- the sympathies of a rabble, whom it was their interest to keep brutalized; * and the religious sentiment of the nation, so far as there was any. But this last was a very uncertain reliance, for the same law which makes heresy a crime, legalizes hypocrisy, and the inquisitor cared very little for the thoughts of men so long as they remain unuttered; and as no two men think alike, the crime of heresy appears to consist in expressing too frankly the logical deductions of the understanding upon the all-important subject of religion. To speak disrespectfully of the holy office, the Inquisition, was the worst
THE HALLS OF THE INQUISITION.
The north front of the Plazuelo of the Inquisition, now generally called the Plaza of the Dominicans, is occupied by the great yard of the Dominican convent, which is separated by a high wall from the Plaza, and by a street from the buildings of the Inquisition.
Within this yard there is a large flagstone, with a hole in its centre, which stone, on days of the auto da fe, used to be brought out into the Plaza, and, with iron post, neck-ring, and chain attached, constituted the simple apparatus for the human sacrifice.
The Dominican fathers have carefully laid aside the iron post, with its ring and chain, and perhaps, with them, the most valuable of the instruments of torture, which were removed from the Inquisition building.
As there are two classes of bull-fights, the ordinary and the grand bull-fight, so there was the ordinary auto da fe, performed in this Little Plaza, and the grand act of faith, auto da fe general, which ordinarily ought to come off in the Grand Plaza of the city, in front of the vice-regal palace.