Chapter I: Decadence and Extinction (2)

On May 16th, the members of the Suprema notified the Regency that they were prepared to act, in response to which the minister of Gracia y Justicia expressed his surprise that they should meet as a tribunal, without awaiting the decision of the questions submitted to the Córtes, and forbade them from forming a Council until they should have express authorization.[897] The matter was brought before the Córtes and Inquisitor Riesco vainly argued in favor of the Inquisition; his motion was referred to the committee, where it lay buried in spite of repeated calls for a report. The Liberals insisted that a National Council would be a more suitable body for the mature consideration of such questions; their object was solely to gain time, which was fighting on their side, but the idea was seriously entertained, even by the clericals. The committee on the external discipline of the clergy reported, August 22d, in favor of the project, with a list of matters to be submitted to the Council; on August 28th the Córtes ordered it to be convoked, but postponed consideration of the details. Other matters supervened and no further action was taken, which Archbishop Vélez assures us saved Spain from a schism, or at least from a scandal for, under the proposed program, it would have proved a second Synod of Pistoja. In fact, the journals naturally took a lively interest in the matter; thousands of pamphlets, we are told, appeared everywhere, pointing out the abuses and relaxed morals of the clergy and demanding a reform that was assumed to be necessary. It is easy to imagine that the ecclesiastical authorities were willing to let the project drop.[898]

The position of the Liberals was greatly strengthened by the adoption of the Constitution, in March 1812, as was abundantly shown in the next debate on the Inquisition. This was provoked by the publication, in April 1812, of the "Diccionario crítico-burlesco" of Gallardo, librarian of the Córtes, in which all that the mass of the population held sacred was treated with ridicule, neither refined nor witty. It created an immense sensation and was brought before the Córtes, which enabled Riesco, on April 22d, to call for the immediate presentation of the report of the committee on the Inquisition, for which the Córtes had been waiting for more than a year. The committee, in fact, had reached a decision, in July 1811, in favor of the Inquisition, and we are not told why it had been held back, for four members had concurred in it and only Muñoz Torrero had dissented. The report was accordingly presented, re-establishing the Suprema in its functions, with certain limitations as to political action; the debate was hot, but the Liberals had taken precautions to avoid a direct vote on the question. In a decree of March 25th, creating a supreme court of justice, they had introduced an article suppressing the tribunals known by the name of councils, and they pointed out that this embraced the Suprema, which gave abundant opportunity for discussion. Even more important was a decision of the Córtes, adroitly planned for this especial purpose, December 13, 1811, during the discussion on the Constitution, that no propositions bearing on the fundamental law should be admitted to debate without previous examination by the committee on the Constitution, to see that it was not in opposition to the articles thereof. It was notorious that inquisitorial procedure was in direct contravention of the constitutional provisions to secure justice in criminal prosecutions and, after an exciting struggle and a postponement, the report was referred to the committee on the Constitution. The Conservatives were so exasperated that they proposed to dissolve the Córtes, and have a new election under the Constitution, to which the Liberals agreed, except that the new body should meet October 1, 1813, and the existing one should remain in session until then. Archbishop Vélez tells us that the policy of the Liberals was to gain time, for their personal safety was at stake if the Inquisition was re-established, nor does he recognize how monstrous was the admission involved in this, for an institution that could prosecute and punish legislators for their official acts was virtually the despot of the land. Doubtless the deputies felt this, and that the struggle was one for life or death.[899]

The flank of the enemy was thus skilfully turned. The committee on the Constitution was in no haste to report and occupied itself with collecting documentary material from the archives wherever accessible. Its conclusion was that the Inquisition was incompatible with the fundamental law and, on November 13th, it voted on a project for establishing "Tribunales protectores de la fe" in compliance with the constitutional requirements. Finally, on December 8th two reports were presented. That of the minority by Antonio Joaquin Pérez, who had been an inquisitor in Mexico, argued that the abuses of the Inquisition were not inherent; that its procedure conflicted with the Constitution and should therefore be modified accordingly.[900]

[Sidenote: _DEBATE ON SUPPRESSION_]

The majority report was a very elaborate document, tracing the treatment of heresy from the earliest times, and pointing out the irreconcileable incompatibility of the Inquisition with the constitutional provisions securing to the citizen the right of open trial and opportunities for defence. It concluded with the draft of a decree "Sobre Tribunales protectores de la fe," in which such caution was deemed necessary that the Inquisition was nowhere mentioned. It appealed to the national pride, by simply reviving a law of the Partidas concerning the prosecution of heretics by bishops, it prescribed the form and procedure of the episcopal tribunals, the punishment by lay judges of those pronounced guilty, and it provided for appeals as well as for the suppression of writings contrary to religion. The reports were duly received and January 4, 1813, was appointed for the opening of debate.[901]

Probably no measure before the Córtes provoked so bitter and prolonged a debate. The Liberals had secured the advantage of position, and the Conservatives felt that the issue involved the whole future relations of Church and State. There was a preliminary skirmish on December 29th, when Sánchez de Ocaña asked for a postponement until the bishops and chapters could be consulted, on the ground that the Church was an independent body.[902] This was voted down and the debate was opened on the designated day, January 4, 1813. The friends of the Inquisition had not been idle; the Church organization was in good working order, and the Córtes were bombarded with memorials from bishops, chapters, ayuntamientos, military officers, towns and provinces, showing how active the canvass had been during the two years in which the subject had been mooted. Yet the Conservatives could only procure, out of the fifty-nine sees existing in Spain, protests from two archbishops and twenty-four bishops, the authorities of three vacant sees, and four chapters of those occupied by the French; while the number from officers of the army was not large, those from towns were but a small fraction of the municipalities, and only two provinces--Alava and Galicia--spoke through their authorities. Muñoz Torrero declared, January 10th, that every mail brought him mountains of letters in favor of the Inquisition and Toreno spoke of the reclamations that came in, showing how the signers of protests had been coerced.[903]

