THE TRIAL OF YUCÉ FRANCO (_Continued_)
It is not difficult to conjecture with what fresh energies the
court--armed with such information as it now possessed--proceeded to
re-examine the other seven prisoners accused of complicity in the crime
of La Guardia, pressing each with the particular share he was himself
alleged to have borne in the affair, and continuing to play off one
accused against another.
It is regrettable that the records of these proceedings should not at
present be available, so that all conjecture might be dispensed with
in reconstructing step by step this extraordinary case. And it is to
be hoped that M. Fidel Fita’s expectations that these records will
ultimately be brought to light may come to be realized.
* * * * *
A week later, on July 28, Yucé is again brought into the
audience-chamber for further examination. But he has nothing more to
add on the subject of the actual crime. All that he has contrived to
remember in the interval are scraps of conversation that took place
when the culprits assembled--on that later occasion--for the purpose of
sending the consecrated wafer to Abenamias. Nevertheless, what he says
is, from the point of view of the inquisitors, as damaging to those
who uttered the things which he repeats as their actual participation
in the crucifixion of the boy, and it is hardly less damaging to Yucé
himself, since it shows him to have been a _fautor_, or abettor of
heretics--a circumstance which he may very well entirely have failed
to appreciate.
He depones that Alonso Franco had said that the letter they were
dispatching to Abenamias was better than the letters and bulls [of
indulgence] that came from Rome and were offered for sale. Ocaña agreed
by launching an imprecation upon all who should spend money on such
bulls, denouncing such things as sheer humbug (_todo es burla_), and
protesting that there is no saviour other than God. But Garcia Franco
reproved him with the reminder that it was good policy to buy one now
and then, as it gave them the appearance of being good Catholics.
On this same subject of appearances, Alonso grumbled at the trouble to
which they were put by the fact of their being married to Old-Christian
women who would not even permit the circumcision of their children.
* * * * *
Three days later Yucé has remembered that it was Benito who crowned the
child with thorns. He is again questioned as to what he knows about the
boy, and he admits having heard Tazarte say that the child was obtained
“from a place whence it would never be missed.”
They press him further on the subject, but he can only repeat what he
has already said--that as the Francos travel a great deal with their
carts, they may have found the boy on one of their journeys.
As no more is to be extracted from him on the subject, they now
change the line of examination, and seek information concerning other
Judaizing practices of the Francos of La Guardia, asking Yucé what he
knows upon this matter.
He answers that about six years ago the Francos, to his own knowledge,
kept the Feast of the Tabernacles and gave the beggar Perejon money to
buy a trumpet which was to be sounded on the seventh day of the feast,
as is proper. He knows, further, that they sit down to meat prepared
in the Jewish manner, over which they utter Jewish prayers--the
_Beraká_ and the _Hamoçi_--and that they are believed to have kept
the great fast and to give money for the purchase of oil for the
synagogue.[194]
Asked further to explain the oath of secrecy which he says was imposed
upon him and to which he has said that his past silence has been
due, he states that all were solemnly sworn by Tazarte that under no
circumstances would they utter a word of what was done in the cave
between Dosbarrios and La Guardia until they should have been one year
in the prison of the Inquisition, and that even should the torture
betray them into infidelity to their oath, they must refuse to ratify
afterwards, and deny what they might have divulged.
* * * * *
M. Isidore Loeb clung so tenaciously to the theory that the affair of
the “Santo Niño” was trumped up by Torquemada that he would not permit
his convictions to be shaken by the revelations contained in these
records of Yucé’s trial when they came to light. He fastens upon this
statement of Yucé’s and denounces such an oath as a flagrant absurdity,
concluding thence that here, as elsewhere, Yucé is lying.[195]
M. Loeb’s criticisms of this _dossier_ are worthy of too much attention
to be lightly passed over, and we shall return presently to the
consideration of them.
In the meanwhile we may permit ourselves a digression here to consider
just this point upon which he bases so much argument for the purpose of
proving false the rest of the story.
If we were to agree with M. Loeb that Yucé is lying in this instance,
that would still prove nothing as to the rest--and it would be very
far from proving that Torquemada is the inventor of the whole affair.
