Oh! torture me no more, I will confess.
HENRY THE SIXTH.
You have betrayed her to her own reproof.
COMEDY OF ERRORS.
“And it was true,--I was a prisoner in the Inquisition. Great
emergencies certainly inspire us with the feelings they demand; and many
a man has braved a storm on the wide wild ocean, who would have shrunk
from its voice as it pealed down his chimney. I believe so it fared with
me,--the storm had risen, and I braced myself to meet it. I was in the
Inquisition, but I knew that my crime, heinous as it was, was not one
that came properly under the cognizance of the Inquisition. It was a
conventual fault of the highest class, but liable only to be punished by
the ecclesiastical power. The punishment of a monk who had dared to
escape from his convent, might be dreadful enough,--immurement, or death
perhaps, but still I was not legitimately a prisoner of the Inquisition.
I had never, under all my trials, spoken a disrespectful word of the
holy Catholic church, or a doubtful one of our most holy faith,--I had
not dropped one heretical, obnoxious, or equivocal expression, relative
to a single point of duty, or article of faith. The preposterous charges
of sorcery and possession, brought against me in the convent, had been
completely disproved at the visitation of the Bishop. My aversion to the
monastic state was indeed sufficiently known and fatally proved, but
that was no subject for the investigation or penalties of the
Inquisition. I had nothing to fear from the Inquisition,--at least so I
said to myself in my prison, and I believed myself. The seventh day
after the recovery of my reason was fixed on for my examination, and of
this I received due notice, though I believe it is contrary to the usual
forms of the Inquisition to give this notice; and the examination took
place on the day and hour appointed.
“You are aware, Sir, that the tales related in general of the interior
discipline of the Inquisition, must be in nine out of ten mere fables,
as the prisoners are bound by an oath never to disclose what happens
within its walls; and they who could violate this oath, would certainly
not scruple to violate truth in the details with which their
emancipation from it indulges them. I am forbidden, by an oath which I
shall never break, to disclose the circumstances of my imprisonment or
examination. I am at liberty to mention some general features of both,
as they are connected with my extraordinary narrative. My first
examination terminated rather favourably; my contumacy and aversion to
monasticism were indeed deplored and reprobated, but there was no
ulterior hint,--nothing to alarm the peculiar fears of an inmate of the
Inquisition. So I was as happy as solitude, darkness, straw, bread, and
water, could make me, or any one, till, on the fourth night after my
first examination, I was awoke by a light gleaming so strongly on my
eyes, that I started up. The person then retired with his light, and I
discovered a figure sitting in the farthest corner of my cell. Delighted
at the sight of a human form, I yet had acquired so much of the habit of
the Inquisition, that I demanded, in a cold and peremptory voice, who
had ventured to intrude on the cell of a prisoner? The person answered
in the blandest tones that ever soothed the human ear, that he was, like
myself, a prisoner in the Inquisition;--that, by its indulgence, he had
been permitted to visit me, and hoped----“And is _hope_ to be named
here?” I could not help exclaiming. He answered in the same soft and
deprecatory tone; and, without adverting to our peculiar circumstances,
suggested the consolation that might be derived from the society of two
sufferers who were indulged with the power of meeting and communicating
with each other.
“This man visited me for several successive nights; and I could not help
noticing three extraordinary circumstances in his visits and his
appearance. The first was, that he always (when he could) concealed his
eyes from me; he sat sideways and backways, shifted his position,
changed his seat, held up his hand before his eyes; but when at times he
was compelled or _surprised_ to turn their light on me, I felt that I
had never beheld such eyes blazing in a mortal face,--in the darkness of
my prison, I held up my hand to shield myself from their preternatural
glare. The second was, that he came and retired apparently without help
or hindrance,--that he came, like one who had a key to the door of my
dungeon, at all hours, without leave or forbiddance,--that he traversed
the prisons of the Inquisition, like one who had a master-key to its
deepest recesses. Lastly, he spoke not only in a tone of voice clear and
audible, totally unlike the whispered communications of the Inquisition,
but spoke his abhorrence of the whole system,--his indignation against
the Inquisition, Inquisitors, and all their aiders and abettors, from St
Dominic down to the lowest official,--with such unqualified rage of
vituperation, such caustic inveteracy of satire, such unbounded license
of ludicrous and yet withering severity, that I trembled.
“You know, Sir, or perhaps have yet to know, that there are persons
_accredited_ in the Inquisition, who are permitted to solace the
solitude of the prisoners, on the condition of obtaining, under the
pretence of friendly communication, those secrets which even torture has
failed to extort. I discovered in a moment that my visitor was not one
of these,--his abuse of the system was too gross, his indignation too
unfeigned. Yet, in his continued visits, there was one circumstance
more, which struck me with a feeling of terror that actually paralyzed
and annihilated all the terrors of the Inquisition.
