CHAPTER XLI.

OF THE INQUISITION DURING THE REIGN OF FERDINAND VI.

PHILIP V. left his crown to Ferdinand VI., his eldest son by his first wife, Gabriella of Savoy. This prince reigned from the 9th of July, 1746, to the 10th of August, 1759; he died without children. He was succeeded by his brother, Charles III. of Naples, the son of Philip V. and Isabella Farnese, his second wife. Don Francis Perez del Prado, Bishop of Teruel, held the office of inquisitor-general at the accession of Ferdinand. He was succeeded by Don Manuel Quintano Bonifaz, Archbishop of Pharsala, who was still in office at the death of that Prince.

The rise of good taste in literature in Spain, the restoration of which was prepared under Philip V., was dated from the reign of Ferdinand VI. On this circumstance is founded the opinion that the accession of the Bourbons caused a change in the system of the Inquisition; yet these princes never gave any new laws to the institution, or suppressed any of the ancient code, and, consequently, did not prevent any of the numerous autos-da-fé which were celebrated in their reigns. But Philip established at Madrid two Royal Academies for History and the Spanish language, on the model of that of Paris, and favoured a friendly intercourse between the literati of the two nations.

The agreement made in 1737 with the Court of Rome, concerning the contributions to be imposed on the clergy, and some other points of discipline, had rendered appeals to the Pope more rare; and many opinions were admitted to be reasonable, which had been long represented as unfavourable to religion and piety, by the ignorance and superstition of one side, and the malevolence of the other. The establishment of weekly papers made the people acquainted with works they had never before heard of, and informed them of resolutions of the Catholic princes, concerning the clergy, which a short time before they would have considered as an outrage against religion and its ministers. The Diario de los Literatos (Journal de Savans) also opened the eyes of many persons, who, till then, had not been able to judge of books.

These circumstances, and some other causes, during the reign of Philip V. prepared the way for the interesting revolution in Spanish literature under Ferdinand VI. This change was followed by a great benefit to mankind; the inquisitors, and even their inferior officers, began to perceive that zeal for the purity of the Catholic religion is exposed to the admission of erroneous opinions. The doctrine of Macanaz no longer shocked the people, who heard with tranquillity all that had been written on the appeal against violence (fuerzas), and without dreading the anathemas fulminated every year by the Popes in the bull in cœna dominum.

The effect of this change in opinion was particularly conspicuous in the reduction of the number of trials for Judaism and, consequently, in the victims in the autos-da-fé. During the reign of Ferdinand, no general, and not more than thirty-four private autos-da-fé were celebrated; the persons who appeared in them were condemned for blasphemy, bigamy, and pretended sorcery. Ten persons only were relaxed, and one hundred and seventy subjected to penances: those who were burnt had relapsed into Judaism. The Jews had been so severely persecuted in the preceding reigns, that scarcely any remained.

Jansenism and Freemasonry particularly occupied the Inquisition under Ferdinand VI. The Jesuits called those persons Jansenists who did not adopt the opinions of Molina, on grace and free-will: their adversaries designated them as Pelagians. These parties reciprocally accused each other of favouring heresy. But the faction of the Jesuits prevailed during the reigns of Philip V. and his successor, because their confessors were of that order.

Freemasonry was an object entirely new to the Inquisition. Clement XII. had expedited on the 28th of April, 1738, the bull in Eminenti, in which he excommunicates the freemasons. In 1740 Philip issued a royal ordinance against them, and many were arrested and sent to the galleys. The inquisitors took advantage of the example, and treated the members of a lodge discovered at Madrid with great severity. The punishment of death was decreed against freemasons, in 1739, by the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, in the name of the high-priest of the God of peace and mercy! Benedict XIV. renewed the bull of Clement, in 1751. Fray Joseph Torrubia, examiner of books for the holy office, denounced the existence of freemasons, and Ferdinand published an ordinance against them in the same year, in which it was said, that all who did not conform to the regulations contained in it, would be punished as state criminals guilty of high treason. Charles III., then King of Naples, prohibited the masonic assemblies on the same day. The following pages contain the notice of a trial of this nature, which took place at Madrid, in 1757.

M. Tournon, a Frenchman, had been invited into Spain, and pensioned by the government, in order to establish a manufactory of brass or copper buckles, and to instruct Spanish workmen. On the 30th of April, 1757, he was denounced to the holy office as suspected of heresy by one of his pupils, who acted in obedience to the commands of his confessor.

