Charles III. succeeded his brother Ferdinand on the 10th of August, 1759, and died on the 17th of November, 1788. The inquisitors-general during this reign were Don Manuel Quintano Bonifaz, archbishop of Pharsala; Don Philip Bertran, bishop of Salamanca, and Don Augustin Rubin de Cevallos, bishop of Jaen. The characters of these persons were humane, compa.s.sionate, and inclined to benevolence; qualities which caused a remarkable decrease in the number of public _autos-da-fe_. If the reign of Charles III. is compared with that of Philip V., his father, they appear as if they had been separated by a period of several centuries. The progress of knowledge was very rapid under this prince; even the provincial inquisitors, though the laws of the Inquisition had not been altered, adopted principles of moderation, which were unknown under the Austrian princes. It is true, that from time to time great severity was shown towards unimportant offences; but among the trials of this reign, I have seen several which were suspended, though the proofs were much more conclusive than many which were sufficient to condemn the criminal to _relaxation_, under Philip II.

Yet, though the system was comparatively moderate, the number of trials was still immense, because all the denunciations were received. The witnesses of the preparatory instruction were examined immediately, in order to discover some charge, which the prejudices of the age rendered serious. If out of an hundred trials which were begun ten had been concluded, the number of persons subjected to _penances_ would have been greater than under Ferdinand V.; but the tribunal was no longer the same. Almost all the trials were suspended before the decree of arrest was issued. The denounced was sometimes induced to repair to the tribunal on the pretext of business, and then informed of the charges against him; he replied to them, and returned home, after having promised to return a second time when summoned. Sometimes the proceedings were abridged, and the criminal was only condemned to a private penance, which might be performed without the knowledge of any person but the commissary of the tribunal.

Several trials which were commenced against persons of rank, were not proceeded in after the preliminary instruction; such were those of the Marquis de Roda, minister secretary of state, of grace and justice; of the Count de Aranda, president of the Council of Castile, and captain-general of New Castile, who was afterwards amba.s.sador to Paris, and lastly, prime-minister; of the Count de Florida Blanca, then fiscal of the Council of Castile for civil affairs, afterwards successor to the Marquis de Roda, and prime-minister; of the Count de Campomanes, fiscal for criminal affairs, and afterwards governor of the same council; of those of the Archbishops of Burgos and Saragossa, and of the Bishops of Tarazona, Albarracin, and Orihuela, who had composed the council extraordinary, in 1767, for the expulsion of the Jesuits. The trials of all these distinguished men had the same origin.

The Bishop of Cuenca, Don Isidro de Carbajal y Lancaster, highly respectable from his family, which was that of the Dukes of Abrantes, and from his dignity, his irreproachable conduct, and his charity to the poor, was less acquainted with the true principles of the canonic law than zealous for the maintenance of the ecclesiastical privileges.

Influenced by this motive, he was so indiscreet as to represent to the king, that the _Church was persecuted in its rights, property and ministers_, and drew a picture of the reign of Charles III., which would have been more applicable to that of the Emperor Julian. The king commissioned the Council of Castile to examine if the complaint was just, and to propose measures to repair the injury, if any had taken place. The two fiscals of the council both made learned replies, in which the ignorance of the bishop, and the consequences of his imprudent zeal, were exposed. These answers, and the other papers belonging to the proceedings, were printed by the king's order, and though they were generally approved, some priests and monks, who regretted the inordinate power once possessed by the Church, denounced several propositions contained in them, as Lutheran, Calvinistic, or defended by other parties inimical to the Roman Church.

The two archbishops, and the three bishops, already mentioned, who had voted for the requisition addressed to the Pope for the expulsion of the Jesuits, were also denounced, as suspected of professing the impious doctrines of philosophism, which, it was said, they had only adopted to please the court. They were commissioned to take cognizance of several affairs relating to the Jesuits, and only accidentally spoke of the Inquisition, and expressed opinions contrary to its system. The inquisitors were all creatures of the Jesuits, without even the exception of the inquisitor-general: it is not therefore surprising that they received so many denunciations. The exclusive right possessed by the Court of Rome to try bishops, never prevented the inquisitors from secretly examining witnesses against them, because it gave them a pretence to write to the Pope, and request permission to carry on the proceedings; and though it was the custom of the holy see to transfer the trials of bishops to Rome, the _Supreme Council_ of Spain always put forward its fiscal, in order to justify its conduct in prosecuting bishops: this was the case in the affair of Carranza.

