giving me any answer, she took me by the hand and led me to a large room, where she showed me a thick wheel, covered on both sides with thick boards, and opening a little window in the center of it, desired me to look with a candle on the inside of it, and I saw all the circ.u.mference of the wheel set with SHARP RAZORS. After that she showed me a PIT FULL OF SERPENTS AND TOADS. Then she said to me, "Now, my good mistress, I"ll tell you the use of these things. The dry pan and gradual fire are for those who oppose the holy father"s will, and for heretics. They are put naked and alive into the pan, and the cover of it being locked up, the executioner begins to put in the oven a small fire, and by degrees he augmenteth it, till the body is burned to ashes. The second is designed for those who speak against the Pope and the holy fathers. They are put within the wheel, and the door being locked, the executioner turns the wheel till the person is dead. The third is for those who contemn the images, and refuse to give the due respect and veneration to ecclesiastical persons; for they are thrown alive into the pit, and there they become the food of serpents and toads." Then Mary said to me that another day she would show me the torments for public sinners and transgressors of the commandments of holy mother church; but I, in deep amazement, desired her to show me no more places; for the very thought of those three which I had seen, was enough to terrify me to the heart. So we went to my room, and she charged me again to be very obedient to all commands, for if I was not, I was sure to undergo the torment of the dry pan."
Llorente, the Spanish historian and secretary-general of the Inquisition, relates the following incident: "A physician, Juan de Salas, was accused of having used a profane expression, twelve months before, in the heat of debate. He denied the accusation, and produced several witnesses to prove his innocence. But Moriz, the inquisitor at Valladolid, where the charge was laid, caused de Salas to be brought into his presence in the torture-chamber, stripped to his shirt, and laid on a LADDER or DONKEY, an instrument resembling a wooden trough, just large enough to receive the body, with no bottom, but having a bar or bars to placed that the body bent, by its own weight, into an exquisitely painful position. His head was lower than his heels, and the breathing, in consequence, became exceedingly difficult. The poor man, so laid, was bound around the arms and legs with hempen cords, each of them encircling the limb eleven times.
"During this part of the operation they admonished him to confess the blasphemy; but he only answered that he had never spoken a sentence of such a kind, and then, resigning himself to suffer, repeated the Athanasian creed, and prayed to G.o.d and our Lady many times. Being still bound, they raised his head, covered his face with a piece of fine linen, and, forcing open the mouth, caused water to drip into it from an earthen jar, slightly perforated at the bottom, producing in addition to his sufferings from distension, a horrid sensation of choking. But again, when they removed the jar for a moment, he declared that he had never uttered such a sentence; and this he often repeated. They then pulled the cords on his right leg, cutting into the flesh, replaced the linen on his face, dropped the water as before, and tightened the cords on his right leg the second time; but still he maintained that he had never spoken such a thing; and in answer to the questions of his tormentors, constantly reiterated that he HAD NEVER SPOKEN THOSE WORDS.
Moriz then p.r.o.nounced that the said torture should be regarded as begun, but not finished; and De Salas was released, to live, if he could survive, in the incessant apprehension that if he gave the slightest umbrage to a familiar, he would be carried again into the same chamber, and be RACKED IN EVERY LIMB."
Llorente also relates, from the original records, another case quite as cruel and unjust as the above. "On the 8th day of December, 1528, one Catalina, a woman of BAD CHARACTER, informed the inquisitors that, EIGHTEEN YEARS BEFORE she had lived in the house with a Morisco named Juan, by trade a coppersmith, and a native of Segovia; that she had observed that neither he nor his children ate pork or drank wine, and that, on Sat.u.r.day nights and Sunday mornings they used to wash their feet, which custom, as well as abstinence from pork and wine, was peculiar to the Moors. The old man was at that time an inhabitant of Benevente, and seventy-one years of age. But the inquisitors at once summoned him into their presence, and questioned him at three several interviews. All that he could tell was, that he received baptism when he was forty-five years of age; that having never eaten pork or drunk wine, he had no taste for them; and that, being coppersmiths, they found it necessary to wash themselves thoroughly once a week. After some other examinations, they sent him back to Benevente, with prohibition to go beyond three leagues" distance from the town. Two years afterwards the inquisitor determined that he should be threatened with torture, IN ORDER TO OBTAIN INFORMATION THAT MIGHT HELP THEM TO CRIMINATE OTHERS.
He was accordingly taken to Valladolid, and in a subterranean chamber, called the "chamber, or dungeon, of torment," stripped naked, and bound to the "ladder." This might well have extorted something like confession from an old man of seventy-one; but he told them that whatever he might say when under torture would be merely extorted by the extreme anguish, and therefore unworthy of belief; that he would not, through fear of pain, confess what had never taken place. They kept him in close prison until the next Auto de Fe, when he walked among the penitents, with a lighted candle in his hand, and, after seeing others burnt to death, paid the holy office a fee of four ducats, and went home, not acquitted, but released. He was not summoned again, as he died soon afterwards."