“He constantly alluded to events and personages beyond his _possible
memory_,--then he checked himself,--then he appeared to go on, with a
kind of wild and derisive sneer at his own _absence_. But this perpetual
reference to events long past, and men long buried, made an impression
on me I cannot describe. His conversation was rich, various, and
intelligent, but it was interspersed with such reiterated mention of the
dead, that I might be pardoned for feeling as if the speaker was one of
them. He dealt much in anecdotical history, and I, who was very ignorant
of it, was delighted to listen to him, for he told every thing with the
fidelity of an eye-witness. He spoke of the _Restoration_ in England,
and repeated the well-remembered observation of the queen-mother,
Henriette of France,--that, had she known as much of the English on her
first arrival, as she did on her second, she never would have been
driven from the throne; then he added, to my astonishment, I was beside
her carriage(9), _it was the only one then in London_. He afterwards
spoke of the superb fetes given by Louis Quatorze, and described, with
an accuracy that made me start, the magnificent chariot in which that
monarch personated the god of day, while all the titled pimps and
harlots of the court followed as the rabble of Olympus. Then he reverted
to the death of the Duchesse d’Orleans, sister to Charles II.--to Pere
Bourdalone’s awful sermon, preached at the death-bed of the royal
beauty, dying of poison, (as suspected); and added, I saw the roses
heaped on her toilette, to array her for a fete that very night, and
near them stood the pix, and tapers, and oil, shrouded with the lace of
that very toilette. Then he passed to England; he spoke of the wretched
and well-rebuked pride of the wife of James II. who “thought it scorn”
to sit at the same table with an Irish officer who informed her husband
(then Duke of York) that _he_ had sat at table, as an officer in the
Austrian service, where the Duchess’s father (Duke of Modena) had stood
behind a chair, as a vassal to the Emperor of Germany.
(9) I have read this somewhere, but cannot believe it. Coaches are
mentioned by Beaumont and Fletcher, and even glass-coaches by Butler,
in his “Remains.”
“These circumstances were trifling, and might be told by any one, but
there was a minuteness and circumstantiality in his details, that
perpetually forced on the mind the idea that he had himself seen what he
described, and been conversant with the personages he spoke of. I
listened to him with an indefinable mixture of curiosity and terror. At
last, while relating a trifling but characteristic circumstance that
occurred in the reign of Louis the Thirteenth, he used the following
expressions(10): “One night that the king was at an entertainment, where
Cardinal Richelieu also was present, the Cardinal had the insolence to
rush out of the apartment before his Majesty, just as the coach of the
latter was announced. The King, without any indignant notice of the
arrogance of the minister, said, with much _bon hommie_, “His Eminence
the Cardinal will always be first.”--“The first to attend your Majesty,”
answered the Cardinal, with admirable polite presence of mind; and,
snatching a flambeau from a page who _stood near me_, he lighted the
King to his carriage.” I could not help catching at the extraordinary
words that had escaped him; and I asked him, “Were you there?” He gave
some indirect answer; and, avoiding the subject, went on to amuse me
with some other curious circumstances of the private history of that
age, of which he spoke with a minute fidelity somewhat _alarming_. I
confess my pleasure in listening to them was greatly diminished by the
singular sensation with which this man’s presence and conversation
inspired me. He departed, and I regretted his absence, though I could
not account for the extraordinary feeling which I experienced during his
visits.
(10) This circumstance is related, I believe, in the Jewish Spy.
“A few days after I was to encounter my second examination. The night
before it one of the _officials_ visited me. These are men who are not
the common officers of a prison, but accredited in some degree by the
higher powers of the Inquisition, and I paid due respect to his
communications, particularly as they were delivered more in detail, and
with more emphasis and energy than I could have expected from an inmate
of that speechless mansion. This circumstance made me expect something
extraordinary, and his discourse verified all, and more than I expected.
He told me in plain terms, that there had been lately a cause of
disturbance and inquietude, which had never before occurred in the
Inquisition. That it was reported a human figure had appeared in the
cells of some of the prisoners, uttering words not only hostile to the
Catholic religion, and the discipline of the most holy Inquisition, but
to religion in general, to the belief of a God and a future state. He
added, that the utmost vigilance of the officials, on the rack for
discovery, had never been able to trace this being in his visits to the
cells of the prisoners; that the guards had been doubled, and every
precaution that the circumspection of the Inquisition could employ, was
had recourse to, hitherto without success; and that the only intimation
they had of this singular visitor, was from some of the prisoners whose
cells he had entered, and whom he had addressed in language that seemed
lent him by the enemy of mankind, to accomplish the perdition of these
unhappy beings. He himself had hitherto eluded all discovery; but he
trusted, that, with the means lately adopted, it was impossible for this
agent of the evil one to insult and baffle the holy tribunal much
longer. He advised me to be prepared on this point, as it would
undoubtedly be touched on at my next examination, and perhaps more
urgently than I might otherwise imagine; and so, commending me to the
holy keeping of God, he departed.
“Not wholly unconscious of the subject alluded to in this extraordinary
communication, but perfectly innocent of any ulterior signification, as
far as related to myself, I awaited my next examination rather with hope
than fear. After the usual questions of--Why I was there? who had
accused me? for what offence? whether I could recollect any expression
that had ever intimated a disregard for the tenets of the holy church?