The charges were: 1st. That M. Tournon had asked his pupils to become freemasons, promising that the Grand Orient of Paris should send a commission to receive them into the order, if they should submit to the trials he should propose, to ascertain their courage and firmness; and that their titles of reception should be expedited from Paris. 2nd. That some of these young workmen appeared inclined to comply, if M. Tournon would inform them of the object of the institution. That in order to satisfy them, he told them several extraordinary things, and showed them a sort of picture on which were figured instruments of architecture and astronomy. They thought that these representations related to sorcery, and they were confirmed in the idea, on hearing the imprecations which, according to M. Tournon, were to accompany the oath of secrecy.

It appeared from the depositions of three witnesses that M. Tournon was a freemason. He was arrested and imprisoned on the 20th of May. The following conversation, which took place in the first audience of monition, may be interesting to some readers. After asking his name, birth-place, and his reason for coming to Spain, and making him swear to speak the truth, the inquisitor proceeded:—

Question. Do you know or suppose why you have been arrested by the holy office?

Answer. I suppose it is for having said that I was a freemason.

Q. Why do you suppose so?

A. Because I have informed my pupils that I was of that order, and I fear that they have denounced me; for I have perceived lately that they speak to me with an air of mystery, and their questions lead me to believe that they think me an heretic.

Q. Did you tell them the truth?

A. Yes.

Q. You are then a freemason?

A. Yes.

Q. How long have you been so?

A. For twenty years.

Q. Have you attended the assemblies of freemasons?

A. Yes, at Paris.

Q. Have you attended them in Spain?

A. No; I do not know if there are any lodges in Spain.

Q. If there were, should you attend them?

A. Yes.

Q. Are you a Christian, a Roman Catholic?

A. Yes; I was baptized in the parish of St. Paul, at Paris.

Q. How, as a Christian, can you dare to attend masonic assemblies, when you know, or ought to know, that they are contrary to religion?

A. I did not know that; I am ignorant of it at present, because I never saw or heard anything there which was contrary to religion.

Q. How can you say that, when you know that freemasons profess indifference in matters of religion, which is contrary to the article of faith, which teaches us that no man can be saved who does not profess the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion?

A. The freemasons do not profess that indifference. But it is indifferent if the person received into the order be a Catholic or not.

Q. Then the freemasons are an anti-religious body?

A. That cannot be; for the object of the institution is not to combat or deny the necessity or utility of any religion, but for the exercise of charity towards the unfortunate of any sect, particularly if he is a member of the society.

Q. One proof that indifference is the religious character of freemasons is, that they do not acknowledge the Holy Trinity, since they only confess one God, whom they call the Great Architect of the Universe, which agrees with the doctrine of the heretical philosophers, who say that there is no true religion but natural religion, in which the existence of God the Creator only is allowed, and the rest considered as a human invention. And as M. Tournon has professed himself to be of the Catholic religion, he is required by the respect he owes to our Saviour Jesus Christ, true God and man, and to his blessed mother, the Virgin Mary, our Lady, to declare the truth according to his oath; because in that case, he will acquit his conscience, and it will be allowable to treat him with that mercy and compassion which the holy office always showed towards sinners who confess: and if, on the contrary, he conceals anything, he will be punished with all the severity of justice, according to the holy canons and the laws of the kingdom?

A. The mystery of the Holy Trinity is neither maintained nor combated in the masonic lodges: neither is the religious system of the natural philosophers approved or rejected; God is designated as the Great Architect of the Universe, according to the allegories of the freemasons which relate to architecture. In order to fulfil my promise of speaking truth, I must repeat, that in the masonic lodges nothing takes place which concerns any religious system, and that the subjects treated of are foreign to religion, under the allegories of architectural works.

Q. Do you believe as a Catholic, that it is a sin of superstition to mingle holy and religious things with profane things?

A. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the particular things which are prohibited as contrary to the purity of the Christian religion; but I have believed till now, that those who confound the one with the other, either by mistake, or a vain belief, are guilty of the sin of superstition.

Q. Is it true that in the ceremonies which accompany the reception of a mason, the crucified image of our Saviour, the corpse of a man, and a skull, and other objects of a profane nature, are made use of?

A. The general statutes of freemasonry do not ordain these things: if they are made use of, it must have arisen from a particular custom, or from the arbitrary regulations of the members of the body, who are commissioned to prepare for the reception of candidates; for each lodge has particular customs and ceremonies.