The denunciations had not the effect expected by the enemies of the prelates, because no _singular_ and independent proposition, opposed to true doctrine, was proved to have been advanced. In a less enlightened age, these prelates would have been exposed to great mortification from this attack; but at this time the Inquisition found it dangerous to be too severe, because the court had adopted the system of vigorously opposing all the ancient doctrines which favoured the pretensions of the ecclesiastics at the expense of the royal prerogatives; and on the occasion of the publication of some conclusions on the canonical law, which were entirely favourable to the Pope and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, a royal censor was appointed for each university, without whose approbation no conclusion could be published or maintained.

The perseverance of the government in the new system prevented the inquisitors from venturing to sentence the prelates of the extraordinary council: they however thought proper to endeavour to avert the storm, and applied to Don Fray Joachim de Eleta, the king's confessor. This man was an ignorant _Recollet_, and known for his blind attachment to the Court of Rome. The prelates declared that they condemned several propositions advanced by the two fiscals in their work called _An Impartial Judgment of the Monitory of Parma_, which was written by the king's order, because they thought they tended to the infringement of the privileges of the church. After this declaration, the prelates used every means to make the confessor persuade Charles III., that the printed copies ought not to be published, and that the work should be reprinted, after the suppression of several propositions. The inquisitor-general and the Supreme Council being informed of this circ.u.mstance, the affair took another turn, and the faction of the Jesuits became more calm.

These events exposed to great danger a person who had entered into them without being aware of it. M. Clement, a French priest, treasurer of the cathedral of Auxerre, and afterwards bishop of Versailles, arrived at Madrid in 1768, at the time when the event above mentioned occupied every mind. He held several conversations on this subject with the Marquis de Roda, the fiscals of the council, and the Bishops of Tarazona and Albarracin[77]. The zeal of this theologian for the purity of doctrine on all points of discipline induced him to say, that the good dispositions of the Court of Madrid ought to be taken advantage of, and proposed three measures. The first was to place the Inquisition under each bishop, who should be the chief, with a deliberative vote, with the addition of two inquisitors with a consultive vote; the second, to oblige the monks and nuns to acknowledge the bishop as their chief, and to obey him as such after renouncing all the privileges contrary to this arrangement; the third to abolish the distinct schools of theology, under the t.i.tles of Thomists, Scotists, Suarists, or others, and to have only one system of theology for the schools and universities, founded on the principles of St. Augustin and St. Thomas.

It is sufficient to be acquainted with Spain, and the state of the monks at that period, to foresee the persecution which the author of such a plan would incur. The confessor of the king and the inquisitor-general were informed of it by their political spies, and several monks denounced M. Clement to the holy office, as a Lutheran, a Calvinistic heretic, and an enemy of the regular orders.

M. Clement suspected the existence of this intrigue, from some expressions made use of by a Dominican, with whom he was intimate. The inquisitors, who saw that M. Clement was received at court, did not dare to arrest him, but they requested their chief to oblige him to quit the kingdom. The treasurer of Auxerre imparted his fears to the Count de Aranda, and the Marquis de Roda; who being, from his connexion at court, acquainted with all that had pa.s.sed, advised him to depart, but without informing him of what it was useless for him to know. M. Clement followed his advice, and though he had intended to go to Portugal, he returned immediately to France, to avoid the _Sbirri_ of the holy office, who might have arrested him on his return from Lisbon, if the system of the court was changed. In fact a great number of charges were brought against him after his departure, but they were not made public, and he wrote his travels without knowing anything of the plots against him.

All that pa.s.sed on the occasion of the apostolical prohibition of the catechism of Mesengui was made public: Charles III. had ordered that it should be made use of in the religious instruction of Charles IV.; and the inquisitor-general was openly and justly blamed, for having published the brief of prohibition, without waiting to obtain the consent of the king. This proceeding was the cause of the exile of the inquisitor-general. His disgrace might have rendered him more prudent, but in his reply to the king, in 1769, concerning some measures taken by the extraordinary council of five prelates, he advanced, as certain, several propositions concerning the Inquisition, which might have been proved to be false, if the Marquis de Roda had consulted the registers of the Supreme Council. He said that the Inquisition had met with nothing but opposition from the beginning; that it was conspired against in the most cruel manner; that all the proceedings of the council were made public, except the trials for heresy, but that even those were always submitted to his Majesty; and that the charge against it of acting with _entire independence_ was not just, he concluded with saying, that his Majesty might appoint an ecclesiastic as his secretary to attend the council, and inform him of all that pa.s.sed.