&c. &c. &c.--after all this had been gone through, in a detail that may
be spared the hearer, certain extraordinary questions were proposed to
me, that appeared to relate indirectly to the appearance of my late
visitor. I answered them with a sincerity that seemed to make a
frightful impression on my judges. I stated plainly, in answer to their
questions, that a person had appeared in my dungeon. “You must call it
cell,” said the Supreme. “In my cell, then. He spoke with the utmost
severity of the holy office,--he uttered words that it would not be
respectful for me to repeat. I could scarcely believe that such a person
would be permitted to visit the dungeons (cells, I should say) of the
holy Inquisition.” As I uttered these words, one of the judges,
trembling on his seat, (while his shadow, magnified by the imperfect
light, pictured the figure of a paralytic giant on the wall opposite to
me), attempted to address some question to me. As he spoke, there came a
hollow sound from his throat, his eyes were rolled upwards in their
sockets,--he was in an apoplectic paroxysm, and died before he could be
removed to another apartment. The examination terminated suddenly, and
in some confusion; but, as I was remanded back to my cell, I could
perceive, to my consternation, that I had left an impression the most
unfavourable on the minds of the judges. They interpreted this
accidental circumstance in a manner the most extraordinary and unjust,
and I felt the consequences of it at my next examination.
“That night I received a visit in my cell from one of the judges of the
Inquisition, who conversed with me a considerable time, and in an
earnest and dispassionate manner. He stated the atrocious and revolting
character under which I appeared from the first before the
Inquisition,--that of a monk who had apostatized, had been accused of
the crime of sorcery in his convent, and, in his impious attempt at
escape, had caused the death of his brother, whom he had seduced to join
in it, and had overwhelmed one of the first families with despair and
disgrace. Here I was going to reply, but he stopped me, and observed,
that he came not to listen, but to speak; and went on to inform me, that
though I had been acquitted of the charge of communication with the evil
spirit at the visitation of the Bishop, certain suspicions attached to
me had been fearfully strengthened, by the fact that the visits of the
extraordinary being, of whom I had heard enough to assure me of his
actuality, had never been known in the prison of the Inquisition till my
entrance into it. That the fair and probable conclusion was, that I was
really the victim of the enemy of mankind, whose power (through the
reluctant permission of God and St Dominic, and he crossed himself as he
spoke) had been suffered to range even through the walls of the holy
office. He cautioned me, in severe but plain terms, against the danger
of the situation in which I was placed, by the suspicions universally
and (he feared) too justly attached to me; and, finally, adjured me, as
I valued my salvation, to place my entire confidence in the mercy of the
holy office, and, if _the figure_ should visit me again, to watch what
its impure lips might suggest, and faithfully report it to the holy
office.
“When the Inquisitor had departed, I reflected on what he had said. I
conceived it was something like the conspiracies so often occurring in
the convent. I conceived that this might be an attempt to involve me in
some plot against myself, something in which I might be led to be active
in my own condemnation,--I felt the necessity of vigilant and breathless
caution. I knew myself innocent, and this is a consciousness that defies
even the Inquisition itself; but, within the walls of the Inquisition,
the consciousness, and the defiance it inspires, are alike vain. I
finally resolved, however, to watch every circumstance that might occur
within the walls of my cell very closely, threatened as I was at once by
the powers of the Inquisition, and those of the infernal demon, and I
had not long to watch. It was on the second night after my examination,
that I saw this person enter my cell. My first impulse was to call aloud
for the officials of the Inquisition. I felt a kind of vacillation I
cannot describe, between throwing myself into the power of the
Inquisition, or the power of this extraordinary being, more formidable
perhaps than all the Inquisitors on earth, from Madrid to Goa. I dreaded
imposition on both sides. I believed that they were playing off terror
against terror; I knew not what to believe or think. I felt myself
surrounded by enemies on every side, and would have given my heart to
those who would first throw off the mask, and announce themselves as my
decided and avowed enemy. After some reflection, I judged it best _to
distrust the Inquisition_, and to hear all that this extraordinary
visitor had to say. In my secret soul I believed him their secret
agent,--I did them great injustice. His conversation on this second
visit was more than usually amusing, but it was certainly such as might
justify all the suspicions of the Inquisitors. At every sentence he
uttered, I was disposed to start up and call for the officials. Then I
represented to myself his turning accuser, and pointing _me_ out as the
victim of their condemnation. I trembled at the idea of committing
myself by a word, while in the power of that dreadful body that might
condemn me to expire under the torture,--or, worse, to die the long and
lingering death of inanity,--the mind famished, the body scarcely
fed,--the annihilation of hopeless and interminable solitude,--the
terrible inversion of natural feeling, that makes life the object of
deprecation, and death of indulgence.
“The result was, that I sat and listened to the conversation (if it may
be called so) of this extraordinary visitor, who appeared to regard the
walls of the Inquisition no more than those of a domestic apartment, and
who seated himself beside me as quietly as if he had been reposing on
the most luxurious sofa that ever was arrayed by the fingers of
voluptuousness. My senses were so bewildered, my mind so disarranged,
that I can hardly remember his conversation. Part of it ran thus: “You
are a prisoner of the Inquisition. The holy office, no doubt, is
instituted for wise purposes, beyond the cognizance of sinful beings
like us; but, as far as we can judge, its prisoners are not only
insensible of, but shamefully ungrateful for, the benefits they might
derive from its provident vigilance. For instance, you, who are accused
of sorcery, fratricide, and plunging an illustrious and affectionate
family in despair, by your atrocious misconduct, and who are now
fortunately restrained from farther outrages against nature, religion,
and society, by your salutary confinement here;--you, I venture to say,
are so unconscious of these blessings, that it is your earnest desire to
escape from the further enjoyment of them. In a word, I am convinced
that the secret wish of your heart (unconverted by all the profusion of
charity which has been heaped on you by the holy office) is not on any
account to increase the burden of your obligation to them, but, on the
contrary, to diminish as much as possible the grief these worthy persons
must feel, as long as your residence pollutes their holy walls, by
abridging its period, even long before they intend you should do so.
