A HORKIBLE KEMINISCENCE OF THE INQUISITION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 1738, 22 September 1873, Page 3

A HORKIBLE KEMINISCENCE OF THE INQUISITION.

{From Household Words.) (Concluded.) All this time the fussy, frightened citizen who had served as my godfather had not dared even to give me a pinch of snuff or to answer any of my anxious questions ; now my sentence was commuted, he bowed, chatted, and handed me his snuff-box, which I refused with contempt and indignation. But he only shrugged his shoulders and stammered an apology. Now, one by one, the condemned, faint and staggering, were brought in to hear their sentence, which they did with a frightened vacancy inconceivably touching. A devil would have shed tears to see them ; but ihe Inquisitors were gossiping among themselves and scarcely looked at them ; so surfeited were these priests with their enemies' blood. Every sentence ended with the same cold mechanical formula : That the hoy office, being unhappily unable to pardon the prisoners, on account of their relapse atid impenitence, found itself obliged to punish them with all the rigour of earthly law, and therefore delivered them with regret to the hands of secular justice, praying it to use clemency and mercy towards the wretched men ; saving their souls by the punishment of their bodies, and recommending death, but not the effusion of blood. Hypocrites! At the word blood, the justice hangmen stepped forward and took possession of their bodies ; the alcaid first striking each of them on the chest, to shew thafc the/ were now abandoned to the rope and fire. A mo >th before this auto-da-fe, the ministers of the Inquisition preceded by their banner, gorgeous and luminous with sacred symbols, had gone in cavalcade from the Palace of the Holy Offlco to the Cathedral square and proclaimed tbe ceremony with drums, trumpets, and clashing of brass, to the great crowd that thronged to hear the good news. Our present auto da-fe was to celebrate the king's marriage; and was to be followed by great bull fights. Tbey had erected in the square a great theatre, fifty feet, long, -raised to a level with the king's balcony. AU round ran an amphitheatre of thirty steps, for the C>uncil of the Inquisition and the king's ministers. Above these, and higher than the king's seat, was the Grand Inquisitor's place, under a gilt and crimson dais. On the left of the theatre was a second amphitheatre, where the criminals sat and trembled. The fire shone on their pale face 3. In the midst was a smaller scaffold, with two cages, for more penned up criminals to. hear their sentences in. There were in front of this three special chairs, for the preachers «nd readers cf tbe sentences ; and near these chairs was a temporary altar, hung with blsck. The king had the queen on hia left hand, and the queen's mother on his right, he court ladies fllled the rest of the balcony; which, with their flowers and dresses, seemed as if heaped with nosegays. Ihere were also separato seats for the ambassadors, the city judges, and the _*oplo,

The procession consisted of, first, one hundred charcoal men, armed with pike and musket, and laden with billets of wood ; then the Dominicans, carrying a white cross ; then the Duke of Medina Cc»li, bearing, as is the hereditary privilege of his family, the great red damask banner of the Inquisition, which has on the one side the arms of Spam, and on the other a naked sword thrust through a laurel crown. Next came a green cross muffled in black, followed by nobles and -familiars of the Inquisition, dressed in robes, adorned with white and black crosses, edged with gold. The train was closed with fifty halberdiers or guards of the Inquisition, clad in. white and black, and commanded by the hereditary protector of the Inquisition in the- Archbishopric of Seville. The standard and- cross were fixed above' the royal seat, and- the Dominicans, who had b.en all night singing hymns and thirsting for our blood, drew up in line, as the king and ladies at that' moment appeared in the balconies, in a blaze of colour and splendour, like a sunburst. This was at eight o'clock. The charcoalburners were placed on the left of the king's box, the guard on the right. The great pasteboard effigies were placed prominently at one end of the amphitheatre. Next, filed in, sad and slow, the hundred men condemned to the fire ; cords round their necks, the three-feet high flame coloured mitres on their heads j their feet bare ; the torches shaking in their trembling hands. Next, each led betweeen two familiars, came the commuted; and, last of all, the innocent. Some of the condemned had gags in their mouths, to prevent any outburst of blasphemy, and were each of them surrounded by four or five friars, holding crucifixes to their eyes, and exhorting them, angrily and noisily, to repent. Having passed under the king's balcony, and then round the amphitheatre, they were placed on the left hand of the anipitheatre between the familiars aad the priests, who exhorted them continually to •repent. -■ Next,- arrived the banner of the parish of Saint Sebastian, the Inquisition Council, the Inquisitors, the Qualifiers, and a long procession of secular and religious dignitaries, who placed themselves on the right side of the theatre, surrounding the Grand Inquisitor's chair. Last of all came the Grand Inquisitor, robed in- violet, attended by the President of the Council of Castille ; and when he (the archdevil) took his seat, the president bowed and retired. Then mass was again said, and the priest, leaving the altar, sat down : upon which, the Inquisitor, putting ;on pontifical robes and mitre, bowed first to the altar, and then to the king ; and ascending the steps of the throne, a servitor bearing the cross, read aloud the oath by which the King of Spain had bound himself to protect at all hazards, even to the loss of his kingdom, the Catholic Faith, to extirpate heresy, and to support the Inquisition. Then thu king, taking off his hat (the great sword held unsheathed by a chamberlain at his left side), swore to observe the oath. The Inquisitor unrobed and resumed his place, while the same oath was administered to all present. Next,, there was a sermon by a Dominican, praising the Inquisition, and denouncing heresy, and the procession moved towards the piles, now dry, piled and stacked with wood. billets and faggots A few horrid moments of rivetting collars, blankets ; a twist, or. two of the garotte for the least guilty ; a struggle here and there, with a demoniac yell, soon stifled by cruel hands and driving, blows. The fires were lit. Now the excitement in the boxes got greater and greater." Tbe fans agitated in black waves ; the silk dresses, too, waved like flowery me_dbwß in the March winds But no i ity ; not a tear- The flame raged with cruel leaps and mounts ; it drove up in great quivering pyramids, that the wind now and then drifted out in horizontal banners, showing black bodies, black burning stakes, and thin hands clasped together in prayer. Higher and' .higher mounted the great twisted columns of smoke ; now turning to roaring arid racing masses of living fire; furiously, wrathfully, and gluttonously hungering for victims..'