Assuming that this tale of an oath of silence to endure for one year
after arrest is a falsehood, it may very well be urged that it is
employed by Yucé in the hope that it will excuse his having hitherto
withheld information and that it will induce the inquisitors to deal
leniently with him for that same silence. Let it be observed that he
prefaces his confession with that excuse at the time of asking the
inquisitors to give him an undertaking that they will pardon him if he
divulges all that he knows.
But is he really lying?
It seems to us that in arriving at this conclusion, M. Loeb has either
overlooked or else not sufficiently weighed the following statement in
Yucé’s confession: “_Yucé Tazarte ... went to perform an enchantment so
that the inquisitors could not hurt any of them, or if they attempted
to do so they must, themselves, go mad and die_ within a year.” This
means, of course, within a year of attempting to hurt any of them,
which again means _within a year of the arrest of any of them_.
Now, the fact of our not believing to-day in the efficacy of Tazarte’s
incantations and in the power of his magic spells with the heart and
the Host to accomplish the things he promised, is no reason to suppose
that Tazarte himself was not firmly persuaded that his enchantments
would take effect. Indeed, he and his associates must firmly have
believed it, or they would never have gone the length of imperilling
their lives in so dangerous a business.
Tazarte’s belief was that these sorceries would invest them all with
an immunity from inquisitorial persecution, and that should any
inquisitors attempt to violate that immunity, such inquisitors must go
mad and die within a year of arresting any of Tazarte’s associates.
Therefore in the event of arrest, all that would be necessary to
procure ultimate deliverance would be stubbornly to withhold from the
inquisitors all information on the subject of this enchantment until
the period within which it was to work should have expired.
When this is sufficiently considered, it seems to us that such an
oath as Yucé says was imposed by Tazarte becomes not only likely but
absolutely inevitable. Some such oath must have been imposed to ensure
the efficacy of the enchantment in the event of the arrest of any of
them.
It is difficult to think that Tazarte was a mere charlatan performing
this business with his tongue in his cheek for the sake of the money he
could extract from his dupes; difficult, because he was dealing with
comparatively poor people, from whom the remuneration to be obtained
would be out of all proportion to the risk incurred. But even if we
proceed upon that assumption, are we not to conclude that, being a
deliberate charlatan, Tazarte would be at great pains to appear sincere
and to impose an oath which he must have imposed if he were sincere?
* * * * *
It is rather singular and it seems to ask some explanation, which it
is not in our power to afford, that not until now do the inquisitors
make any use of that grave admission of Yucé’s to the supposed Rabbi
Abraham in Segovia. It is true that it was extremely vague, but in Ça’s
admissions of July 19--if not before--they had obtained the connecting
link required.
But not until September 16, when they pay Yucé a visit in his cell, do
they touch upon the matter. They then ask him whether he recollects
having talked when under arrest in Segovia, upon matters concerning the
Inquisition, and with whom.
His answer certainly seems to show that even now he has no suspicion
that the “Rabbi Abraham” was an emissary of the Holy Office. He says
that being sick in prison and believing that he was about to die, he
asked the physician who tended him to beg the inquisitors to allow him
to be visited by a Jew to pray with him, and his further admissions as
to what passed between himself and the “Rabbi” entirely corroborate
the depositions of Frey Alonso Enriquez and the physician Antonio de
Avila.
The inquisitors ask him to explain the three Hebrew words he used on
that occasion: _mita_, _nahar_, and _Otohays_. He replies that they
referred to the crucifixion of the boy, as related by him in his
confession.[196]
At this stage it would almost seem to transpire that Benito’s
admissions under torture at Astorga, when, as he has said, he admitted
enough to burn him, must have been confined to matters concerning the
Host found upon him, and that until now he has said nothing about the
crucifixion of the boy.
This assumption is one that deepens the mysterious parts of the affair
rather than elucidates them, for it leaves us without the faintest
indication of how the Fiscal Guevára was able to incorporate in his
indictment nine months ago the particulars of “enchantments with the
said Host and heart of a Christian boy.”