Q. That is not the question; say if it true that these ceremonies are observed in masonic lodges?

A. Yes, or no, according to the regulations of those who are charged with the ceremonies of the initiation.

Q. Were they observed when you were initiated?

A. No.

Q. What oath is it necessary to take on being received a freemason?

A. We swear to observe secrecy.

Q. On what?

A. On things which it may be inconvenient to publish.

Q. Is this oath accompanied by execrations?

A. Yes.

Q. What are they?

A. We consent to suffer all the evils which can afflict the body and soul if we violate the oath.

Q. Of what importance is this oath, since it is believed that such formidable execrations may be used without indecency?

A. That of good order in the society.

Q. What passes in these lodges which it might be inconvenient to publish?

A. Nothing, if it is looked upon without prejudice; but as people are generally mistaken in this matter, it is necessary to avoid giving cause for malicious interpretations; and this would take place if what passes when the brothers assemble was made public.

Q. Of what use is the crucifix, if the reception of a freemason is not considered as a religious act?

A. It is presented to penetrate the soul with the most profound respect at the moment that the novice takes the oath. It is not used in every lodge, and only when particular grades are conferred.

Q. Why is the skull used?

A. That the idea of death may inspire a horror of perjury.

Q. Of what use is the corpse?

A. To complete the allegory of Hiram, architect of the temple of Jerusalem, who, it is said, was assassinated by traitors, and to induce a greater detestation of assassination and other offences against our neighbours, to whom we ought to be as benevolent brothers.

Q. Is it true that the festival of St. John is celebrated in the lodges, and that the masons have chosen him for their patron?

A. Yes.

Q. What worship is rendered him in celebrating his festival?

A. None; that it may not be mingled with profane things. This celebration is confined to a fraternal repast, after which a discourse is read, exhorting the guests to beneficence towards their fellow-creatures, in honour of God, the great architect, creator, and preserver of the universe.

Q. Is it true that the sun, moon, and stars, are honoured in the lodges?

A. No.

Q. Is it true that their images or symbols are exposed?

A. Yes.

Q. Why are they so?

A. In order to elucidate the allegories of the great, continual, and true light which the lodges receive from the great Architect of the world, and these representations belong to the brothers, and engage them to be charitable.

Q. M. Tournon will observe that all the explanations he has given of the facts and ceremonies which take place in the lodges, are false and different from those which he voluntarily communicated to other persons worthy of belief; he is therefore again invited, by the respect he owes to God and the Holy Virgin, to declare and confess the heresies of indifferentism, the errors of superstition, which mingle holy and profane things, and the errors of idolatry, which led him to worship the stars: this confession is necessary for the acquittal of his conscience and the good of his soul; because if he confesses with sorrow for having committed these crimes, detesting them and humbly soliciting pardon (before the fiscal accuses him of these heinous sins), the holy tribunal will be permitted to exercise towards him that compassion and mercy which it always displays to repentant sinners; and because if he is judicially accused, he must be treated with all the severity prescribed against heretics by the holy canons, apostolical bulls, and the laws of the kingdom.

A. I have declared the truth, and if any witnesses have deposed to the contrary, they have mistaken the meaning of my words; for I have never spoken on this subject to any but the workmen in my manufactory, and then only in the same sense conveyed by my replies.

Q. Not content with being a freemason, you have persuaded other persons to be received into the order, and to embrace the heretical superstitions and pagan errors into which you have fallen.

A. It is true that I have requested these persons to become freemasons, because I thought it would be useful to them if they travelled into foreign countries, where they might meet brothers of their order, who could assist them in any difficulty; but it is not true that I engaged them to adopt any errors contrary to the Catholic faith, since no such errors are to be found in freemasonry, which does not concern any points of doctrine.

Q. It has been already proved that these errors are not chimerical; therefore let M. Tournon consider that he has been a dogmatizing heretic, and that it is necessary that he should acknowledge it with humility, and ask pardon and absolution for the censures which he has incurred; since, if he persists in his obstinacy he will destroy both his body and soul; and as this is the first audience of monition, he is advised to reflect on his condition, and prepare for the two other audiences which are granted by the compassion and mercy which the holy tribunal always feels for the accused.

M. Tournon was taken back to the prison; he persisted in giving the same answers in the first and second audiences. The fiscal presented his act of accusation, which, according to custom, was divided into the articles similar to the charges of the witnesses. The accused confessed the facts, but explained them as he had done before. He was desired to choose an advocate, but he declined this, alleging that the Spanish lawyers were not acquainted with the masonic lodges, and were as much prejudiced against them as the public. He therefore thought it better for him to acknowledge that he was wrong, and might have been deceived from being ignorant of particular doctrines; he demanded absolution, and offered to perform any penance imposed on him, adding, that he hoped the punishment would be moderate, on account of the good faith which he had shown, and which he had always preserved, seeing nothing but beneficence practised and recommended in the masonic lodges, without denying or combating any article of the Catholic faith.

