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 principally 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 classes 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 multitude 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 illustrious 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 passing 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 circumstances, protesting at the same time that he had always been a good Catholic, and that a desire of passing 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 Cæsar, 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 pronounced 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 passionately attached to the arts and sciences. With the assistance 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 institutions. 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 assembled 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 Père 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 constitution of the French clergy under the constitutional assembly. 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 Raphaël 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.
The same pretence of Jansenism was the cause of the trial of Don Joseph Espiga, almoner to the king, and a member of the tribunal of the nunciature in 1799. His accusers represented him as the author of the royal decree of the 5th of September in that year, after the death of Pius VI., forbidding any person to apply to Rome for matrimonial dispensations. Espiga was then the most intimate friend of the minister Urquijo, but he never allowed any one to influence him in official affairs. The Nuncio Cassoni made many useless representations to the king on this subject; however, he partly obtained his end by political intrigues, for though the bishops had promised to obey the ordinance, yet most of them avoided granting matrimonial dispensations, and those who did so were accused of Jansenism. The inquisitors, though they were all sold to the Nuncio and the Jesuits, were afraid to proceed, and the trial of Espiga was suspended. When his friend Urquijo was deprived of his office, he was obliged to retire to the cathedral of Lerida, of which he was a dignitary.
The year 1796 is remarkable for the prosecution commenced against the Prince of Peace, the king’s cousin, by his marriage with Donna Maria Theresa de Bourbon, the daughter of the infant Don Louis. It may be easily supposed that much address was necessary in conducting an attack against a person so high in favour. Three denunciations were received at the holy office, accusing him of atheism, because he had not confessed himself or taken the pascal communion for eight years, and because he was married to two women at the same time, and the life he led with many others was a source of great scandal to the public. The three denouncers were monks, and there is some reason to suppose that they were directed by the authors of a court intrigue, to cause the prince to be disgraced.
The head of the Inquisition at that time was Cardinal Lorenzana, who was simple and easily deceived, but too timid not to be on his guard against anything which might displease the king and queen. Although the denunciations were presented to him, he did not dare to examine witnesses, or even the accusers. Don Antonio Despuig, Archbishop of Seville, and Don Raphaël Muzquiz, who were at the head of this intrigue, made every effort to induce Lorenzana to cause a private instruction to be taken, to arrest the prince in concert with the Supreme Council, and to obtain the approbation of the king, of which they thought themselves certain, if they could prove that his favourite was an atheist. This attempt was so repugnant to the disposition of Lorenzana, that the two conspirators agreed that Despuig should press his friend the Cardinal Vincenti, famous for his intrigues, to persuade Pius VI. to write to Lorenzana, and reproach him for the indifference with which he beheld a scandal so injurious to the purity of the religion professed by the Spanish nation. Vincenti obtained the letter from the Pope; Lorenzana promising, that if the Pope decided that the measure was necessary, he would do what they desired. Napoleon Bonaparte, who was then a general of the French Republic, intercepted a courier from Italy at Genoa. The letter of Cardinal Vincenti to Despuig, enclosing that of the Pope to Lorenzana, was found among his despatches: Bonaparte thought it necessary to the continuance of the good intelligence then established between France and Spain, to inform the Prince of Peace of the intrigue, and he commissioned General Pérignon, ambassador at Madrid, to remit the correspondence to Godoy. The favourite opposed another intrigue to his enemies, and succeeded in freeing himself from them by sending Lorenzana, Despuig, and Muzquiz to Rome, to carry the condolences of the king to the Pope, on the occasion of the entrance of the French army into his states. Their commission was dated the 14th March, 1797.
At this period the Inquisition was in imminent danger of being deprived of the power of arresting individuals without the consent of the king. This circumstance arose from the trial of Don Ramon de Salas, which is related in the twenty-fifth chapter. The affair of Jovellanos also took place at this time.