From what Benito has said to Yucé in prison we might be justified in
supposing that the former is the delator; but in view of the turn now
taken by the proceedings this supposition seems to become untenable. It
is of course possible that the particulars in question may have been
wrung out of one of the other prisoners, or it is possible that Benito
himself may have confessed and afterwards refused to ratify. But beyond
indicating these possibilities we cannot go.
The fact remains that on September 24 the inquisitors found it
necessary to put Benito Garcia to torture that they might obtain his
evidence relating to the crucifixion.
And on the rack he confesses that he and Yucé Franco and the others
crucified a boy in one of the caves on the road to Villapalomas on a
cross made of a beam and the axle of a cart lashed together with a rope
of hemp; that first they tied the boy to the cross and then nailed his
hands and feet to it; and that as the boy was screaming they strangled
or stifled him (_lo ahogaron_); that all was done at night, by the
light of a candle which Benito himself had procured from Santa Maria de
la Pera; that the mouth of the cave was covered with a cloak, so that
the light should not be seen outside; that the boy was whipped with a
strap and crowned with thorns--all in mockery and vituperation of our
Lord Jesus Christ; and that they took the body away and buried it in a
vineyard near Santa Maria de la Pera.[197]
There are some slight discrepancies between the details of the affair
afforded by Benito and those given by Yucé. The latter has not
mentioned that the child’s hands and feet were nailed to the cross;
according to him they were merely tied. Nor has he said that the boy
was strangled; his statement seems to be that the child was bled to
death, as a consequence of opening the veins of his arms--a matter
which Benito does not mention. But on the score of the strangling, it
is possible that by the word employed--_ahogaron_--Benito merely means
that the boy’s cries were stifled, a detail which would be confirmed by
Yucé’s statement that the child was gagged.
* * * * *
The prisoners are evidently permitted to learn that Benito has been
tortured. Very possibly they are given the information to the end that
it may strike terror into them and so induce them to betray themselves
without more ado. But it does not seem that they are very greatly
frightened by the prospect of having to undergo the same suffering, if
we are to judge by Garcia Franco. This prisoner is permitted on the
following day (which is Sunday), by contrivance of the Holy Office, to
get into communication with Yucé. In the course of their conversation
Garcia strongly urges a policy of denial under torture, should they be
subjected to it,[198] from which it seems plain that he has no notion
of the extent to which Yucé’s tongue has been loosened already.
On the following Wednesday it is Juan Franco’s turn to be put to the
torture.
Under it he gives a general confirmation of what has already been
extracted from the others. He confesses that he and Yucé Franco and
the other Christians and Jews crucified a boy in the cave of Carre
Ocaña, which is on the right going from La Guardia to Ocaña; that
they crucified him on a cross made of two beams of olive-wood lashed
together by a rope of hemp; that they whipped him with a rope; and that
Yucé was present when the deponent himself cut out the boy’s heart--as
is more fully contained in the deponent’s confession (of which, again,
this is no more than an extract relating to Yucé’s share in the crime).
He states that an enchantment was performed with the heart, so that the
Inquisition might not proceed against them.
This confession was duly ratified upon the morrow.[199]
On the Friday of the same week they torture Juan de Ocaña and extract
from him a confession that is, in the main, in agreement with those
already obtained. He relates how he and the others crucified a boy in
the caves of Carre Ocaña; that they whipped him with ropes when he
was crucified; that they cut out his heart and caught his blood in a
cauldron; that it was night and that they had a light; and that when
they took the body down they buried it near Santa Maria de la Pera, as
fully set forth in his confession.[200]
As a consequence of his having in the course of this confession spoken
of the Host that was sent to Zamora for delivery to Abenamias, Ocaña is
questioned again--on October 11--touching this particular. He is asked
how he knows that this was done. He replies that he heard Alonso Franco
and the Jews--_i.e._ Ça Franco and his sons (Yucé and Mosé), Tazarte
and Perejon--say that such was the intention, but he doesn’t know
whether the Host was actually delivered or otherwise disposed of.
