Aug. 4. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



77 



LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST *, 1855. 



THE INQUISITION. 



Such readers of the " N. & Q." as have any 

 curiosity on this subject may be referred to 

 the article in Vol. x., p. 120., and continued in 

 Vol. X., p. 137. In this article a description is 

 given of the house of the General Inquisition of 

 Madrid, at the time when the tribunal was sup- 

 pressed in 1820; and censure is passed upon 

 certain writers, English and French, for giving 

 currency to a fictitious story of the demolition of 

 a palace of the Inquisition near Madrid, in 1809, 

 by the French troops under Marshal Soult. The 

 story appeared to have been adopted by those 

 writers successively, from a narrative purporting 

 to have been made by Col. Lehmanowsky, and 

 printed In a United States newspaper. In Vol. x., 

 p. 246., appear some additional particulars relating 

 to the house of the Inquisition, the result of per- 

 sonal inspection in the year 1820, from the pen of 

 Lord Monson; and in Vol. xi., p. 108., is a com- 

 munication from Philadelphia to the " N. & Q.," 

 giving the copy of a letter addressed from Ham- 

 burg, Clark CO., Indiana, to the editor of the Inde- 

 pendent, a New York religious newspaper, written 

 from J. J. Lehmanowsky himself, endeavouring to 

 support the credibility of the story put forth in 

 his name ; into which newspaper it would seem 

 that the first article, or some part of It, had been 

 inserted from the " N. & Q." His letter mystifies 

 and confounds the re-establishment of the Inqui- 

 sition as an institution, which was suppressed in 

 1809, and restored to power in 1814, with the 

 (supposed) reconstruction of an edifice asserted to 

 have been destroyed. And again resting, it would 

 seem, his apocryphal "Destruction of the Inquisi- 

 tion Chemastin" on the circumstance that a de- 

 cree suppressing the Inquisition as an institution 

 was issued by Napoleon in 1808, during his tem- 

 porary residence, from a house of the Duque 

 del Infantado's, at Chamartin, near Madrid ; an 

 edifice yet standing, and In the gardens of which, 

 in 1851, was growing the staple production of the 

 United States — the cotton-plant, producing its 

 flossy down and ripened seed. An " Inquisition 

 Chemastin" never had existence. 



It will have been readily perceived by every 

 candid reader of the first article, that its purpose 

 was not personal, as Mr. Lehmanowsky by his 

 letter would seem to infer ; It was a correction of 

 the too easy adoption by some writers on the 

 Romish controversy of a narrative to which they 

 had lent the authority of their names, copying one 

 from another without seeking cotemporary proofs. 

 Hence a story that might afford an hour's amuse- 

 ment in the columns of the newspaper where it 



No. 301.] 



first appeared, like any similar novelette, seemed 

 not improbable, by the currency so given it, to 

 become in this country an established fiction 

 historical, and to return to the United States 

 whence It came, with a more authentic impression 

 upon it than at first it possessed. What efforts 

 are made by the best writers to clear away the 

 fables of history already adopted ! Is it not, then, 

 the moral duty of an enlightened age to supply 

 the following one with materials for historic ve- 

 racity ? That is no generous enthusiasm for liberty 

 and religious truth which would needlessly in- 

 crease its future perplexity. In works of imagin- 

 ation, it may be considered a high species of merit 

 to adapt the facts of history In the most perfect 

 manner to Romance ; but the best interests of 

 literature are concerned in preventing the adapt- 

 ation of undistinguishable romance to history. 

 And as a certain sense of mystery envelopes every- 

 thing relating to the Inquisition, which excites the 

 imagination by its secrecy, it may be worth while 

 to reply to Mr. Lehmanowsky's defence of his 

 story, by producing here evidence of a more formal 

 kind than the issue of a question of mere literary 

 and historical interest might otherwise seem to 

 require. 



This can fortunately be done from a set of 

 papers now before me, officially drawn up, wit- 

 nessed and signed, confirming the statements made 

 in the first article as to the fabulous character of 

 the said story. It would be scarcely suitable to 

 occupy the columns of the " N. & Q." with a literal 

 transcript of these papers and their technicalities ; 

 it may be sufficient to give a summary of the 

 declarations here, as the originals, when they have 

 served their purpose, will probably be deposited 

 in one of the great public libraries. 



The case opens with a statement of the subject- 

 matter made as follows: — That In 1850, a book 

 was published in Dublin, printed for Philip Dixon 

 Hardy & Sons, entitled The Inquisition, its His- 

 tory, Influence, and Effects. That in this volume 

 of 250 pages, from pp. 209. to 214., is inserted an 

 account of the demolition of the palace of the 

 Inquisition (near Madrid) In the year 1809, by 

 order of Marshal Soult, as related by the com- 

 manding officer who destroyed the palace. That 

 this account is altogether romantic and fabulous, 

 and Is censured as such in pp. 20, 21. of an ap- 

 pendix to a Spanish work by Gonzales de Montes, 

 printed in 1851 ; that, trusting to the correctness 

 of this appendix, the censure was extracted and 

 printed (with remarks to the same purpose) In a 

 London literary periodical, called " Notes and 

 Queries ;" but that a gentleman named J. J. Leh- 

 manowsky has written a letter in the United States, 

 published in the " N. & Q.," re-affirming the cer- 

 tainty of the facts ; and adding in his letter, that 

 having arrived at the age of eighty, he shall take no 

 trouble to correct or reply to any farther remarks 