Your wish is to escape from the prison of the holy office, if
possible,--you know it is.” I did not answer a word. I felt a terror at
this wild and fierce irony,--I felt a terror at the mention of escape,
(I had fatal reasons for this feeling),--a terror of every thing, and
every one near me, indescribable. I believed myself tottering on a
narrow ridge,--an Al-araf, between the alternate gulphs which the
infernal spirit and the Inquisition (not less dreaded) disclosed on each
side of my trembling march. I compressed my lips,--I hardly suffered my
breath to escape.
“The speaker went on. “With regard to your escape, though I can promise
that to you, (and that is what no _human power_ can promise you), you
must be aware of the difficulty which will attend it,--and, should that
difficulty terrify you, will you hesitate?” Still I was silent;--my
visitor perhaps took this for the silence of doubt. He went on. “Perhaps
you think that your lingering here, amid the dungeons of the
Inquisition, will infallibly secure your salvation. There is no error
more absurd, and yet more rooted in the heart of man, than the belief
that his sufferings will promote his spiritual safety.” Here I thought
myself safe in rejoining, that I felt,--I trusted, my sufferings here
would indeed be accepted as a partial mitigation of my well-merited
punishment hereafter. I acknowledged my many errors,--I professed myself
as penitent for my misfortunes as if they had been crimes; and the
energy of my grief combining with the innocence of my heart, I commended
myself to the Almighty with an unction I really felt,--I called on the
names of God, the Saviour, and the Virgin, with the earnest supplication
of sincere devoutness. When I had risen from my knees, my visitor had
retired. * * * * * * *
“Examination followed examination before the judges, with a rapidity
unexampled in the annals of the Inquisition. Alas! that they should be
_annals_,--that they should be more than records of _one day_ of abuse,
oppression, falsehood, and torture. At my next examination before the
judges, I was interrogated according to the usual forms, and afterwards
was led, by questions as artfully constructed, as if there was any
necessity for art to lead me, to speak to the question on which I longed
to disburden myself. The moment the subject was mentioned, I entered on
my narrative with an eagerness of sincerity that would have undeceived
any but Inquisitors. I announced that I had received another visit from
this unknown being. I repeated, with breathless and trembling eagerness,
every word of our late conference. I did not suppress a syllable of the
insults on the holy office, the wild and fiend-like acrimony of his
satire, the avowed atheism, the diabolism of his conversation,--I dwelt
on every particular. I hoped to _make merit_ with the Inquisition, by
accusing their enemy, and that of mankind. Oh! there is no telling the
agony of zeal with which we work between two mortal adversaries, hoping
to make a friend of one of them! I had suffered enough already from the
Inquisition, but at this moment I would have crouched at the knees of
the Inquisitors,--I would have pleaded for the place of the meanest
official in their prison,--I would have supplicated for the loathsome
office of their executioner,--I would have encountered any thing that
the Inquisition could inflict, to be spared the horror of being imagined
the ally of the enemy of souls. To my distraction, I perceived that
every word I uttered, in all the agony of truth,--in all the hopeless
eloquence of a soul struggling with the fiends who are bearing it beyond
the reach of mercy, was disregarded. The judges appeared struck, indeed,
by the earnestness with which I spoke. They gave, for a moment, a kind
of instinctive credit to my words, extorted by terror; but, a moment
after, I could perceive that _I_, and not my communication, was the
object of that terror. They seemed to view me through a distorting
atmosphere of mystery and suspicion. They urged me, over and over again,
for further particulars,--for ulterior circumstances,--for something
that was in _their_ minds, but not in mine. The more pains they took to
construct their questions skilfully, the more unintelligible they became
to me. I had told all I knew, I was anxious to tell all, but I could not
tell more than I knew, and the agony of my solicitude to meet the object
of the judges, was aggravated in proportion to my ignorance of it. On
being remanded to my cell, I was warned, in the most solemn manner, that
if I neglected to watch, remember, and report every word uttered by the
extraordinary being, whose visits they tacitly acknowledged they could
neither prevent or detect, I might expect the utmost severity of the
holy office. I promised all this,--all that could be demanded, and,
finally, as the last proof I could give of my sincerity, I implored that
some one might be allowed to pass the night in my cell,--or, if that was
contrary to the rules of the Inquisition, that one of the guard might be
stationed in the passage communicating with my cell, to whom I could, by
a signal agreed on, intimate when this nameless being burst on me, and
his impious intrusion might be at once detected and punished. In
speaking thus, I was indulged with a privilege very unusual in the
Inquisition, where the prisoner is only to answer questions, but never
to speak unless when called on. My proposal, however, caused some
consultation; and it was with horror I found, on its termination, that
not one of the officials, even under the discipline of the Inquisition,
would undertake the task of watching at the door of _my_ cell.