The persistence with which this apparently trivial question
arises--particularly when it is remembered that the inquisitors were,
themselves, in possession of the Host found upon Benito at the time
of his arrest--leads us to suppose that they were probing to discover
whether this consecrated wafer was the identical one dispatched upon
the occasion to which the confessions refer. Considering the lapse of
time between the dispatch of that wafer and Benito’s arrest, they may
reasonably have been concluding that the Host found upon the latter
relates to some similar, later affair. Such an impression is confirmed
by the fact that no letter--such as was addressed to Abenamias--had
been discovered upon Benito.
The question again crops up in an examination to which Yucé is
submitted on that same day.
“Did any of the Jews or Christians,” he is asked, “go to Zamora to
Abenamias in this matter?”
He answers precisely as he has answered before: that he doesn’t know
what became of the Host beyond the fact that he saw them dispatching it
together with a letter to the said Abenamias, as deponed, and that all
were present when this took place.
They seek to learn who was the instigator of the affair, but Yucé
cannot answer with certainty on that point. What he knows he tells
them--that Tazarte meeting him when he was on his way to Murcia, the
physician asked him would he join in a matter to be performed with a
consecrated wafer to ensure that the Inquisition could not harm the
Christians in question. Before they met to crucify the boy, Tazarte
told the deponent and his brother Mosé that he had arranged for it; and
although Yucé protests that he had no inclination to have anything to
do with the affair, he and his brother allowed themselves in the end to
be persuaded to be present, and they went with Tazarte that same night
to the cave. There they were joined by the Christians, who brought the
child with them.
* * * * *
So far, it will be seen, the evidence collected from Yucé’s
fellow-prisoners, whilst admitting that he had been present in the cave
when the boy was crucified--an admission in itself grave enough and
quite sufficient to procure his being abandoned to the secular arm--did
not charge him with any active participation in the proceedings. In his
own depositions Yucé had insisted that he and his father had been no
more than spectators and that they had gone to the cave more or less in
ignorance, as if hardly understanding what they were to witness.
Moreover before relating the happenings in that cave of Carre Ocaña,
Yucé had made a sort of bargain with the inquisitors that his
confession should not be used against himself or his father. And it
is noteworthy that the other Jews whom he incriminated were all dead,
and that he suppressed the name of the only surviving Jew--Hernando
de Ribera--who had taken part in the affair. Of betraying the
New-Christians he would, as we have already said, have less concern, as
these by their apostasy must have become more or less contemptible in
the sight of a faithful Jew.
Whether the inquisitors conceived that in view of his passivity in the
matter, combined with the promise they had made him before obtaining
his confession, they were not justified in proceeding to extremes with
him, we do not know. It is difficult to suppose any such hesitation on
their part. Whatever their object, it is fairly clear that they did not
account themselves satisfied yet, and for the purpose of probing this
matter to the very bottom they now adopted a fresh method of procedure
which appears particularly to aim at the further incrimination of Yucé.
Just as the court was in the habit of suppressing evidence entirely or
in part, or the names of witnesses, when this course best served its
purposes, so, when the depositions were obtained from co-accused, there
must obviously come a moment when the publication of the evidence and
of the witnesses by confrontation must further the aims of the tribunal.
The anger aroused in each prisoner by the discovery that his betrayer
is one of his associates must spur him to reprisals, and drive him to
admit anything he may hitherto have concealed. There is, of course, the
danger that he may be urged to embark upon inventions to damage in his
turn the man who has destroyed him. But inquisitorial justice was not
deterred by any such consideration. Pegna--as we have seen--tells us
plainly enough that the point of view of the Holy Office was that it
was better that an innocent man should perish than that a guilty one
should escape.
In pursuit of this policy, then, Benito Garcia is brought before the
inquisitors on October 12, and he is asked whether in the matter of the
crucifixion and the Host he will repeat in the presence of any of the
participators in the crime what he has already deponed. He replies in
the affirmative. Thereupon he is taken out. Yucé Franco is introduced
and asked the same question with the same result. Benito is brought in
again, and, the two being confronted, each repeats in the presence of
the other the confession he has already made.
They are now asked whether they will repeat these statements once more,
in the presence of Juan de Ocaña, and they announce themselves ready
to do so. They are removed. Ocaña is introduced, and having similarly
obtained his agreement to repeat before others whom he has accused of
complicity what he has already confessed, the inquisitors order the
other two to be brought back.