In 1799 the inquisitors of Valladolid, with the approbation of the council, condemned Don Mariano and Don Raymond de Santander, booksellers of that city, to two months seclusion in a convent, to a suspension of their trade for two years, and to banishment; they were also forbidden to approach Valladolid, Madrid, and other royal residences, within eight leagues. They were obliged to pay a penalty, and after having been a long time in the secret prisons, Don Mariano could not obtain permission to remove to another place, though he was subject to attacks of epilepsy. Their only offence was having received and sold prohibited books; for though some fanatics had accused them of heresy, no proofs were obtained. On the 10th of November, Don Mariano solicited the inquisitor-general to allow them to reside in Valladolid, representing, that if this favour was refused, their families must die in poverty, and they offered to purchase the permission by paying another penalty.
The affair of a Beata at Cuença created a great sensation. She was the wife of a labourer at Villar d’Aguilar. Among other fictions which she invented to make people suppose her a saint, she said that Jesus Christ revealed to her that he had changed her flesh and blood into the same substance as his own body. This imposture caused great theological discussion among the priests and monks. Some maintained that it was impossible, others that it was not impossible, if the infinite power of God was considered; others believed all, and were astonished that any person could be so incredulous, for they thought that the Beata could have no interest in deceiving them; lastly, there were some who were witnesses of the life of this Beata, and were her accomplices from the beginning of her imposture, or who were the dupes of their credulity, and who continued to believe, or appeared to do so, in her supernatural state. They carried their folly so far as to adore this woman; they conducted her in procession in the streets and to the churches with lighted tapers; they burnt incense before her as before the consecrated host; lastly, they prostrated themselves before her, and committed many other sacrileges. The Inquisition could not but notice these scenes. The pretended saint and some of her accomplices were taken to the secret prisons, where the Beata ended her days. One of the articles of the sentence commanded that her effigy should be taken to the auto-da-fé on a traineau, and burnt; the curate of Villar, and two monks, who were her accomplices, were condemned to follow the effigy barefooted, clothed in short tunics, and with a cord round their necks; they were degraded and banished for life to the Philippine Isles. The Curate of Casasimarro was suspended for six years, and two men of the lowest class received two hundred stripes, and were imprisoned for life; one of her servants was sent to the house of the Recogidas for ten years. I do not know any judgment of the Inquisition more just than this.
Another Beata at Madrid, called Clara, did not profit by this example. She did not carry her phrensy so far as the other, but her miracles and her sanctity made a great noise; she pretended that she was paralytic, and could not leave her bed. On this report every one went to see her. The most distinguished ladies in Madrid repaired to her, and thought themselves happy in being admitted to see her; she was entreated to be the mediatrix with God for the cure of different maladies, to enlighten judges on the eve of an important judgment, and graces and assistances were implored against many other misfortunes. Clara replied to them all in an emphatic style, like an inspired person who saw into the future. She announced that, by an especial call from the Holy Spirit, she was destined to be a Capuchin nun, and she was extremely grieved that she had not the strength and health necessary for living in a community and a cloister. She imposed so well on the persons who surrounded her, that Pius VII. permitted her, in a special brief, to make her profession before Don Athanasius de Puyal, bishop coadjutor of the Archbishop of Toledo, at Madrid, and granted her a dispensation from the cloistered life, and the exercises of a community. From that moment nothing was spoken of in society but the miracles and heroic virtue of sister Clara. The bishop who had received her vows obtained permission from the Pope and the Archbishop of Toledo to erect an altar in her chamber opposite her bed; several masses were performed there every day, and even the holy sacrament was placed there in a tabernacle. Clara communicated every day, and persuaded those who came to see her that she took no sustenance but the bread of the eucharist. This delusion lasted for several years: but in 1802, Clara was taken to the prison of the holy office; her mother was likewise arrested, and a monk whom she had taken for her director. They were accused of having assisted the nun in her impostures, in order to obtain considerable sums of money, which the ladies of Madrid and other devout persons placed in her hands to be distributed as alms. When her deceit, her pretended sickness, and the other circumstances of her life were proved, Clara, her mother, and her director, were condemned to seclusion and other punishments, much less severe than they deserved.