“I went back to it in an agony inexpressible. The more I had laboured to
clear myself, the more I had become involved. My only resource and
consolation was in a determination to obey, to the strictest letter, the
injunctions of the Inquisition. I kept myself studiously awake,--_he_
came not all that night. Towards the morning I slept,--Oh what a sleep
was mine!--the genii, or the demons of the place, seemed busy in the
dream that haunted me. I am convinced that a real victim of an _auto da
fe_ (so called) never suffered more during his horrible procession to
flames temporal and eternal, than I did during that dream. I dreamed
that the judgement had passed,--the bell had tolled,--and we marched out
from the prison of the Inquisition;--my crime was proved, and my
sentence determined, as an apostate monk and a _diabolical_ heretic. The
procession commenced,--the Dominicans went first, then followed the
penitents, arms and feet bare, each hand holding a wax taper, some with
_san benitos_, some without, all pale, haggard, and breathless, the hue
of their faces frightfully resembling that of their clay-coloured arms
and feet. Then followed those who had on their black dresses the _fuego
revolto_(11). Then followed--I saw _myself_; and this horrid tracing of
yourself in a dream,--this haunting of yourself by your own spectre,
while you still live, is perhaps a curse almost equal to your crimes
visiting you in the punishments of eternity. I saw myself in the garment
of condemnation, _the flames pointing upwards_, while the demons painted
on my dress were mocked by the demons who beset my feet, and hovered
round my temples. The Jesuits on each side of me, urged me to consider
the difference between these painted fires, and those which were about
to enwrap my writhing soul for an eternity of ages. All the bells of
Madrid seemed to be ringing in my ears. There was no light but a dull
twilight, such as one always sees in his sleep, (no man ever dreamed of
sun-light);--there was a dim and smoky blaze of torches in my eyes,
whose flames were soon to _be in my eyes_. I saw the stage before me,--I
was chained to the chair, amid the ringing of bells, the preaching of
the Jesuits, and the shouts of the multitude. A splendid amphitheatre
stood opposite,--the king and queen of Spain, and all the nobility and
hierarchy of the land, were there to see us burn. Our thoughts in dreams
wander; I had heard a story of an _auto da fe_, where a young Jewess,
not sixteen, doomed to be burnt alive, had prostrated herself before the
queen, and exclaimed, “Save me,--save me, do not let me burn, my only
crime is believing in the God of my fathers;”--the queen (I believe
Elizabeth of France, wife of Philip) wept, but the procession went on.
Something like this crossed my dream. I saw the supplicant rejected; the
next moment the figure was that of my brother Juan, who clung to me,
shrieking, “Save me, save me.” The next moment I was chained to my chair
again,--the fires were lit, the bells rang out, the litanies were
sung;--my feet were scorched to a cinder,--my muscles cracked, my blood
and marrow hissed, my flesh consumed like shrinking leather,--the bones
of my legs hung two black withering and moveless sticks in the ascending
blaze;--it ascended, caught my hair,--I was crowned with fire,--my head
was a ball of molten metal, my eyes flashed and melted in their
sockets;--I opened my mouth, it drank fire,--I closed it, the fire was
within,--and still the bells rung on, and the crowd shouted, and the
king and queen, and all the nobility and priesthood, looked on, and we
burned, and burned!--I was a cinder body and soul in my dream.
(11) _Flames reversed_, intimating that the criminal is not to be
burned.
“I awoke from it with the horrible exclamation--ever shrieked, never
heard--of those wretches, when the fires are climbing fast and
fell,--_Misericordia por amor di Dios!_ My own screams awoke me,--I was
in my prison, and beside me stood the tempter. With an impulse I could
not resist,--an impulse borrowed from the horrors of my dream, I flung
myself at his feet, and called on him to “save me.”
“I know not, Sir, nor is it a problem to be solved by human intellect,
whether this inscrutable being had not the power to influence my dreams,
and dictate to a tempting demon the images which had driven me to fling
myself at his feet for hope and safety. However it was, he certainly
took advantage of my agony, half-visionary, half-real as it was, and,
while proving to me that he had the power of effecting my escape from
the Inquisition, proposed to me that incommunicable condition which I am
forbid to reveal, except in the act of confession.”
Here Melmoth could not forbear remembering the _incommunicable
condition_ proposed to Stanton in the mad-house,--he shuddered, and was
silent. The Spaniard went on.
“At my next examination, the questions were more eager and earnest than
ever, and I was more anxious to be heard than questioned; so, in spite
of the eternal circumspection and formality of an inquisitorial
examination, we soon came to understand each other. I had an object to
gain, and they had nothing to lose by my gaining that object. I
confessed, without hesitation, that I had received another visit from
that most mysterious being, who could penetrate the recesses of the
Inquisition, without either its leave or prevention, (the judges
trembled on their seats, as I uttered these words);--that I was most
willing to disclose all that had transpired at our last conference, but
that I required to first confess to a priest, and receive absolution.