The debate was vigorous and eloquent on both sides but, while it took the widest range, embracing the history of the Church from apostolic times and the career of the Inquisition from the thirteenth century, the parliamentary question in reality turned upon the power of the Córtes to intrude in the sphere of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. After discussion lasting until January 22d on the preliminary propositions, the decree itself was taken up, article by article and strenuously fought over; amendments were presented and accepted or rejected, as they strengthened or weakened the measure, and hot resistance was offered to the clauses allowing appeals from the judgements of the bishops, which the Liberals supported on the ground that all the members who opposed the Inquisition had been denounced throughout Spain as heretics, and the safety of the citizen demanded that episcopal definition of heresy should not be final. The debate was prolonged until February 5th, when the last article was agreed to, and the decree in its final shape did not differ essentially from that proposed by the Committee. There was no formal suppression of the Inquisition; it was simply declared to be incompatible with the Constitution and the law of the Partidas was revived. This latter had been agreed to on January 26th by a vote of 92 to 30, and that date was assumed as determining the extinction of the Inquisition, regulating the disposition of its property. It is not worth while to recapitulate the details of the episcopal tribunals and the provisions for censorship, as the bishops took little interest in the exercise of their restored jurisdiction, though there are traces of their action in one or two cases--that of Joaquin Ramírez, priest of Moscardon and of Doña Antonia de la Torre of Seville.[904] During the seventeen months that elapsed until the re-establishment of the Inquisition, we are told that, although the land was full of Freemasons and other anticatholics, the bishops had no occasion to arrest any one, for no informers or accusers came forward--doubtless because they realized that their names would be known.[905]

[Sidenote: _THE INQUISITION SUPPRESSED_]

In the debate several ecclesiastics distinguished themselves by their able advocacy of the measure, among whom were pre-eminent Muñoz Torrero, who had borne a leading part in drafting the decree; Lorenzo Villanueva, who had defended the Inquisition against Bishop Grégoire, and Ruyz Padron, parish priest of Valdeorras in Galicia and formerly of the Canaries. How they fared in consequence we shall see hereafter. On the other side one of the most vehement was Pedro Inguanzo, who was rewarded with the see of Zamora, and ultimately with the archbishopric of Toledo.

The Liberals had won their victory by unexpectedly large majorities, indicating how great had been the advance in public opinion. No measure had created such intensity of feeling on either side; the rejoicing of the Liberals was extravagant, and the anger of the clerical party may be gauged by the declamation of Archbishop Vélez, who is as vehement as though the whole fate of Christianity was at stake--the abomination of desolation, he declares, seemed to have established its throne in the very house of God.[906] The clergy had already been alienated by various measures adverse to their interests--the appropriation of a portion of the tithes to the support of the armies, the escheating of the property of convents destroyed by the invaders, or having less than twelve inmates, and the abrogation of the Voto de Santiago, a tax on the agriculturists of some provinces based on a fraudulent tradition of a vow made by Ramiro I, when, by the aid of St. James, he won the suppositious victory of Clavijo.[907] The debate on the Inquisition had heightened the reputation of the Córtes as an irreligious body, and it was not wise to inflame still further the hostility of a class wielding such preponderating influence, but the Liberals, intoxicated by their victory, proceeded to render the measure as offensive as possible to the defeated clericals.

On February 5th, after the final vote, the committee on the Constitution was instructed to prepare a manifesto setting forth the reasons for the suppression of the Inquisition which, together with the decree, should be read in all parish churches for three consecutive Sundays, before the offertory of the mass; that in all churches the insignia of those condemned and penanced should be removed, and that a report should be made as to the disposition of the archives of the tribunals. The preparation of the manifesto delayed the publication of the decree until February 22d, for it was a long and wordy document, in which the decadence of Spain was attributed to the abuses of the Inquisition; the ancient laws had therefore been revived, restoring their jurisdiction to the bishops, in whose hands the Catholic faith and its sublime morals would be secure; Religion would flourish, prosperity would return, and perchance this change might some day lead to the religious brotherhood of all the nations.[908]

It was not long before the imprudence of this step manifested itself, for it gave the Church a battle-ground on which to contest, not only the reading of the manifesto but the execution of the decree itself and, if defeated, of occupying the advantageous position of martyrdom. Opposition had for some time been in preparation. As early as December 12, 1812, the six bishops of Lérida, Tortosa, Barcelona, Urgel, Teruel and Pampeluna, in the safe refuge of Majorca, had prepared a manifesto widely circulated in private, representing the Church as outraged in its ministers, oppressed in its immunities, and combated in its doctrines, while the Jansenist members of the Córtes were described as adherents of the Council of Pistoja.[909] No sooner was the decisive vote of February 5th taken than the chapter of the vacant see of Cádiz prepared for a contest over the reading of the decree and manifesto. It had already appointed a committee of three with full powers, and it now instructed the committee to communicate secretly with refugee bishops in Cádiz, and with chapters elsewhere, with a view to common action. Letters were sent to the chapters of Seville, Málaga, Jaen and Córdova, representing that the Cádiz chapter was ready to be the victim, but would be strengthened by the union of others. Seville replied with promises to do the same; the rest more cautiously, for they felt that they were treading on dangerous ground.