The fiscal consented to this arrangement, and M. Tournon was condemned to be imprisoned for one year, after which he was to be conducted under an escort to the frontiers of France; he was banished from Spain for ever, unless he obtained permission to return from the king or the holy office. During the first month of his imprisonment, he was directed to perform spiritual exercises, and a general confession; to spend half an hour every morning in reading the meditations on the book of spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius de Loyola, and half an hour in the evening in reading the considerations of Father John Eusebius Nieremberg, in his work on the difference between temporal and eternal; to recite every day part of the Rosary of Our Lady, and often to repeat the acts of faith, hope, charity, and contrition; to learn by heart the catechism of Father Astete, and to prepare himself to receive absolution, at Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost.

A private auto-da-fé was celebrated in the hall of the tribunal, in which M. Tournon appeared without the san-benito, and signed his abjuration, with a promise never again to attend the assemblies of the freemasons.

M. Tournon went to France, and it does not appear that he ever returned to Spain.

The society of freemasons has occupied the learned men, since the middle of the seventeenth century, and the number of fables which have been published concerning it have confused the subject, and done much injury to it. The mysterious initiations of this order first began to attract observation in England, during the reign of Charles I., who perished on the scaffold in 1649. The enemies of Cromwell and the republican system then established the dignity of grand master of the English lodges, to prepare the minds of the freemasons for the re-establishment of the monarchy. William III. was a freemason, and though the dynasty was changed by the accession of George I., it does not appear that freemasonry was suspected in England. It was introduced into France in 1723, and Ramsay, a Scotchman, established a lodge in London in 1728, giving out that the society had been founded in 1099, by Godfrey de Bouillon, King of Jerusalem; preserved by the Knights Templars, and brought to Edinburgh, where it was established by King Robert Bruce in 1314. In 1729 the order was introduced into Ireland. Holland received it in 1731, and the first lodges were opened in Russia in the same year: it appeared in Boston in America in 1733, and in several other towns of the New World, subject to England. It was also established in Italy in that year, and two years after freemasons were found at Lisbon.

I believe the first severe measure against the freemasons in Europe, was that which was decreed on the 14th of December, 1733, by the chamber of Police of the Chatelet at Paris: it prohibited freemasons from assembling, and condemned M. Chapelot to a penalty of six thousand livres, for having suffered them to assemble in his house. Louis XV. commanded that those Peers of France, and other gentlemen who had the privilege of the entry, should be deprived of that honour, if they were members of a masonic lodge. The grand-master of the Parisian lodges, being obliged to quit France, convoked an assembly of Freemasons to appoint his successor. Louis XV., on being informed of it, declared that if a Frenchman was elected, he would send him to the Bastile. However, the Duke d’Antin was chosen, and after his death, Louis de Bourbon, prince of Conti, succeeded him. Louis de Bourbon, duke de Chartres, another prince of the blood, became grand-master.

In 1737, the Dutch prohibited the assemblies of freemasons as a precautionary measure, without charging them with any crimes; the members of a lodge assembled, they were arrested and prosecuted, but they defended themselves with so much energy, that they were acquitted, and the prohibition revoked.

The Elector Palatine of the Rhine also prohibited the order in his states, and arrested several members at Manheim, in consequence of their disobedience.

John Gaston, grand duke of Tuscany, published a decree of proscription against the lodges in the same year. This prince died soon after, and the masons again assembled: they were denounced to Pope Clement XII. This pontiff sent an inquisitor to Florence, who imprisoned several members of the society, but Francis of Lorraine, when he became Grand Duke, set them at liberty. He declared himself the protector of the institution, and founded several lodges in Florence, and other towns in his states.

If I was a member of the society, I would do all in my power to abolish those things which gave the inquisitors and other ecclesiastics occasion to say, that sacred and profane things are mingled in the masonic ceremonies; particularly the following, which have already appeared in printed works.

In the sixth grade, or rank, which is that of particular secretary (secretary intime,) the history of Hiram, king of Tyre, is taken from the ninth chapter of the third book of Kings for the masonic allegories; and Jehovah, the ineffable name of God, for the sacred word of freemasonry; this custom is likewise observed with some slight differences in several other grades.

