elged to have committed; and a third time, to force them to reveal their accomplices or abettors."

The Auto-da-Fé or Auto-de-Fé (= Act of Faith) was the public and solemn reading of extracts from the trials before the court of the Inquisition, and of the sentences pronounced by the judges of that tribunal. The Auto da Fé properly ended with the transfer of the offenders to the secular authority for the execution of the sentences; but it is popularly applied to the execution of the sentences, particularly by burning. The clearing of the prisons of the Inquisition, which is implied in the public and general act, took place in Spain, Portugal, &c., at the accession or marriage of a king, birth of an heir apparent, &c. Similar solemnities on a smaller scale occurred every year on the Friday before Good Friday. The general description of an Auto da Fé is thus given by Shoberl:

By daybreak, the tolling of the great bell of the cathedral summoned the faithful to the horrid tragedy. Persons of the highest distinction eagerly offered their services to escort the victims; and grandees were often seen assuming the character of familiars [=servants and spies] of the Inquisition. The Dominicans, with the standard of the execrable tribunal, opened the procession. The condemned walked barefoot, with a pointed cap on their heads, and dressed in a san-benito, a yellow frock with a cross on the breast and on the back, and covered with painted representations of the faces of fiends. The penitents, on whom some penance only was imposed, came first, and after the cross, which was borne behind them, followed such as were doomed to die. Effigies of persons who had escaped, and the remains of the dead that had incurred condemnation, appeared in the fearful procession lying in black coffins, on which were painted flames and infernal figures; and it was closed by priests and monks. Passing through the principal streets of the city to the cathedral, a sermon was preached, and their sentence read to the delinquents, each of them standing meanwhile, with an extinguished taper in his hand, before a crucifix. A servant of the Inquisition then smote them on the breast with his hand, to signify that the tribunal had ceased to have any power over them. The condemned were then delivered up to an officer of the civil authority, and soon afterwards conducted to the place of execution. Each was asked

in what faith he would die; if he said, 'in the Catholic,' he was strangled before he was burned; the others, who persisted in their opinions, were consigned alive to the flames. These Autos da Fé, of which the professed historians of the Inquisition give such harrowing details as thrill the blood with horror, the people of both sexes and all ages thronged to witness with transports of satisfaction and joy surpassing those displayed on any other occasion. Even kings deemed it a meritorious act to attend those cruel exhibitions, with their whole court, and to feast their eyes on the torments of the wretched sufferers."

At a general Auto da Fé held at Madrid, on Sunday, June 30, 1680, by request of king Charles II., and minutely described by Olmo, an officer of the Inquisition, who was present, there were 55 condemned to the fire, of whom 21 were present in person, and 34 in effigy. The ceremony, including the procession, mass, sermon, reading of extracts from the processes and sentences of all the condemned, and absolution of those who had repented, lasted from 7 A.M. till 9 P.M. while the burning lasted from 4 P.M. till 9 1-2 A.M. of Monday. The Autos da Fé became very rare in Spain in the 18th century. The last person burnt by the sentence of the Inquisition in Spain was a woman accused of having made a contract with the devil. She was burnt at Seville, Nov. 7, 1781. The Spanish Inquisition was suppressed by Napoleon's decree in 1808 in the parts occupied by the French, and in 1813 by the Cortes; it was reëstablished by Ferdinand VII. in 1814, and again suppressed by the Cortes in 1820; reëstablished under Ferdinand in 1825-6; again abolished in 1834, and its property confiscated in 1835 to pay the public debt. Col. Lemanouski and his French troops, who destroyed the Inquisition near Madrid in 1809, found in its dungeons, notwithstanding the previous disclaimers of the holy fathers, not only decaying and decayed bodies still chained, but also, as he says, "the living sufferer of every age and of both sexes, from the young man and maiden to those of threescore and ten years, all as naked as when they were born into the world," and "the instruments of torture, of every kind which the ingenuity of men or devils could invent."

The Spanish Inquisition was introduced into Sicily and Sardinia as well as the Spanish colonies in America, and the tribunals of Lima, Carthagena, and Mexico in America rivaled those of Spain itself in severity. It was established in Portugal in 1557 with nearly the same organization as in Spain; but its power was broken a century ago, and it was abolished about 50 years ago in Portugal and its dependencies, including Brazil and Goa. The Inquisition of Goa in the East Indies was long famous for its power and severity.

Llorente, who had been secretary-general of the Spanish Inquisition, and had at his disposal all its papers, wrote its history after it was suppressed in 1808 by the French. Modern Catholic writers have contested the accuracy of his citations from the documents of the Inquisition; but Protestant historians generally regard his authority in this respect as unshaken. He estimated the number burned alive in Spain under Torquemada (inquisitor-general, 1483-98) at 8,800; under Deza (inquisitor-general, 1499-1506) at 1,664; under cardinal Ximenes (inquisitor-general, 1507-17) at 2,536; from 1483 to 1808 (325 years) at 31,912. He estimated that 17,659 were burned in effigy, and 291,450 subjected to rigorous pains and penances, as imprisonment, galley-slavery, &c., during those 325 years in Spain. The number of the victims of the Inquisition in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and in Portugal, Sicily, Sardinia, and other parts of Europe can not be ascertained.

The Inquisition is by no means destitute of defenders and advocates in the 19th century. A Protestant missionary in Italy in 1853 wrote thus.

"If I had not seen, with my own eyes, articles from the Tablet [of Dublin], the Univers [of Paris], the Cattolico of Genoa, the Armonia, and Campana of Turin, the Courier des Alpes, and the Echo du Mont Blanc of Savoy, and a Roman Catholic Journal of Milan, I could not have believed how warm and unanimous the Roman Catholic prelates and their supporters are for the formal reëstablishment of the Inquisition, and how sanguine they are in the gradual attainment of this, their darling object, in every country under their control and influence."