[Sidenote: _RESISTANCE OF THE CLERGY_]

This dampened somewhat the ardor of the fiery Cádiz chapter and it sought for other support. On February 23d the parish priests and army chaplains of Cádiz were assembled and addressed the chapter at great length. To read the decree and manifesto would be a profanation and a degrading servility. The papal constitutions creating the Inquisition were binding on the consciences of the faithful, until revoked by the same authority, and from this obligation the secular power could not relieve them. To obey would be to incur the risk of a dreadful sacrilege, and the penalties for impeding the Inquisition imposed by Julius III and Sixtus V; it was better to fall into the hands of man than into those of God, and they were ready to endure whatever fate might befall them. This was rank rebellion, slightly moderated by the expression of a desire to learn the opinions of the holy prelates who were in Cádiz. The chapter duly transmitted this address to the prelates--the Bishops of Calahorra, Plasencia, San Marcos de Leon, Sigüenza and Albarracin (Calahorra and San Marcos were deputies in the Córtes and had signed the Constitution)--stating that it entertained the same sentiments and repeated the request for their opinion. The bishops replied cautiously, and in substance advised that representations be made to the Government, which might be induced to modify its decrees.[910]

Time was growing short, for March 7th had been designated as the first Sunday for reading the decree and manifesto. On March 3d a capitular meeting was assembled, in which it was unanimously resolved to obey, but to make use of the provisions which authorize citizens to obey without executing and to represent reverentially the reasons for suspending action until further determination.[911] This was the first step in the development of a somewhat formidable plot which was organizing. On March 5th the papal nuncio, Pedro Gravina, Archbishop of Nicæa, addressed to the Regency a very significant protest against the decree itself. The abolition of the Inquisition, he said, was contrary to the primacy of the Holy See; he protested against this and he asked the Regency to induce the Córtes to suspend its publication and execution until happier times might secure the consent of the pope or of the National Council. On the same day he was guilty of the indiscretion of writing to the Bishop of Jaen and to the chapters of Málaga and Granada, under strict injunctions of secrecy, advising them of the proposed resistance of the Cádiz chapter and inviting their coöperation.[912] The next day, March 6th, the chapter sent to the Regency the address of the priests and chaplains of Cádiz, with a communication setting forth the reasons which not only prevented the execution of the mandate of the Córtes, but imperiously required the secular power to protect the Church and relieve it from an act in contravention of its honor and sanctity. The Chapter, it argued, could not be accused of disobedience for insisting on the spiritual law which was more binding than the temporal.[913]

The Regency evidently was participating in the plot to overthrow the Córtes for the purpose of saving the Inquisition. The legislative and executive branches of the Government had become estranged. There had been dissension in the matter of the suppression of the convents, and an investigation made by the Córtes into the affairs of the Regency had led to a damaging report on February 7th. The Liberals were convinced that it was planning a _coup d'état_ when, on the night of Saturday, March 6th the rumor spread that it had dismissed the Governor of Cádiz, D. Cayetano Valdés, and had replaced him with D. José María Alós. Sunday passed without the reading of the decree and manifesto in the churches and, on Monday, the minister of Gracia y Justicia sent to the Córtes the communications of the chapter to the Regency. A permanent session was at once declared; the Córtes dismissed the regents and replaced them with the three senior members of the Council of State, Cardinal Luis de Bourbon, Archbishop of Toledo, D. Pedro Agar and D. Gabriel Ciscar, who forthwith took the oaths and at 9 P.M. assumed possession of their office, the dismissed regents offering no resistance.[914]

[Sidenote: _RESISTANCE OF THE CLERGY_]

Harmony between the legislature and the executive being thus restored, on March 9th the Córtes ordered the Regency to compel obedience. Under threats of measures to be taken, the chapter yielded at 10 P.M. and promised that the next morning, and on the two following Sundays, the decree and manifesto should be duly read. It was obliged to furnish authentic copies of all papers and correspondence, on the basis of which a sharp reprimand was addressed to the Seville chapter and, on April 24th, prosecution was commenced against the Cádiz capitular vicar and the three members of the committee, for treasonable conspiracy. Their temporalities were seized and for six weeks they were imprisoned, incomunicado. The trial dragged on until the restoration of Fernando VII rendered acquittal a matter of course and enabled them, in their defence, to declare that to destroy the Inquisition or to impede its action in matters of faith was the same as prohibiting the jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff, thus trampling under foot a dogma established by Jesus Christ.[915]

The documents thus obtained showed that Nuncio Gravina had been active in furthering the plot of resistance. Now that it had been crushed, policy would have dictated dropping the matter but, on April 22d, the minister of Gracia y Justicia addressed him a sharp letter, expressing the confidence of the Regency that he would in future observe the limits of his office, as otherwise it would be obliged to exercise all its authority. To this he of course replied defiantly; whenever ecclesiastical matters were concerned he might find himself obliged to follow the same course, and the Regency could do as it pleased. Some further correspondence followed in the same vein and then, after an interval, his passports were sent to him, his temporalities were seized, and he was informed that the frigate Sabina was at his disposal to transport him whither he desired.[916] He declined the proffered frigate and established himself in Portugal, near the border, whence he continued busily to stir up disaffection, assuming that he still retained his functions as nuncio. On July 24th he addressed a protest to the Government and sent a circular to the bishops inviting them to apply to him in cases requiring his aid. This led to a lively controversy, in which the Government charged him with deceit and he retorted by accusing it of falsehood and challenging it to publish the documents.[917]