This, though quite contrary to the rules of the Inquisition, was, on
this extraordinary occasion, complied with. A black curtain was dropt
before one of the recesses; I knelt down before a priest, and confided
to him that tremendous secret, which, according to the rules of the
Catholic church, can never be disclosed by the confessor but to the
Pope. I do not understand how the business was managed, but I was called
on to repeat the same confession before the Inquisitors. I repeated it
word for word, saving only the words that my oath, and my consciousness
of the holy secret of confession, forbade me to disclose. The sincerity
of this confession, I thought, would have worked a miracle for me,--and
so it did, but not the miracle that I expected. They required from me
that incommunicable secret; I announced it was in the bosom of the
priest to whom I had confessed. They whispered, and seemed to debate
about the torture.
“At this time, as may be supposed, I cast an anxious and miserable look
round the apartment, where the large crucifix, thirteen feet high, stood
bending above the seat of the Supreme. At this moment I saw a person
seated at the table covered with black cloth, intensely busy as a
secretary, or person employed in taking down the depositions of the
accused. As I was led near the table, this person flashed a look of
recognition on me,--he was my dreaded companion,--he was an official now
of the Inquisition. I gave all up the moment I saw his ferocious and
lurking scowl, like that of the tiger before he springs from his jungle,
or the wolf from his den. This person threw on me looks, from time to
time, which I could not mistake, and I dared not interpret;--and I had
reason to believe that the tremendous sentence pronounced against me,
issued, if not from his lips, at least from his dictation.--“You, Alonzo
di Monçada, monk, professed of the order of ----, accused of the crimes
of heresy, apostacy, fratricide, (“Oh no,--no!” I shrieked, but no one
heeded me), and conspiracy with the enemy of mankind against the peace
of the community in which you professed yourself a votary of God, and
against the authority of the holy office; accused, moreover, of
intercourse in your cell, the prison of the holy office, with an
infernal messenger of the foe of God, man, and your own apostatized
soul; condemned on your own confession of the infernal spirit having had
access to your cell,--are hereby delivered to----”
“I heard no more. I exclaimed, but my voice was drowned in the murmur of
the officials. The crucifix suspended behind the chair of the judge,
rocked and reeled before my eyes; the lamp that hung from the ceiling,
seemed to send forth twenty lights. I held up my hands in
abjuration--they were held down by stronger hands. I tried to speak--my
mouth was stopped. I sunk on my knees--on my knees I was about to be
dragged away, when an aged Inquisitor giving a sign to the officials, I
was released for a few moments, and he addressed me in these
words--words rendered terrible by the sincerity of the speaker. From his
age, from his sudden interposition, I had expected mercy. He was a very
old man--he had been blind for twenty years; and as he rose to speak my
malediction, my thoughts wandered from Appius Claudius of
Rome,--blessing the loss of sight, that saved him from beholding the
disgrace of his country,--to that blind chief Inquisitor of Spain, who
assured Philip, that in sacrificing his son, he imitated the Almighty,
who had sacrificed his Son also for the salvation of mankind.--Horrid
profanation! yet striking application to the bosom of a Catholic. The
words of the Inquisitor were these: “Wretch, apostate, and
excommunicate, I bless God that these withered balls can no longer
behold you. The demon has haunted you from your birth--you were born in
sin--fiends rocked your cradle, and dipt their talons in the holy font,
while they mocked the sponsors of your unsanctified baptism.
Illegitimate and accursed, you were always the burden of the holy
church; and now, the infernal spirit comes to claim his own, and you
acknowledge him as your lord and master. He has sought and sealed you as
his own, even amid the prison of the Inquisition. Begone, accursed, we
deliver you over to the secular arm, praying that it may deal with you
not too severely.” At these terrible words, whose meaning I understood
but too well, I uttered one shriek of agony--the only _human_ sound ever
heard within the walls of the Inquisition. But I was borne away; and
that cry into which I had thrown the whole strength of nature, was
heeded no more than a cry from the torture room. On my return to my
cell, I felt convinced the whole was a scheme of inquisitorial art, to
involve me in self-accusation, (their constant object when they can
effect it), and punish me for a crime, while I was guilty only of an
extorted confession.
“With compunction and anguish unutterable, I execrated my own beast-like
and credulous stupidity. Could any but an idiot, a driveller, have been
the victim of such a plot? Was it in nature to believe that the prisons
of the Inquisition could be traversed at will by a stranger whom no one
could discover or apprehend? That such a being could enter cells
impervious to human power, and hold conversation with the prisoners at
his pleasure--appear and disappear--insult, ridicule, and
blaspheme--propose escape, and point out the means with a precision and
facility, that must be the result of calm and profound calculation--and
this within the walls of the Inquisition, almost in the hearing of the
judges--actually in the hearing of the guards, who night and day paced
the passages with sleepless and inquisitorial vigilance?--ridiculous,
monstrous, impossible! it was all a plot to betray me to
self-condemnation. My visitor was an agent and accomplice of the
Inquisition, and I was my own betrayer and executioner. Such was my
conclusion; and, hopeless as it was, it certainly seemed probable.