Another Beata appeared after these, but the circumstances of her imposture are not so interesting.
The inquisitors no longer thought of condemning criminals to the flames. A proof of this laudable change in their system may be seen in the trial of Don Miguel Solano, curate of Esco in Aragon [79]. It was proved by the depositions of the witnesses, that he had advanced several propositions condemned by the church.
He was conducted to the secret prisons of Saragossa, where he confessed all, alleging, that having meditated for a long time with a sincere desire to discover the truth of the Christian religion, and that, without the assistance of any book but the Bible, he had convinced himself that there was no truth in anything but which was contained in the Holy Scriptures; that all the rest might be erroneous, because though several fathers of the church maintained these opinions, they were but men, and, consequently, liable to err; that he considered all that had been established by the Roman Church, in opposition to the proper and literal meaning of the Scriptural text, as false, and that it was possible to fall into error, in admitting that which did not result either directly or indirectly from the text; that he considered it certain that the ideas of purgatory and the limbos were the invention of man, since Jesus spoke of only two receptacles for souls, paradise and hell; that it was a sin to receive money for performing mass, although it was called an alms, and for the support of the celebrator; and that the priests and other ministers of religion ought to receive their salaries from the government, like the judges and other officers. He thought that the introduction and establishment of tithes was a fraud of the priests, and the manner of explaining the commandment of the church, which ordained that they should be paid without any deductions for seed, or the expenses of the harvest, was a shameful robbery; that no attention ought to be paid to the commands of the Pope, because no God but avarice is adored at Rome, and all the measures of that government only tend to take money from the people on religious pretences.
Solano had made a complete body of doctrine of these articles, and had composed a book on it, which he confided to his bishop and other theologians, as if he incurred no danger from such a proceeding.
The inquisitors of Saragossa undertook to persuade Solano to renounce his opinions, and employed for that purpose some respectable theologians; they exhorted him to acknowledge his errors and repent, and threatened him with relaxation. Don Michel replied that he was aware of his danger, but if he was induced to retract, he would be condemned before the tribunal of God, and that if he was in error, God would enlighten him or pardon him. The infallibility of the church, and the opinions of the saints and learned men who had decided on the meaning of the obscure texts, were represented to him; he replied, that in all their discussions the Court of Rome had interfered, and rendered their good intentions of no avail.
It was impossible to make Solano recant, and the inquisitors passed sentence of relaxation; it must be confessed that they could not do otherwise, according to the code of the Inquisition. But the Supreme Council, wishing to spare the Spanish nation the spectacle of an auto-da-fé, had recourse to the extraordinary measure of examining some persons who had been mentioned by the witnesses, but had been neglected, commanding the inquisitors, at the same time, to use every effort to make Solano retract. It was in vain, and the inquisitors, though they well knew the motives which led the council to vote against their sentence, did not dare to disobey the law. They pronounced sentence of relaxation a second time, and the council took advantage of a declaration made by one of the witnesses, to order an inquest to be taken among all the curates, priests, and physicians of Esco and the neighbourhood, in order to discover if Solano had ever suffered an illness which weakened or deranged his mind. The result of this inquest was to be communicated to the council, and in the mean time the trial was suspended. The physician, who suspected what they wished him to say, declared that Solano had had a severe illness for several years, before he was arrested, and that it was not surprising that it had weakened his mental powers; he said, that from that time he had spoken more frequently of his religious opinions, which were not those of the Catholics in Spain. On receiving this deposition, the council decreed, that, without pronouncing definitively on the subject, every means should be used to convert the accused. At this juncture, Solano fell dangerously ill; the inquisitors charged the most able theologians of Saragossa to endeavour to make him return to the faith, and even entreated the bishop coadjutor of the Archbishop of Saragossa, Don Fray Miguel Suarez de Santander, to exhort him with that tenderness and goodness which were characteristic of that worthy prelate. The curate appeared to be sensibly affected at all that was done for him, but he said that he could not renounce his opinions, without fearing that he offended God by betraying the truth. On the twentieth day of his illness, the doctor told him that he was dying, and desired him to take advantage of the few moments which were left him. “I am,” said Solano, “in the hands of God; I have nothing more to do.” Thus died the curate of Esco, in the year 1805; he was refused ecclesiastical sepulture, and was privately buried within the walls of the tribunal. The inquisitors reported all that had passed to the Supreme Council, which forbade them to continue the trial, that Solano might not be burnt in effigy.