This was by no means the only trouble excited by the enforced reading of the decree and manifesto. Recalcitrant priests were found in many places, whose cases caused infinite annoyance and bad blood and the Bishop of Oviedo was recluded in a convent for refusing obedience.[918] The Government triumphed, but it was a Pyrrhic victory, multiplying its enemies, heightening its reputation for irreligion, and weakening its influence.[919]

The result was seen in the elections for the new _Córtes ordinarias_, when the deputies returned were largely reactionary, owing to clerical influence. There were many vacancies, however, which were filled by the old members for the corresponding places, and thus the parties were evenly balanced. The new Córtes met, September 26th and, on November 29th adjourned to meet in Madrid, January 15, 1814; the Regency transferred itself to Madrid, January 5th.[920] By that time the French were virtually expelled from Spain; Wellington was following Soult into France, and Suchet was barely holding his own against Copons in Catalonia.

The return of Fernando el Deseado was evidently at hand and was eagerly expected. The reaction following the prolonged excitement of the war was beginning to be felt. There was widespread misery in the devastated provinces, the relief of which was slow and difficult and was aggravated by a decree of the Córtes requiring those which had been subjugated to pay the arrears of the war contributions. Dissatisfaction with the Córtes was aroused by what were regarded as their sins both of commission and omission--the lowering of the value of French money caused great suffering and trouble; all who had served under the intruso were ejected from office; the parish priests were reinstated in their old cures, which turned into the streets the new incumbents; people began to grumble at the preponderance of the Liberals in the Córtes--in short, there was no lack of subjects of complaint.[921] Exhaustion and poverty, the inevitable consequences of so prolonged and desperate a struggle, produced discontent, and it was natural that those who had guided the nation through its tribulations should be held responsible, while their services should be forgotten. The military also were dissatisfied at finding that, at the close of a successful war, they had not the importance that they considered to be their due, while the clergy were outspoken in opposition and, through two widely circulated journals, "El Procurador de la Nacion y del Rey" and " La Atalaya de la Mancha," attacked the Government furiously.[922]

[Sidenote: _FERNANDO'S RETURN_]

During all this period, Fernando's existence at Valençay had been as agreeable as was consistent with his safe-keeping. The only restriction on his movements was a prohibition to ride on horseback; Napoleon is said to have kept him supplied with women to satisfy his strongly developed sensuality, and he manifested his characteristic baseness in letters to his captor congratulating him on his victories and soliciting the honor of a matrimonial alliance with his family. After the battle of Leipzig, Napoleon, striving to save what he could from the wreck, represented to Fernando that the English were seeking to convert Spain into a Jacobin republic; Fernando was ready to agree to any terms and, on December 11, 1813, there was signed what was known as the Treaty of Valençay, under which peace was declared between France and Spain, the English and French troops were to be withdrawn, the Afrancesados, who had taken refuge in France, were to be restored to their property and functions, and Fernando was to make a yearly allowance of 30,000,000 reales to his father and mother.[923]

Fernando sent the Duke of San Carlos with the treaty to Madrid for ratification, instructing him that, if he found the Córtes and Regency infected with Jacobinism, he was to insist on ratification pure and simple; if he found them loyal, he was to say that the king desired ratification, with the understanding that he would subsequently declare it invalid. The treaty excited general indignation. As early as January 1, 1811, the Córtes had decreed that they would recognize no treaty made by the king in captivity, and that he should not be considered free until he was surrounded by his faithful subjects in Córtes. Now the Córtes responded to Fernando's message with a decree of February 2, 1814, reissuing the former one and adding that obedience should not be rendered to him until he should, in the Córtes, take an oath to the Constitution; on his arrival at the frontier this decree was to be handed to him, with a copy of the Constitution that he might read and understand it; he was to follow a route prescribed by the Regency and, on reaching the capital, he was to come directly to the Córtes, take the oath, and the government would then be solemnly made over to him. All this was agreed to with virtual unanimity; it was signed by all the deputies and was published with a manifesto denouncing the treaty and expressing the warmest devotion to the king. The publication aroused general indignation at the treaty and the manifesto elicited universal applause.[924]

To Fernando, trained in the traditions of absolutism, the Treaty of Valençay was vastly preferable to the reception prepared for him, but he uttered no word of dissent when, after Napoleon had liberated him without conditions on March 7th, he was transferred by Suchet, on the banks of the Fluviá, March 24th, to Copons, the Captain-general of Catalonia. He exercised volition however in deviating from the route laid down by the Regency, and made a detour to Saragossa on the road to Valencia, but he preserved absolute silence as to his intentions. Everywhere he was received with delirious enthusiasm; the people idealized him as the symbol of the nationality for which they had struggled through five years of pitiless war, and there were no bounds to their exuberance of loyalty.

THE RESTORATION.