In the eighteenth, called the Rosicrusian of Haradom of Kilwiniug, is a representation of columns with inscriptions; the highest is as follows: In the name of the Holy and indivisible Trinity: lower down, May our salvation be eternal in God; still lower, We have the happiness of being in the pacific unity of the sacred numbers. The history of the second chapter of the first, and the nineteenth of the second book of Esdras is made use of; the word of order between two freemasons of the same rank is INRI, which some persons have supposed to be Jesus Nazarenus, Rex Judæorum: the word passe is added, which means Emmanuel, or God is with us.

The rank of Rosicrusiaci, in the Scotch lodges, is the perfection of the order; the meaning is developed in fifteen sections. In the fifth, the allegories are the mounts of salvation, mounts Moriah and Calvary, the first for the sacrifices of Abraham, David, and Solomon, the second for that of Jesus of Nazareth: other allegories relate to the Holy Spirit, designated as the Majesty of God which descended on the tabernacle, and on the temple at the moment of its dedication. In the twelfth section a holy mountain is seen, on which is a large church in the form of a cross from east to west, in the neighbourhood of a city, which is the image of the celestial Jerusalem; in the thirteenth, three great lights, symbols of the natural law, the laws of Moses and of Jesus Christ, and the cabinet of wisdom, designated as the stable for oxen, in which is a faithful chevalier and his holy wife, and the sacred names of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus; the fourteenth is an allusion to the descent of our Saviour into the Limbos after his death, his resurrection and ascension; lastly, the fifteenth has the words consummatum est, which Jesus pronounced on the cross.

In the twenty-seventh grade of the grand commander of the temple, a cross is made on the forehead of the brother with the thumb of the right hand; the sacred word INRI; the scarf has four crosses, the disc a triangle of gold, with the Hebrew characters of the ineffable name, Jehovah.

The seal of the order has between the devices of the shield of arms across, the arch of alliance, a lighted candle in a candlestick on each side, and above the inscription, Glory to God. (Laus Deo).

All these things, and many others which allude to the sacred history of the temple of Jerusalem, built by Solomon, re-established by Esdras, restored by the Christians, and defended by the knights templars, present a mixture liable to an interpretation similar to that in the information of the witnesses at Florence, which was the first apostolical condemnation; it was renewed under Pius VII., in an edict of Cardinal Gonsalvi, in 1814.

There was not less inconvenience in the execratory oath of the famous masonic secret, for which no adequate object has been discovered, unless it was one which no longer exists.

John Mark Larmenio (who secretly succeeded the grand-master of the Templars, the unfortunate James de Molay, who requested him to accept the dignity) invented, in concert with some knights who had escaped the proscription, different signs of words and actions, in order to recognise and receive knights into the order secretly, and by means of a novitiate, during which they were to be kept in ignorance of the object of the association (which was to preserve the order, to re-establish it in its former glory, and to revenge the deaths of the grand-master, and the knights who perished with him); when the qualities of the new member were perfectly well known, the grand secret was to be confided to him, after a most formidable oath.

The secret signs were intended as a precaution against admitting into the order those Templars who had formed a schism during the persecution; they retired into Scotland, and refused to acknowledge John Larmenio as grand-master, and pretended that they had re-established the order; this pretension was refuted by a chapter of legitimate knights: after this the new chief issued his diploma in 1324, and his successors have followed his example, on attaining the dignity of secret grand-master of the order of Templars in France. The list of grand-masters until the year 1776 has been published. Philip de Bourbon, duke of Orleans, was appointed in 1705, Louis Augustus de Bourbon, duke de Maine, in 1724, Louis Henry de Bourbon Conde, in 1737, Louis Francis de Bourbon Conti, in 1745, Louis Henry Timoleon de Cossé Brissac, in 1776, and Bernard Raymond Fabre, in 1814.

The Knights Templars who retired to Scotland, founded an establishment in 1314, under the protection of Robert Bruce; their objects and their measures were the same, and they were concealed under the title of architects; this was the origin of freemasonry. They soon, however, forgot the most criminal part of the execratory oath: since the deaths of Clement V. and Philip the Fair, the persecutors of the knights, deprived them of the power of revenging the executions of James de Molay and his companions, and had no other object but the re-establishment of the order; this intention shared the fate of the first, after the deaths of the authors of it, and their first disciples. From these facts it appears, that the execratory oath is without a motive or object in modern masonic lodges.