The notary records that they actually manifest pleasure at seeing one
another.
Ocaña now repeats his confession, and Yucé and Benito again go over
theirs. The three agree one with the other, and it is now further
elicited that it was six months after the crucifixion, more or less,
when they assembled between Tenbleque and La Guardia to give Benito the
letter and the Host which he was to convey to Abenamias in Zamora.
* * * * *
On October 17 there is another confrontation--of Juan Franco with Ça
and Yucé Franco. In this each repeats what he has already confessed,
which we now learn for the first time. Juan Franco admits that it was
he himself who opened the boy’s side and took out his heart, and in
this as in other particulars the depositions agree one with another.
Juan Franco goes on to say that they next met in the cave some time
after the crucifixion, and that his brother Alonso brought the heart
and the Host in a box which he gave to Tazarte, who withdrew with them
to a corner of the cave to carry out his enchantments. Later on they
assembled between Tenbleque and La Guardia--at a place which, according
to this witness, was called Sorrostros--and gave Benito a letter to
take to Zamora, this letter being tied with a coloured thread.
So far he is completely in accord with the other deponents; but now
there occurs a startling discrepancy. He says that at this last meeting
(which, we are told, took place some six months after the crucifixion),
in addition to the consecrated wafer and the letter for Abenamias, they
also gave Benito the heart to take to Zamora.
Now all the other depositions lead us to suppose that the heart and
the first wafer were employed--presumably consumed in some way--by
Tazarte in the enchantment performed at the first meeting after the
crucifixion, and that as doubts afterwards arose touching the efficacy
of the spells performed by the physician, another Host was obtained
some six months later, which they forwarded to Zamora.
Is the explanation the simple one that Juan Franco is mistaken on
the subject of the heart? It seems possible, because he adds that
he did not actually see the Host (on this particular occasion), but
that he understood that it was given to Benito. Similarly he may
have understood--erroneously taking it for granted--that the heart
accompanied it.
* * * * *
And now you may see the confrontation bearing fruit, and yielding
the results which we must suppose are sought by the inquisitors--the
further incrimination of Yucé Franco.
Juan de Ocaña is examined again on October 20 and questioned as to
Yucé’s participation in the crime. He now adds to his former confession
that Yucé and the others used great vituperations to the child,
which vituperations were really aimed at Jesus Christ; he cites the
expressions, and in the main they are those we have already quoted from
the Testimonio[201]; these, he says, were used by Ça Franco and his
two sons. He says that they all whipped the boy, and that it was Yucé
himself who drew blood from the arms of the victim with a knife.
“Whence was the child?” they ask him.
He replies that it was the dead Jew Mosé Franco who had brought the
boy from Quintanar to Tenbleque on a donkey, and that, according to
Mosé’s story, he was the son of Alonso Martin of Quintanar.[202] From
Tenbleque several of them, amongst whom were Yucé and his father,
brought him on the donkey to the cave where he was crucified, and it
was Yucé who went to summon the brothers Franco of La Guardia, Benito
Garcia, and the witness himself.
So that from having been a more or less passive spectator of the
scene, Yucé is suddenly--by what we are justified in accounting the
vindictiveness of Ocaña--thrust into the position of one of the chief
actors, indeed, almost one of the instigators of the crime.
On the same day Benito Garcia is re-examined. His former depositions
are read over to him, and he is asked if he has anything to add to
them. He has to add, he finds, that Yucé--whom he has hardly mentioned
hitherto--had whipped and struck the boy, and that he was an active
participant in all that was done, his avowed aim being the destruction
of Christianity, which he spoke of as buffoonery and idolatry.
On the morrow Ocaña is brought back to ratify his statements of
yesterday. He is asked if he has anything to add that concerns the
participation of Yucé, and his answer is so very much in the terms of
the latest additions made by Benito that one is left wondering whether,
departing from their usual custom, the inquisitors put their questions
in a precise and definite form--founded upon what Benito has said--and
obtained affirmative replies from Ocaña. For Ocaña, too, remembers that
Yucé said that Christianity was all buffoonery and that Christians were
idolaters.