It is impossible to find a reason for the necessity here imposed upon the king to have a _priest_ for his secretary, since the inquisitors employed seculars in their offices, who were permitted to see the trial, though obliged to take an oath of secrecy, and two members of the Council of Castile also attend the Supreme Council. Yet neither an ecclesiastic nor a layman could prevent fraud: the same may be said of the members of the Council of Castile, because in case of any intrigues, for example, in a conflict for jurisdiction, the counsellors a.s.sembled at the house of the inquisitor-general, and their chief sealed their papers with his private seal.

The most decisive proof of the _entire_ independence of the Inquisition, exists in two laws of Charles III., concerning bigamy and the prohibition of books; they were insufficient to restrain the inquisitors within their jurisdiction.

Yet though these abuses and many others were still continued, I do not hesitate to say that the inquisitors of the reigns of Charles III. and his successors were men possessed of extreme prudence and singular moderation in comparison with those of the time of Philip V. and the preceding reigns. This is confirmed by the very small number of _autos-da-fe_ celebrated under the two kings, a period of twenty-nine years; only ten persons were condemned, four of whom were burnt, and fifty-six individuals subjected to penances. All the other trials were terminated by _individual autos-da-fe_; the condemned was taken into a church to hear his sentence read, when it was confirmed by the Supreme Council, without waiting for other prisoners to form a particular _auto-da-fe_. Other trials are concluded by a _lesser auto-da-fe_ in the audience-hall of the tribunal; another mode, which was the least severe, was to celebrate the _auto-da-fe_ in the presence of the secretaries of the Inquisition alone; no greater indulgence than this could be shown.

The individual _auto-da-fe_ was decreed in two famous trials of the reign of Charles III. Of the first, that of Olavide, an account has been given in Chapter 26. The second was that of Don Francisco de Leon y Luna, a priest and knight of the military order of St. Jago. He was condemned as violently suspected of having fallen into the heresies of the _Illuminati_ and of Molinos, for having seduced several women, for communicating several times with the consecrated wafer from superst.i.tious motives, and for preaching a false and presumptuous mysticity to several nuns and other women who were the dupes of his error and their own weakness. Leon was imprisoned for three years in a convent; he was then banished for seven years from Madrid, and forbidden to exercise the ministry of a confessor. The council of the orders requested the king to deprive Leon of his cross and knighthood, according to the statutes which ordain that measure towards all who commit a crime which incurs an infamous punishment. But the council ought to have known that the _suspicion_ of heresy was not sufficient, since the tribunal always declares, if the condemned desire it, that this sort of sentence does not prevent them from attaining offices and dignities.

At Saragossa the Marquis d'Aviles, intendant of Aragon, was accused before the holy office of having read prohibited books; but this denunciation, and that of the Bishop of Barcelona for Jansenism at Madrid, and several others of the same nature, were pa.s.sed over without further notice.

CHAPTER XLIII.

OF THE SPANISH INQUISITION UNDER CHARLES IV.

Charles IV. ascended the throne on the 17th November, 1788; he abdicated on the 19th March, 1808, in consequence of the popular commotions at Aranjuez. The inquisitors-general under Charles IV. were Don Augustin Rubin de Cevallos, Bishop of Jaen; Don Manuel de Abad-y-la-Sierra, Archbishop of Selimbra; the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, Don Francisco Lorenzana; and Don Ramon Joseph de Arce, Archbishop of Burgos.

The two obstacles which had princ.i.p.ally contributed to impede the progress of learning during the three preceding reigns, were removed by the reform of the six grand colleges and the expulsion of the Jesuits.