“I had now nothing to await but the most dreadful of all destinations,
amid the darkness and silence of my cell, where the total suspension of
the stranger’s visits confirmed me every hour in my conviction of their
nature and purport, when an event occurred, whose consequences alike
defeated fear, hope, and calculation. This was the great fire that broke
out within the walls of the Inquisition, about the close of the last
century.
“It was on the night of the 29th November 17--, that this extraordinary
circumstance took place--extraordinary from the well-known precautions
adopted by the vigilance of the holy office against such an accident,
and also from the very small quantity of fuel consumed within its walls.
On the first intimation that the fire was spreading rapidly, and
threatened danger, the prisoners were ordered to be brought from their
cells, and guarded in a court of the prison. I must acknowledge we were
treated with great humanity and consideration. We were conducted
deliberately from our cells, placed each of us between two guards, who
did us no violence, nor used harsh language, but assured us, from time
to time, that if the danger became imminent, we would be permitted every
fair opportunity to effect our escape. It was a subject worthy of the
pencil of Salvator Rosa, or of Murillo, to sketch us as we stood. Our
dismal garbs and squalid looks, contrasted with the equally dark, but
imposing and authoritative looks of the guards and officials, all
displayed by the light of torches, which burned, or appeared to burn,
fainter and fainter, as the flames rose and roared in triumph above the
towers of the Inquisition. The heavens were all on fire--and the
torches, held no longer in firm hands, gave a tremulous and pallid
light. It seemed to me like a wildly painted picture of the last day.
God appeared descending in the light that enveloped the skies--and we
stood pale and shuddering in the light below.
“Among the groupe of prisoners, there were fathers and sons, who perhaps
had been inmates of adjacent cells for years, without being conscious of
each others vicinity or existence--but they did not dare to recognize
each other. Was not this like the day of judgement, where similar mortal
relations may meet under different classes of the sheep and goats,
without presuming to acknowledge the strayed one amid the flock of a
different shepherd? There were also parents and children who _did_
recognize and stretch out their wasted arms to each other, though
feeling they must never meet,--some of them condemned to the flames,
some to imprisonment, and some to the official duties of the
Inquisition, as a mitigation of their sentence,--and was not this like
the day of judgement, where parent and child may be allotted different
destinations, and the arms that would attest the last proof of mortal
affection, are expanded in vain over the gulph of eternity. Behind and
around us stood the officials and guards of the Inquisition, all
watching and intent on the progress of the flames, but fearless of the
result with regard to themselves. Such may be the feeling of those
spirits who watch the doom of the Almighty, and know the destination of
those they are appointed to watch. And is not this like the day of
judgement? Far, far, above us, the flames burst out in volumes, in solid
masses of fire, spiring up to the burning heavens. The towers of the
Inquisition shrunk into cinders--that tremendous monument of the power,
and crime, and gloom of the human mind, was wasting like a scroll in the
fire. Will it not be thus also at the day of judgement? Assistance was
slowly brought--Spaniards are very indolent--the engines played
imperfectly--the danger increased--the fire blazed higher and
higher--the persons employed to work the engines, paralyzed by terror,
fell to the ground, and called on every saint they could think of, to
arrest the progress of the flames. Their exclamations were so loud and
earnest, that really the saints must have been deaf, or must have felt a
particular predilection for a conflagration, not to attend to them.
However it was, the fire went on. Every bell in Madrid rang out.--Orders
were issued to every Alcalde to be had.--The king of Spain himself,
((12)after a hard day’s shooting), attended in person. The churches were
all lit up, and thousands of the devout supplicated on their knees by
torchlight, or whatever light they could get, that the reprobate souls
confined in the Inquisition might feel the fires that were consuming its
walls, as merely a slight foretaste of the fires that glowed for them
for ever and ever. The fire went on, doing its dreadful work, and
heeding kings and priests no more than if they were firemen. I am
convinced twenty able men, accustomed to such business, could have
quenched the fire; but when our workmen should have played their
engines, they were all on their knees.
(12) The passion of the late king of Spain for field sports was well
known.
“The flames at last began to descend into the court. Then commenced a
scene of horror indescribable. The wretches who had been doomed to the
flames, imagined their hour was come. Idiots from long confinement, and
submissive as the holy office could require, they became delirious as
they saw the flames approaching, and shrieked audibly, “Spare me--spare
me--put me to as little torture as you can.” Others, kneeling to the
approaching flames, invoked them as saints. They dreamt they saw the
visions they had worshipped,--the holy angels, and even the blessed
virgin, descending in flames to receive their souls as parting from the
stake; and they howled out their allelujahs half in horror, half in
hope. Amid this scene of distraction, the Inquisitors stood their
ground. It was admirable to see their firm and solemn array. As the
flames prevailed, they never faultered with foot, or gave a sign with
hand, or winked with eye;--their duty, their stern and heartless duty,
seemed to be the only principle and motive of their existence. They
seemed a phalanx clad in iron impenetrable. When the fires roared, they
crossed themselves calmly;--when the prisoners shrieked, they gave a
signal for silence;--when they dared to pray, they tore them from their
knees, and hinted the inutility of prayer at such a juncture, when they
might be sure that the flames they were deprecating would burn hotter in
a region from which there was neither escape or hope of departure. At
this moment, while standing amid the groupe of prisoners, my eyes were
struck by an extraordinary spectacle. Perhaps it is amid the moments of
despair, that imagination has most power, and they who have suffered,
can best describe and feel. In the burning light, the steeple of the
Dominican church was as visible as at noon-day. It was close to the
prison of the Inquisition. The night was intensely dark, but so strong
was the light of the conflagration, that I could see the spire blazing,
from the reflected lustre, like a meteor. The hands of the clock were as
visible as if a torch was held before them; and this calm and silent
progress of time, amid the tumultuous confusion of midnight
horrors,--this scene of the physical and mental world in an agony of
fruitless and incessant motion, might have suggested a profound and
singular image, had not my whole attention been rivetted to a human
figure placed on a pinnacle of the spire, and surveying the scene in
perfect tranquillity. It was a figure not to be mistaken--it was the
figure of him who had visited me in the cells of the Inquisition. The
hopes of my justification made me forget every thing. I called aloud on
the guard, and pointed out the figure, visible as it was in that strong
light to every eye. No one had time, however, to give a glance towards
it. At that very moment, the archway of the court opposite to us gave
way, and sunk in ruins at our feet, dashing, as it fell, an ocean of
flame against us. One wild shriek burst from every lip at that moment.
