Clara La Libertine Torrent [HOT]

Clara La Libertine Torrent [HOT]

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These quarrels and the exercise of its widely extended temporaljurisdiction by no means distracted wholly the tribunal from itslegitimate functions of preserving the purity of the faith. In 1640 itheld a notable auto de fe in which one case is worth alluding to as anillustration of inquisitorial dealings with the insane. Carlo Tabaloroof Calabria was an Augustinian lay-brother, who had conceived the ideathat he was the Son of God and the Messiah, Christ having been merelythe Redeemer. He had written a gospel about himself and framed a seriesof novel religious observances. Arrested by the Palermo tribunal, in1635, he had imagined it to be for the purpose of enabling him toconvert the inquisitors and through them the people. For five years thetheologians labored to disabuse him, but to no purpose; he was condemnedas an obstinate and pertinacious heretic and was led forth in the autoof 1640 to be burnt alive. On his way to the stake{39} he still expectedthat torrents of rain would extinguish the fires, but finding himselfdisappointed and shrinking from the awful death, at the last moment heprofessed conversion and was mercifully strangled before the pile waslighted.[78] At another auto, June 2, 1647, there were thirty-fourpenitents and six months later another, January 12, 1648, withthirty-seven, followed, December 13th of the same year, by one withforty-three. January 22, 1651, there was another with thirty-nine,honored moreover with the presence of Don John of Austria, fresh fromthe triumph of suppressing the Neapolitan revolt of Masaniello. In fact,in a letter of April 26, 1652, the inquisitors boasted that they hadpunished two hundred and seven culprits in public autos, besides nearlyas many who had been despatched privately in the audience chamber. Thiswould show an average of about eighty cases a year, greatly more than atthis time was customary in Spain. The offences were mostly blasphemy,bigamy and sorcery, with an occasional Protestant or Alumbrado, theJudaizers by this time having almost disappeared.[79] The position ofinquisitor was not wholly without danger, for Juan López de Cisnerosdied of a wound in the forehead inflicted by Fray Diego la Mattina, aprisoner whom he was visiting in his cell and who was burnt alive in theauto of March 17, 1658.[80] The activity of the tribunal must at timeshave brought in considerable profits for, in 1640, we happen to learnthat it was contributing yearly twenty-four thousand reales in silver tothe Suprema and not long afterwards it was called upon to send fivehundred ducats, plata doble, to that of Majorca, which had beenimpoverished by a pestilence. Still these gains were fluctuating and thedemands on the tribunal seem to have brought it into financial straits,from which the Suprema sought to relieve it by an appeal, August 6,1652, to Philip IV, to grant it benefices to the amount of twenty-fivehundred ducats a year.[81]{40}

When, however, he started the revolution, September 16, 1810, thislethargy gave place to the utmost activity. The official Gazette ofSeptember 28th asserted that he was disseminating among the people thedoctrine that there is neither hell, purgatory nor glory; an extractfrom this was sent to the commissioner at Querétaro, with instructionsto obtain its verification, which he had no trouble in doing, althoughthe evidence was hearsay. Without awaiting this, however, the testimonywhich had been so long slumbering in the secreto was laid beforecalificadores, October 9th, with orders to report at once. This theydid the next day, to the effect that, as he was a sectary of Frenchliberty, they pronounced him a libertine, seditious, schismatic, aformal heretic, a Judaizer, a Lutheran, a Calvinist, and stronglysuspect of atheism and materialism. The same day the tribunal resolvedthat, as he was surrounded by his army of insurgents and could not bearrested, he should be summoned by edict to appear within thirty days.On the 13th the edict was printed, on the 14th it was posted in thechurches and was circulated as rapidly as possible throughout the land.

The tribunal waited patiently for eleven months after the catastropheand then, on June 25, 1812, it wrote, with much solemnity, to its twocommissioners in Chihuahua, reminding them that the edict of October 13,1810, rendered it their duty to keep it advised of the capture ofHidalgo and of all subsequent occurrences. They should have gone to himin prison and exhorted him to make a declaration on all points containedin the edict and whatever else weighed upon his conscience. All signs ofrepentance should have been observed and reported, and at least hisconfession to his judges, in so far as the Inquisition was concerned,should have been sent to it. The alcaide, the ecclesiastics and{285} themilitary officers must now be examined as to his state of mind duringhis imprisonment, so that the tribunal may be informed as to hisrepentance or impenitence and thus be enabled to render justice. The twocommissioners are to work in harmony, with power of subdelegation, andthey are made responsible, before God and the king, for the duedischarge of their duties.

If one can wade through or skip a very convoluted opening chapter and ignore a title that just barely relates to the material discussed, this is a rather delightful romp through U. S. political life since 1900. Awash with brilliant phrase turns and evidence of sound research, as supplementary reading, Make-Believe Presidents could be a fine antidote to dry college primers on the same subject. Von Hoffman is witty, expansive, bitter, opinionated, and provocative, yet it all comes off as sort of a one-way conversation, a torrent of words that never gives the reader an opportunity to either reflect or reply. 2b1af7f3a8