To few men has it been given, as to Fernando, to exercise so profound and so lasting an influence on the destinies of a nation. His ancestor, Henry IV, had a harder task when he undertook to impose harmony on compatriots who, for a generation had been savagely cutting each others' throats. Fernando came to a nation which had been unitedly waging war against a foreign enemy. Differences of opinion had grown up, as to the reception or rejection of modern ideas, and parties had been formed representing the principles of conservatism and innovation; mistakes had been made on both sides and bitterness of temper was rising, but a wise and prudent ruler, coming uncommitted to either side and enthusiastically greeted by both, could have exorcised the demon of faction, could have brought about compromise and conciliation, and could have gradually so trained the nation that it could have traversed in peace the inevitable revolution awaiting it. This was not to be. Unfortunately Fernando was one of the basest and most despicable beings that ever disgraced a throne. Cowardly, treacherous, deceitful, selfish, abandoned to low debauchery, controlled by a camarilla of foul and immoral favorites, his sole object was to secure for himself the untrammelled exercise of arbitrary power and to abuse it for sensual gratification. Cruel he was not, in the sense of wanton shedding of blood, but he was callously indifferent to human suffering, and he earned the name of Tigrekan, by which the Liberals came to designate him.[925]

[Sidenote: _REACTION_]

When Fernando entered Spain he was naturally undecided as to the immediate attitude to be assumed towards the changes made during his absence, but the enthusiasm of his reception and the influence of the reactionaries who surrounded him emboldened him in the determination to assert his autocracy. Several secret conferences were held during the journey to decide whether he should swear to the Constitution, and the negative opinion prevailed. In fact, to a man of Fernando's character, voluntary obedience to the Constitution was an impossibility. Not only did it declare that sovereignty resided in the nation, with the corresponding right to determine its fundamental laws, but the powers of the crown were limited in many ways; the Córtes reserved the right to exclude unworthy aspirants to the succession, and to set aside the incumbent for any cause rendering him incapable--clauses susceptible of most dangerous interpretation. At this very time, indeed, the Córtes were deliberating on the appropriation to be made to the king for the maintenance of his court, which implied the right to subject him to the most galling conditions.[926]

If anything was needed to induce him to assert the full powers enjoyed by his predecessors it was afforded by a manifesto known as the Representation of the Persians, from an absurd allusion to the ancient Persians in the opening sentence. This was signed by sixty-nine deputies to the Córtes; at much length and with turgid rhetoric it set forth the sufferings inflicted on Spain by the Liberals; it argued that all the acts of the Córtes of Cádiz were null and invalid; it pointed out the limitations on the royal power prescribed by the Constitution, and it asserted that absolute monarchy was recognized as the perfection of government. It did not omit to declare that the Inquisition was indispensable to the maintenance of religion, without which no government could exist; it dwelt on the disorders consequent upon its suppression and it reminded Fernando that, from the time of the Gothic kingdom, intolerance of heresy was the permanent law of the nation. Even if the king should think best to swear to the Constitution, the manifesto protested that it was invalid and that its destructive principles must be submitted to the action of Córtes assembled according to the ancient fashion. This paper, dated April 12th, was drawn up and secretly circulated by Bernardo Moza Reales, who carried it to Valencia and presented it to Fernando, receiving as reward the title of Marquis of Mataflorida.[927]

Fernando reached Valencia April 16th and paused there until May 4th, while secret preparations were made to overthrow the government. The Córtes, unaware of the contemplated treachery, were amusing themselves in arranging the hall for the solemnity of the king's oath and his acknowledgement as sovereign, and took no measures for self-protection. Troops were secretly collected in the vicinity of Madrid, under General Eguia, a violent reactionary, who was made Captain-general of New Castile. On the night of May 10th, when Fernando was nearing the capital, Eguia notified Joaquin Pérez, President of the Córtes, that they were closed; troops took possession of the hall and the archives were sealed, while police-agents were busy making arrests from a list of thirty-eight marked for proscription, including two of the regents, two ministers and all the more prominent liberal deputies.[928] No resistance was encountered and the precedent was established which has proved so disastrous to Spain.

[Sidenote: _DESPOTISM RE-ESTABLISHED_]

In the early dawn of the 11th, there was found posted everywhere a royal manifesto dated at Valencia on the 4th. In this, after a rambling summary of antecedent events, Fernando promised to assemble as soon as possible Córtes of the old fashion and, in conjunction with them, to establish solidly whatever was necessary for the good of the kingdom. He hated despotism; the enlightenment and culture of Europe would never permit it, and his predecessors had never been despots. But the Córtes of Cádiz and the existing body were illegal and all their acts were invalid; he did not intend to swear to the Constitution or to the decrees of the Córtes, but he pronounced them all void and of no effect, and any one supporting them in any manner or endeavoring to impede the execution of this manifesto was declared to be guilty of high treason and subject to the death-penalty.[929] It is perhaps needless to say that the promised convocation of Córtes and the salutary legislation never took place. All the modernized institutions framed since 1810 were swept away at a word, the old organization of Government was restored, and Fernando was an absolute despot, disposing at his pleasure of the lives and property of his subjects who had fought so desperately for his restoration.