It sometimes happened that an individual was arrested by mistake, and a person who was entirely innocent was tortured instead of the real or supposed criminal. A case of this kind Mr. Bower found related at length in the "Annals of the Inquisition at Macerata."
"An order was sent from the high tribunal at Rome to all the inquisitors throughout Italy, enjoining them to apprehend a clergyman minutely described in that order. One Answering the description in many particulars being discovered in the diocese of Osimo, at a small distance from Macerata, and subject to that Inquisition, he was there decoyed into the holy office, and by an order from Rome SO RACKED AS TO LOSE HIS SENSES. In the mean time, the true person being apprehended, the unhappy wretch was dismissed, by a second order from Rome, but he never recovered the use of his senses, NOR WAS ANY CARE TAKEN OF HIM BY THE INQUISITION."
It would be easy to fill a volume with such narratives as the above, but we forbear. We are not writing a history of the Inquisition. We simply wish to exhibit the true spirit by which the Romanists are actuated in their dealings with those over whom they have power. We therefore, in closing this chapter of horrors, beg leave to place before our readers one of the FATHERLY BENEDICTIONS with which, His Holiness, the Pope, dismisses his refractory subjects. Does it not show most convincingly what he would do here in America, if he had, among us, the power he formerly possessed in the old world, when the least inadvertent word might perchance seal the doom of the culprit?
A POPISH BULL OK CURSE.
"p.r.o.nounced on all who leave the Church of Rome. By the authority of G.o.d Almighty, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and the undefiled Virgin Mary, mother and patroness of our Saviour, and of all celestial virtues, Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Dominions, Powers, Cherubim and Seraphim, and of all the holy Patriarchs, Prophets, and of all the Apostles and Evangelists, of the holy innocents, who in the sight of the holy Lamb are found worthy to sing the new song of the Holy Martyrs and Holy Confessors, and of all the Holy Virgins, and of all the Saints, together with the Holy Elect of G.o.d,--MAY HE BE d.a.m.nED. We excommunicate and anathematize him, from the threshold of the holy church of G.o.d Almighty.
We sequester him, that he may be tormented, disposed, and be delivered over with Datham and Abiram, and with those who say unto the Lord, "Depart from us, we desire none of thy ways;" as a fire is quenched with water, so let the light of him be put out forevermore, unless it shall repent him, and make satisfaction. Amen.
"May the Father who creates man, curse him. May the Son, who suffered for us, curse him! May the Holy Ghost who is poured out in baptism, curse him! May the Holy Cross, which Christ for our salvation, triumphing over his enemies, ascended, curse him!
"May the Holy Mary, ever Virgin and Mother of G.o.d, curse him! May all the Angels, Princ.i.p.alities, and Powers, and all heavenly Armies curse him! May the glorious band of the Patriarchs and Prophets curse him!
"May St. John the Precursor, and St John the Baptist, and St. Peter and St Paul, and St. Andrew and all other of Christ"s Apostles together curse him and may the rest of the Disciples and Evangelists who by their preaching converted the universe, and the Holy and wonderful company of Martyrs and Confessors, who by their works are found pleasing to G.o.d Almighty; may the holy choir of the Holy Virgins, who for the honor of G.o.d have despised the things of the world, d.a.m.n him. May all the Saints from the beginning of the world to everlasting ages, who are found to be beloved of G.o.d, d.a.m.n him!
"May he be d.a.m.ned wherever he be, whether in the house or in the alley, in the woods or in the water, or in the church! May he be cursed in living or dying!
"May he be cursed in eating and drinking, in being hungry, in being thirsty, in fasting and sleeping, in slumbering, and in sitting, in living, in working, in resting, and in blood letting! May he be cursed in all the faculties of his body!
"May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly. May he be cursed in his hair; cursed be he in his brains, and his vertex, in his temples, in his eyebrows, in his cheeks, in his jaw-bones, in his nostrils, in his teeth, and grinders, in his lips, in his shoulders, in his arms, and in his fingers.
"May he be d.a.m.ned in his mouth, in his breast, in his heart, and purtenances, down to the very stomach!
"May he be cursed in his reins and groins, in his thighs and his hips, and in his knees, his legs and his feet, and his toe-nails!
"May he be cursed in all his joints, and articulation of the members; from the crown of the head to the soles of his feet, may there be no soundness!
"May the Son of the living G.o.d, with all the glory of his majesty, CURSE HIM! And may Heaven, with all the powers that move therein, rise up against him, and curse and d.a.m.n him; unless he repent and make satisfaction! Amen! So be it. Be it so. Amen."