Prisoners, guards, and Inquisitors, all shrunk together, mingled in one
groupe of terror.
“The next instant, the flames being suppressed by the fall of such a
mass of stone, there arose such a blinding cloud of smoke and dust, that
it was impossible to distinguish the face or figure of those who were
next you. The confusion was increased by the contrast of this sudden
darkness, to the intolerable light that had been drying up our sight for
the last hour, and by the cries of those who, being near the arch, lay
maimed and writhing under its fragments. Amid shrieks, and darkness, and
flames, a space lay open before me. The thought, the motion, were
simultaneous--no one saw--no one pursued;--and hours before my absence
could be discovered, or an inquiry be made after me, I had struggled
safe and secret through the ruins, and was in the streets of Madrid.
“To those who have escaped present and extreme peril, all other peril
seems trifling. The wretch who has swum from a wreck cares not on what
shore he is cast; and though Madrid was in fact only a wider prison of
the Inquisition to me, in knowing that I was no longer in the hands of
the officials, I felt a delirious and indefinite consciousness of
safety. Had I reflected for a moment, I must have known, that my
peculiar dress and _bare feet_ must betray me wherever I went. The
conjuncture, however, was very favourable to me--the streets were
totally deserted;--every inhabitant who was not in bed, or bed-rid, was
in the churches, deprecating the wrath of heaven, and praying for the
extinction of the flames.
“I ran on, I know not where, till I could run no longer. The pure air,
which I had been so long unaccustomed to breathe, acted like the most
torturing spicula on my throat and lungs as I flew along, and utterly
deprived me of the power of respiration, which at first it appeared to
restore. I saw a building near me, whose large doors were open. I rushed
in--it was a church. I fell on the pavement panting. It was the aisle
into which I had burst--it was separated from the chancel by large
grated railings. Within I could see the priests at the altar, by the
lamps recently and rarely lighted, and a few trembling devotees on their
knees, in the body of the chancel. There was a strong contrast between
the glare of the lamps within the chancel, and the faint light that
trembled through the windows of the aisle, scarcely showing me the
monuments, on one of which I leaned to rest my throbbing temples for a
moment. I could not rest--I dared not--and rising, I cast an involuntary
glance on the inscription which the monument bore. The light appeared to
increase maliciously, to aid my powers of vision. I read, “Orate pro
anima.” I at last came to the name--“Juan di Monçada.” I flew from the
spot as if pursued by demons--my brother’s early grave had been my
resting place.
END OF VOLUME SECOND.
Transcriber’s Note:
The following is a list of corrections made to the original.
The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
escaped damnation to all eternity. I tried to pacify him, to assure him
escaped damnation to all eternity.” I tried to pacify him, to assure him
I have never felt any fear so horrible. “I walked up and down, I repeated
I have never felt any fear so horrible. I walked up and down, I repeated
It was noon before I could work myself up to execute this resolution. I
“It was noon before I could work myself up to execute this resolution. I
God
God.
my late tremendous visitation, as he called it. Satan hath desired to
my late tremendous visitation, as he called it. “Satan hath desired to
have you, he said, because you have put yourself within his power, by
have you,” he said, “because you have put yourself within his power, by
The Superior all this time walked impatiently up and down his
“The Superior all this time walked impatiently up and down his
natural malignity of wretchedness, “If they tremble, I may exult. When
natural malignity of wretchedness, “If they tremble, I may exult.” When
Bishop paused. An appeal to his fealings would have been vain, but this
Bishop paused. An appeal to his feelings would have been vain, but this
the assistance of the lamp in my ce , and went to watch again at the
the assistance of the lamp in my cell, and went to watch again at the
they cut their parents hearts or their throats. I have cut _one_
they cut their parents’ hearts or their throats. I have cut _one_
criminals should undergo what they called extraorordinary penance; that
criminals should undergo what they called extraordinary penance; that
were issued to every Alcaide to be had.--The king of Spain himself,
were issued to every Alcalde to be had.--The king of Spain himself,