How he used this power was manifested in the case of the fifty-two prisoners who were arrested at the time of the coup d'état. Nineteen months were spent in endeavoring to have them condemned by tribunals and commissions formed for the purpose, but no crime could be proved that would not equally affect all who had voted with them, many of whom stood in high favor at court. The last tribunal convened for their trial advised Fernando to sentence them in the exercise of his royal omnipotence, and he did so, December 17, 1815, sending them to distant fortresses, African presidios and convents, with strict orders to allow them to see no one and to send or receive no letters.[930] As regards the three specially obnoxious clerical deputies, Villanueva was recluded for six years in the convent of la Salceda, from which we shall see him emerge and again play a brief part on the political stage. Muñoz Torrero was sent to the convent of Erbon, in Galicia. He finally fell into the savage hands of Dom Miguel of Portugal and perished, after severe torture, in 1829.[931] Ruiz de Padron was not on the list of the proscribed; he had not been elected to the new Córtes but was detained by sickness in Cádiz. On his return in May to his parish of Valdeorras, his bishop, Manuel Vicente of Astorga, made a crime of his absence from his cure without episcopal licence and prosecuted him for this and for sustaining in the Córtes projects adverse to religion and the throne. On November 2, 1815, he was sentenced to perpetual reclusion in the desert convent of Cabeza de Alba and, to prevent appeal, the bishop sent the process to the Inquisition of Valladolid. Ruiz appealed to the metropolitan, but the bishop refused to allow the appeal. Then a _recurso de fuerza_ to the Chancellery of Valladolid was tried, which thrice demanded the process before the bishop, to escape exposure in a secular court, allowed the appeal. Finally the metropolitan annulled the proceedings and Ruiz was set at liberty, after four years' imprisonment, broken in health and ruined in fortune. This action probably superseded a prosecution against him for printing his speech in the Córtes against the Inquisition, a prosecution commenced by the Madrid tribunal and transferred to Valladolid.[932]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: _REORGANIZATION_]

It was at first thought that the manifesto of May 4th, by invalidating all the acts of the Córtes, in itself re-established the Inquisition. In fact, Seville, its birth-place, had not waited for this and, on May 6th, a popular tumult restored it. The next day its banner, piously preserved by Don Juan García de Negra, a familiar, was solemnly conducted to the castle of Triana by a procession, at the head of which marched Juan Acisla de Vera, coadministrator of the diocese; the Te Deum was sung in the cathedral, the houses were illuminated and splendidly adorned with tapestries.[933] All this was premature, as likewise were the attempts made by some tribunals to reorganize, for the absence of an inquisitor-general and Suprema rendered irregular the transaction of business. Representations were made to the king by Seville and other towns, by the chapter of Valencia, and by bishops, praying him to take action, and the scruples as to the intervention of the civil power in spiritual affairs vanished.[934] Fernando accordingly, by decree of July 21, 1814, recited the appeals made to him and announced that he deemed it fitting that the Holy Office should resume the exercise of its powers, both the ecclesiastical granted by the popes and the royal, bestowed by his predecessors. In both of these the rules in force in 1808 were to be followed, together with the laws issued at sundry times to restrain abuses and curtail privileges.

But, as other reforms might be necessary, he ordered that, as soon as the Suprema should assemble, two of its members, selected by him, and two of the Royal Council should form a junta to investigate the procedure and the methods of censorship and, if they should find anything requiring reform, they should report to him that he might do what was requisite.[935] Even the Córtes could not assert more authoritative domination.

The inquisitor-generalship was filled by the appointment of Francisco Xavier de Mier y Campillo, Bishop of Almería, and the vacancies in the Suprema were supplied. The junta of reform was organized and met and consulted. In 1816 we hear of their being still in session, but we are told that they found nothing requiring amendment.[936]

The Suprema lost no time in getting to work. A circular of August 8th, to the tribunals, enclosed the royal decree and announced that, in virtue of it, the council was that day restored to its authority and functions, which had been interrupted only by the invasion and the so-called Córtes. The tribunals were ordered to proceed, as in former times, with all business that might offer, and the officials were to discharge their accustomed duties, until the Bishop of Almería should receive his bulls. Lists of all officials were to be sent, with statements of their dates of service, and of popular report as to their conduct during the troubles, and whether they had publicly attacked the rights of the sovereign and of the Holy Office. A process of "purification" ensued, investigating the records of all officials, many of whom had bowed to the tempest during the short-lived triumph of Liberalism. April 7, 1815, a circular letter directed that any one who had petitioned the Córtes for the abolition of the Inquisition, or had congratulated them on their action, was no longer to be regarded as in office or entitled to wear the insignia, but considerable tenderness was shown to the erring. Thus Don Manuel Palomino y Lozano, supernumerary secretary of the Madrid tribunal, had signed an address of congratulation to the Córtes, but on his pleading coercion and fear he was allowed to retain office.[937]

Allusion has already been made (Vol. II, p. 445) to the difficulties experienced in re-constituting an institution which, during five years of war, had been exposed to spoliation and destruction, resulting, in some places, in the wrecking of its buildings, the purloining of its movables and the scattering of its papers. Thus, for instance, in September and October 1815, the Logroño tribunal, which had lost its habitation, was negotiating with the Marquis of Monasterio for his house, which he offered rent-free, if it would keep the premises in repair and make the necessary alterations; the Suprema instructed it to secure better terms if it could, and to be very economical with the alterations.[938] As late as 1817 we chance to learn that Santiago and Valladolid had no prisons and, in 1819, that Llerena was in the same plight.[939]

The financial question was even more serious. We have seen how, under Godoy, the tribunals had been obliged to convert all their available securities into Government funds, which of course had become worthless, and how the Córtes, by decree of December 1, 1810, had applied the suppressed prebends to the conduct of the war. It must therefore have been well-nigh starved when suppressed by the Córtes, but there was no disposition to expose individuals to suffering and, when its property was declared to belong to the nation, elaborate provision was made for the payment of salaries and the customary gratifications, though we may safely assume that in the majority of cases, these kindly intentions failed of effect.[940]

[Sidenote: _FINANCIAL TROUBLES_]