Before this revolution, all the canonical offices and magistracies were given to the members and fellows of the colleges; while the immense influence of the Jesuits prevented all who were not their disciples, or Jesuits of the _short robe_, from obtaining any offices or honours. The Marquis de Roda was the author of this politic measure, which caused him to be hated by the disciples of St. Ignatius. But this minister has obtained an honourable place in history, because in granting to _all_ cla.s.ses the rewards due to merit, he excited a general emulation, which increased the influence of knowledge and a taste for the sciences. This has caused it to be said that the restoration of good Spanish literature was the work of de Roda, but the commencement of that change may be more correctly dated from the reign of Philip V.

During the twenty years preceding the accession of Charles IV. a mult.i.tude of distinguished men had arisen, who would doubtless have led Spain to rival France in the good taste and perfection of literary works, if one of the most terrible events recorded in history had not arrested the impulse these great men had given. The French revolution caused a great number of works to be written on the rights of man, of citizens, and of nations; the principles contained in them could not but alarm Charles IV. and his ministers. The Spaniards read these books with avidity; the minister dreaded the contagion of this political doctrine, but in attempting to arrest its progress, he caused the human mind to retrograde. He charged the inquisitor-general to prohibit and seize all the books, pamphlets, and French newspapers, relating to the revolution, and to recommend to his agents to use the greatest vigilance in preventing them from being clandestinely introduced into the kingdom.

Another measure employed by the government was to suppress the office of teacher of the natural law in the universities and seminaries.

The Count de Florida-Blanca was then prime-minister; this conduct entirely destroyed the good opinion entertained of him by the nation. He was said to be a novice in the art of government, because the prohibition would only excite greater curiosity. The commissioners of the holy office received an order to oppose the introduction of the works of the modern philosophers, as contrary to the sovereign authority, and commanded every person to denounce whom they knew to be attached to the principles of insurrection.

It would be difficult to calculate the number of denunciations which followed this order. The greatest number of the denounced were young students of the universities of Salamanca and Valladolid. Those who wished to read the French writings braved the prohibition, and employed every means to obtain them; so that the laws of nature and of persons were more studied than before the suppression of the office of teacher.

The severity of the administration only caused the commencement of an immense number of trials, which were never finished, for want of proofs.

Many Spaniards, some of ill.u.s.trious birth and others of great learning, were the objects of secret informations, as suspected of impiety and philosophism. The history of their trials, and those of many distinguished persons for Jansenism, have been given in the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth chapters.

Don Bernardo-Maria de Calzada, colonel of infantry, and brother-in-law to the Marquis de Manca, interested me much, when he had the misfortune to be arrested by the Duke de Medina-Celi, grand provost of the holy office: I accompanied him as secretary, the notary for the sequestrations being ill. Don Bernardo was the father of a very large family, who were reduced to indigence by this event, and it gave me the greatest grief to witness the sad situation of their mother. I presume that that lady has not forgotten my conduct on that mournful night and on the following day, when I returned to visit her. The unfortunate Calzada, whose appointment in the office of the minister of war was not sufficient to maintain his very numerous family, had undertaken the translation of some French books, and composed a satirical work, by which he made enemies of some fanatics and monks, who, affecting the most austere morals, were intolerant towards all who did not agree with their opinions. By their denunciations they ruined this family. Calzada, after pa.s.sing some time in the prisons of the holy office, submitted to an abjuration _de levi_, which is almost equivalent to an absolution, and was banished from Madrid, after giving up his place and all hope of advancement.

The Inquisition of the _Court_ was more indulgent towards the Marquis de Narros: although many witnesses deposed that they had heard him maintain some heretical propositions of Voltaire and Rousseau, whose works he boasted that he had read, as well as those of Mirabeau, Montesquieu, the Baron d'Holbac, and other philosophers of the same school, he was spared the disgrace of an imprisonment and a public censure. It was thought more decent to request the Count de Florida-Blanca to write to him by the ordinary courier to Guipuscoa, where he then resided, and inform him that the king commanded him to repair to Madrid on some affairs of the government. The Marquis hastened to court, flattering himself (as he informed his relation the Duke of Grenada) that he would be appointed sub-governor to the Prince of Asturias, now Ferdinand VII. On the next day he received an order not to quit Madrid, and to attend a summons to the Inquisition. Some time after he confessed the truth of the charges, and added some other circ.u.mstances, protesting at the same time that he had always been a good Catholic, and that a desire of pa.s.sing for the most learned man in his country induced him to advance the propositions.