Two years after the intrigue intended to ruin the Prince of Peace, another event which took place at Alicant ought to have been sufficient to cause the tribunal to be reformed, or even suppressed. On the death of Don Leonard Stuck, Consul for the Batavian Republic in that city, his executor, the Vice-Consul of France, put his seals upon the property of the deceased, until the formalities of the law had been fulfilled. The commissary of the Inquisition desired the governor of the town to take off the seals and give him the keys of the house, that he might register the books and prints, as some of them were prohibited. The governor demanded time, in order to consult his majesty’s minister. The commissary, who was disconcerted at this delay, went in the night with his alguazils, broke the seals, opened the door, and made the inventory; and when he had done, replaced the seals as well as he could, and went away. The ambassador of the Batavian Republic complained to the government of this violation of the law of nations, and the king wrote to the inquisitor-general, through his minister Urquijo, informing him, that the Inquisition must avoid similar infringements for the future, and bounding its office to the care of observing that, on the death of foreign ministers, no prohibited books were sold to Spaniards or naturalized foreigners. Nearly the same thing happened to the French consul at Barcelona.
It may have been seen in the preceding chapters, that the Inquisition has been several times in danger of being suppressed, or subjected to the general forms of law. These occasions were more frequent during the reign of Charles IV.
The Counts d’Aranda, de Florida-Blanca, and Campomanes, and the extraordinary council, represented the continual abuses committed by the holy office to Charles III., but he contented himself with passing some ordinances to curtail its power.
In 1794, Don Manuel Abad-y-la-Sierra, inquisitor-general under Charles IV., wished to reform the procedure of the tribunal, and commanded me to compose a work, entitled, A Discourse on the Procedure of the Holy Office, in which I represented the vices of the actual practice, and the means of obviating them, even though the proceedings for heresy should still continue to be secret. But, by various intrigues, an order was obtained from Charles IV., which forced the inquisitor-general to quit Madrid, and resign his office.
Another attempt was made, when the Prince of Peace discovered the plot against him; the royal decree for the suppression was drawn up, but never presented for the signature of the king, because Godoy was the dupe of counter-intrigue. In the following year, Jovellanos wished to make use of the work I had composed for Don Manuel Abad-y-la-Sierra, of which I had given him a copy, but he failed in his design; and Charles IV., who was ill-informed, and deceived by intriguers, commanded that minister to retire to his house at Gijon in the Asturias. The attempt of Urquijo has been already mentioned.
In 1808, Napoleon Buonaparte decreed the suppression of the Inquisition, at Chamastin, near Madrid; he alleged that the tribunal was an encroachment on the royal authority.
In 1813, the Cortes-general of the kingdom adopted the same measures, after declaring that the existence of the privileged tribunal of the holy office was incompatible with the political constitution which had been decreed, published, and received by the nation.
In spite of these two last suppressions, the tribunal still exists; because the greatest number of the men who surround the throne have been and will always be the partisans of ignorance, of the ultra-montane opinions, and of those which influenced the world before the invention of printing. These opinions are strenuously supported by the Jesuits, who have been recently recalled to Spain by Ferdinand VII.