When re-establishment came the task of gathering the salvage from the wreck of the past six years was most disheartening. The royal decree simply called on the Inquisition to resume its functions and said nothing about its property, the restoration of which was evidently taken for granted, under the manifesto invalidating the acts of the Córtes. There was no disposition, however, on the part of the treasury officials to do this and, in response to a consulta of August 11th, the king, on the 18th, issued an order on them to make over to the tribunals all real estate of every kind that had been absorbed by the treasury, the account of rents to be made up to July 21st and apportioned on that basis. This left personal property out of consideration and a further decree was procured, September 3d, ordering the restoration of everything that had passed into the Caja de Consolidacion, as well as the fruits of the suppressed prebends, balancing the accounts up to July 21st.[941] This was slackly obeyed; the necessities of the tribunals were pressing, and the Suprema presented consultas of October 1st and 23d asking that they should be allowed to collect the revenues, and that restitution should be made of all past collections or, in default of this, that a monthly allowance of eighty thousand reales be made to the Inquisition. To this Fernando replied that the needs of the royal treasury did not permit the repayment of back collections, nor could it meet the proposed monthly allowance, but it was his will that such payments as the General Treasury and the Junta del Crédito Público could spare should be made as a payment on account for the most necessary expenses of the Inquisition. This last was doubtless an empty promise; the royal financiers were determined not to go back of July 21st, and it appears, by a letter of December 16th, that the royal officials were still making collections. The most that the Suprema could accomplish was to procure from the Junta del Crédito Público an order of January 9, 1815, and from the chief of the Treasury one of January 30th, to their subordinates to cease collecting from the property of the Inquisition, under the rigid condition that an account should be kept by the tribunals of their collections, so that whatever they might obtain of arrears due prior to July 21st should enure to the benefit of the Government.[942] In this, however, there was recognized the justice of a claim for the unpaid back salaries of the officials, and elaborate arrangements were made to ascertain and put these in shape, but it was labor lost. The treasury was at too low an ebb, and the claimants for services rendered during the troubled years of war and revolution were too numerous, for the Inquisition to obtain what it demanded.

The Suprema was also diligent in seeking to recover the amounts which the tribunals had been obliged to invest in Government securities, but this was as fruitless as other attempts to save fragments of the wreck. The last we hear of it is in 1819, when the Suprema was still endeavoring to meet the exigencies of the Treasury in framing lists of the dates and numbers of the bonds.[943]

It was difficult to evolve order out of the chaos of destruction, especially where the papers had been scattered, so that evidences of indebtedness and accounts were lost, interfering greatly with efforts to reclaim property. In November, 1814, we find the Valencia tribunal issuing an edict requiring the return of all books and papers and records within fifteen days, under pain of excommunication and two hundred ducats; as to the furniture and other effects, they were to be restored under threat of legal proceedings. Although Valencia had been for two years under French occupation, it seems to have been more prompt than some others in getting its finances into intelligible condition. In November the Suprema calls upon it for a detailed schedule of resources and expenses and, in the latter it is not to omit the contribution required by the Suprema, amounting to 130,896 reales, and meanwhile it is not to pay out anything for salaries or other purposes without awaiting permission. Under this it was allowed, January 21, 1815, to pay salaries up to the end of 1814, and in May to make further payments. Yet in 1816 we find it reduced to seeking a loan wherewith to meet the salaries and a sum of thirteen thousand reales demanded by the Suprema.[944]

The Suprema itself, despite the contributions which it sought to levy from the tribunals, was in a condition of penury so absolute that, on July 3, 1815, it announced that it had no funds wherewith to pay the salaries of its officials or the postage on the official communications from the tribunals, which must therefore in future arrange with the Post-Office to prepay the postage and settle monthly or quarterly. This, however, as it explained August 19th, applied only to what was addressed to it as, under a decree of May 19, 1799, letters to the inquisitor-general and other heads of councils were carried free.[945]

[Sidenote: _RESUMPTION OF FUNCTIONS_]

There was gradual improvement, but it was slow. A carta acordada of September 3, 1818, says that the Suprema cannot view with indifference the deplorable financial condition of nearly all the tribunals, whose diminished revenues force them to allow the meagre salaries of their officials to fall into arrears, nor can it close its ears to the clamors of these unfortunates, reduced as they are to the deepest indigence. Seeking for partial remedies, it must insist on the avoidance of all expenses not absolutely indispensable, and the suppression of all superfluous offices. One of these is the notariate of the court of confiscations; when it falls vacant it is not to be filled, and its duties are to be performed by the secretary of sequestrations, whose salary will consequently be raised by fifty ducats. This was a somewhat exiguous conclusion of so solemn an exordium, seeing that the actual work of the tribunals could readily have been performed by less than half the officials who swelled their pay-rolls, but it is not without interest as showing how persistently the old inflated organization was maintained, and was struggling to support itself on the remnants of its once prosperous fortunes. Under such a system, poverty naturally continued to the last. When the Revolution of 1820 broke out, and the Seville tribunal contributed six thousand reales to the committee organized to resist the rising, it had no funds and was obliged to borrow the money on interest. As almost the first act of the successful revolutionists was to suppress the Inquisition, the lenders in this case doubtless found themselves to be involuntary contributors.[946] At this time the Seville tribunal had a force of twenty-eight officials, with a pay-roll of 92,300 reales, while the amount of its work may be gathered from the fact that the revolutionists found only three prisoners to release.[947]