He abjured _de levi_; some private penances were imposed on him, and the affair was only known to a few persons.

The inquisitors of Valencia prosecuted Fray Augustine Cabades, commander of the convent of the nuns of the order of Mercy, and professor of theology in that city; he abjured, and was then released from prison. When he had obtained his liberty, he demanded a revision of his judgment; the Supreme Council acknowledged the justice of his appeal, and the sentence was declared null and void.

Don Mariano Louis de Urquijo, prime-minister and secretary of state under Charles IV., was also an object for the persecutions of the holy office. His great strength of mind, and a careful education, raised him above the errors of his age. He made himself known in his early youth by a translation of the _Death of Caesar_, a tragedy by Voltaire, which he published with a preliminary _Essay on the Origin of the Spanish Theatre, and its Influence on Morals_. This production, which only displays a generous wish to acquire fame, and the ardent genius of its young author, attracted the attention of the Inquisition. Private informations were taken concerning the religious opinions of the Chevalier de Urquijo, and the tribunal ascertained that he manifested great independence in his opinions, with a decided taste for philosophy, which the Inquisition called the doctrine of unbelievers. Everything consequently was prepared for his arrest, when the Count d'Aranda, then prime-minister, who discovered his merit (and had remarked his name in the list of distinguished youths destined to serve the state, belonging to the Count de Florida-Blanca his predecessor,) proposed to the king that he should be initiated into public affairs. Charles IV. appointed him to the office of first secretary of state in 1792.

The inquisitors changed their manner of proceeding when they saw the elevation of their intended victim. Their policy at this time led them to shew a deference towards the ministry which had not been observed in preceding ages. They converted the decree of imprisonment into another called the _audience of charges_, by which de Urquijo was required to appear privately before the Inquisition of the court whenever he was summoned. The sentence p.r.o.nounced him to be only _slightly suspected_ of partaking the errors of the unbelieving philosophers. He was absolved _ad cautelam_, and some spiritual penances were imposed on him which he might perform in private. The tribunal exacted his consent to the prohibition of his preliminary essay and the tragedy; but as a remarkable testimony of consideration, his name was not mentioned in the edict, either as the author or translator. The inquisitors, even of modern times, have rarely shewn themselves so moderate; but the fear of offending the Count d'Aranda (who abhorred the tribunal) was the real motive of their conduct.

Urquijo, at the age of thirty, became prime-minister, and in that quality exerted himself to extirpate abuses, and to destroy the errors which opposed the prosperity of his party and the progress of knowledge.

He encouraged industry and the arts, and the public owes to him the immortal work of the Baron de Humboldt. Contrary to the custom of Spain, he allowed him to travel in America, and supported him with the zeal of a person pa.s.sionately attached to the arts and sciences. With the a.s.sistance of his friend Admiral Mazarredo he raised the navy. He was the first in Europe who meditated the abolition of slavery; and at that time concluded a treaty with the Emperor of Morocco for the exchange of prisoners of war, which is still in force. In the year 1800, when fortune seemed everywhere to attend the French arms, and the government persecuted the august house of Bourbon, he had the glory of establishing a throne in Etruria for a prince of that family, who had married a daughter of Charles IV., and signed the treaty to that effect at St.

Ildephonso with General Berthier, afterwards Prince of Wagram.

The death of Pius VI. gave him an opportunity of freeing Spain, to a certain degree, from its dependance on the Vatican. On the 5th September, 1799, he induced the king to sign a decree which restored to the bishops the powers which had been usurped by the Court of Rome, and delivered the people from an annual impost of several millions, produced by the sale of dispensations and other bulls and briefs.

The reform of the Inquisition ought to have followed this bold step. The minister wished to suppress the tribunal entirely, and apply its revenues to the establishment of useful and charitable inst.i.tutions. He drew up the edict for that purpose, and presented it to Charles IV. for signature. Though Urquijo did not succeed in this attempt, he convinced the king of the necessity of reforming the tribunal.

Among the many wise regulations suggested to the king by Urquijo, was that published in the form of an ordinance in 1799, on the liberty and independence of all the books, papers and effects of the foreign consuls established in the sea-ports, and in the trading towns belonging to Spain. It was occasioned by an inconsiderate disturbance made by the commissioners of the holy office at Alicant, in the house of Don Leonard Stuck, consul for Holland, and at Barcelona, at the residence of the French consul.

