No one lived at ease; unknown and secret denunciation threatened everyone; unfortunate was he who gave ground for the least suspicion and unhappy was he who merely failed to wear a rosary.
It is necessary to transport one’s self to those times, to read what history records of that dread tribunal, in order to picture, adequately, to one’s self the terror which must have overwhelmed those who appeared before the Holy Office in the old Cathedral of Mexico.
With time respect diminished, and that which before caused terror now aroused derision.
Some of the sentences were ridiculous—mere travesties. For instance, that celebrated in Santo Domingo on December 7, 1664, and in which conjugal infelicities between the viceroy, Mancera, and his lady secretly had their influence. Guido says: “There were ten condemned and among them one who, according to his sentence, was taken to the patio of the convent and stripped; two Indians smeared him with honey and covered