* * * * *

Thus amid difficulties and tribulations the tribunals one by one resumed their functions. In October, 1814, Seville was prosecuting Lt. Colonel Lorenzo del Castillo for propositions; Saragossa was receiving the self-denunciation of Mathias Pintado, priest of Bujanuelo, for heregia mista, and Valencia was suspending the sumaria of the Capuchin Fray Pablo de Altea for _mala doctrina_, while in December Murcia was prosecuting Don Josef de Zayas, a prominent lieutenant-general of the royal army, for Free-Masonry.[948] Business, however, at the first was scanty. In the book of secret votes of the Suprema, there is an interval from December 22, 1814, until February 16, 1815. As the months of 1815 passed on, the breaks grow shorter and, by the summer of 1815, the decrees follow each other closely. Valladolid seems to have been dilatory in getting to work for, although it had three inquisitors drawing salary, no case came up from it until January, 1817, and, from this one it would seem that it had not been in operation until October, 1816.[949]

The prosecution of such a man as Zayas shows that the reorganized Inquisition did not hesitate to grapple with those in high place, and another early case illustrates this still more forcibly. During the French occupation the Duke and Duchess of Sotomayor and the Countess of Mora had obtained possession of the books and indecent pictures accumulated in the Madrid tribunal. Apparently they refused to surrender them; the tribunal prosecuted them and rendered a sentence, subject to the royal permission, that these objects should be seized, but in such a manner as not to attract attention or to provoke resentment. The Suprema confirmed the sentence, ordering its execution by a single inquisitor, accompanied by a secretary, so as to reconcile the respect due to the parties with the secrecy that was essential.[950]

A politic act was the issue of a general pardon for all that had "impiously and scandalously" been uttered and done against the Inquisition under the fatal circumstances of the recent troubles.[951] It could afford to assume this attitude of magnanimity, seeing that the Government was pitilessly avenging it on its most prominent adversaries. When the Government failed in this duty, the Inquisition had no hesitation in nullifying its edict of pardon. We have seen its prosecution of Ruiz de Padron, until it found that the Bishop of Astorga was rendering this superfluous, nor was this by any means an isolated case. In August, 1815, we find the Suprema acting on sumarias from Canaries, in the cases of Mariano Romero, a priest, for a sonnet against the Inquisition, and of Francisco Guerra for a sonnet and an epitaph of the same character. So, in November, 1815, there is a prosecution of the Duke of Parque Castrillo for congratulating the Córtes on the abolition of the Inquisition and for a general order to the troops, December 2, 1812. His case dragged on until June 10, 1817, when its suspension was ordered.[952]

[Sidenote: _FERNANDO'S FAVOR_]

Yet it was not easy to revive the old-time veneration for an institution that had been so buffeted and roughly handled by the press and the Córtes. A couple of cases in Madrid, in 1814, of women in whose shops scandalous pictures and objects were exhibited, would seem to indicate that its commands were not obeyed with alacrity.[953] It was doubtless with a view of overcoming this indifference that Fernando himself assumed the office of an inquisitor, February 3, 1815, when he visited the Suprema, presided over its deliberations and participated in its decisions, examined all the offices and expressed his royal satisfaction with the methods of procedure. By royal permission the Suprema sent its president and three members to return the visit and express its gratitude for a mark of royal favor such as Ferdinand the Catholic nor any of his successors had ever made. A full report was printed in the Gaceta of February 16th, copies of which the Suprema sent to the tribunals with orders to read it to the officials and place it in the archives.[954] With the same purpose, he erected, as we have seen, the Congregation of San Pedro Martir to a knightly Order, with a habit and badge and, on April 6th, the feast of St. Peter Martyr, he presided over the Congregation, with his brothers Carlos and Antonio, wearing the insignia. In communicating this to the tribunals, the Suprema rendered it especially impressive by ordering them to commence the payment of salaries earned since July 21st and to continue it monthly.[955] Noble courtiers doubtless found that assuming office in the Inquisition was an avenue to royal favor, and we speedily see many of them submitting their genealogies for this purpose. The great Duke of Berwick and Alva, Fitzjames Stuart Silva Stolberg y Palafox, thus seeks the office of alguazil mayor of the tribunal of Córdova; the Marquis of Altamira does the same for the position of honorary secretary in that of Madrid, and we happen to hear of the Count of Mazeda, a grandee of the first class, serving as alguazil mayor of the tribunal of Santiago, and the Marquis of Iscar as honorary secretary to the Suprema.[956]

In spite of all this, the Inquisition could not regain its former position. Not only was it not respected but it dared not to enforce respect. Two Edicts of Grace for Free-Masons were issued, January 2d and February 12, 1815, when the Valladolid tribunal sent those for Medina del Campo and its district to its commissioner Victor González to be posted. The vicar-general and Ordinary, Doctor Josef Suárez Talavera, as ecclesiastical judge, demanded that they should pass through his hands, and when they were posted they bore the MS. subscription "Fixese, Doctor Suárez," thus assuming that it was by his permission, and arrogating to himself a jurisdiction superior to that of the Inquisition. When this was reported to the tribunal it ordered González to take them down and replace them with unsullied ones, which he did. Thereupon Suárez sent him word that, but for starting on a journey, he would make him repent and that, had he known of his being in Medina he would have cast him in prison and seen who could get him out. The tribunal meekly swallowed this flagrant insult; it was under instructions to perform no act indicating jurisdiction superior to that of the Ordinaries, so it quietly gathered evidence verifying the facts and sent the papers, September 15th, to the Suprema.[957]