Those happy dispositions of the Court of Spain vanished at the fall of the minister who had inspired them. The victim of an intrigue, he shared the fate of those great men who do not succeed in destroying the prejudices and errors which they oppose. Urquijo was confined, and kept in the strictest solitude, in the humid dungeons of the citadel of Pampluna, where he was unable to obtain books, ink, paper, fire, or light.

Ferdinand VII., on his accession to the throne, declared his treatment to have been unjust and arbitrary; and forgetting the persecutions he had suffered for eight years, he blessed, in Ferdinand, the sovereign who would make the necessary reforms, and had voluntarily put a period to his sufferings. He repaired to Vittoria, when that prince stopped there on his way to Bayonne, and used every means to prevent him from making that fatal journey. The letters he wrote on this subject to his friend, General Cuesta, contain an exact prophecy of all the miseries which have since overwhelmed Spain[78], and point out the means of avoiding them.

Urquijo refused to repair to Bayonne, although Napoleon sent him three orders to do so, until the renunciation and abdication of Charles IV., Ferdinand VII., and the princes of that house, had been made known.

After the royal family had left the place, he went there, and endeavoured to persuade Napoleon to give up his plans.

He accepted the appointment of Secretary to the Junta of Notables, which was then a.s.sembled at Bayonne, and soon after the office of Minister-Secretary of State. His generous intentions need no comments; they are known to all. The eulogium of this great man has just been made by our energetic and sincere advocate; the public will read it with pleasure and interest. During his ministry, he had the happiness of witnessing the decree which suppressed the formidable tribunal of the holy office, and declared it to be injurious to sovereignty.

Urquijo died at Paris, after an illness of six days, at the age of forty-nine. He died as he had lived--full of that courage, serenity, that philosophy, and love of virtue, which belong to the virtuous and wise alone. He was buried on the 4th of May, 1817, in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise, where a magnificent monument of white Carrara marble has been erected to his memory.

In 1792 the inquisitors of Saragossa received a denunciation, and examined witnesses against Don Augustin Abad-y-la-Sierra, Bishop of Barbastro, who was accused of Jansenism, and of approving the principles which were the basis of the civil const.i.tution of the French clergy under the const.i.tutional a.s.sembly. During the progress of this affair, Don Manuel Abad-y-la-Sierra, the brother of Don Augustin, was made inquisitor-general, and the inquisitors were afraid to carry it on. When Don Manuel was dismissed from his office, he also was denounced as a Jansenist, but he was not prosecuted.

The bishop of Murcia and Carthagena, Victoriano Lopez Gonzalo, was denounced in 1800 as suspected of Jansenism and other heresies, and for having permitted certain propositions on some points of doctrine to be maintained in his seminary. The trial of the bishop was not carried farther than the summary instruction; because, on being informed of the plots of some scholastic doctors who were partisans of the Jesuits, he defended himself so ably before the inquisitor-general, that the members of council did not proceed against him; but they continued the prosecution of the theses, when they perceived that they were favourable to some conclusions on miracles, which had been condemned by qualifiers.

The subject of Jansenism created a great sensation in Spain. The Jesuits, who had been permitted to return to that kingdom in 1798, soon acquired a numerous party, and accused all who did not adopt their opinions of Jansenism. Their conduct was so impolitic, that they were a second time banished from the kingdom. They were the authors of the denunciations against the Countess de Montijo, and many other distinguished persons, of whom an account has been given in a former chapter.

The accusation of Jansenism against Don Antonio and Don Jerome de la Cuesta was the cause of the trial of Don Raphael Muzquiz, Archbishop of Santiago, who had been confessor to Queen Louisa, wife of Charles IV.

The energetic defence of Don Jerome de la Cuesta obliged Muzquiz to defend himself against the imputation of calumny: he made representations which injured his cause, for he vilified the inquisitors of Valladolid, and even the inquisitor-general, and accused them of partiality and collusion with Cuesta: his rank protected him from the danger of an arrest which he incurred by this temerity, but he was condemned to pay a penalty of eight thousand ducats, and the Bishop of Valladolid four thousand. Muzquiz would have been more severely punished, if he had not been protected by a person, who obtained from the Prince of Peace that the affair should not be carried farther.