Aug. 12. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



121 



It is in substance as follows : — That when 

 Napoleon Buonaparte penetrated into Spain in 

 1809, he ordered the buildings of the Inquisition 

 to be destroyed ; that Col. Lemanousky, of the 

 Polish lancers, being at Madrid, reminded Mar- 

 shal Soult of this order, and obtained from him 

 the 117 th regiment, commanded by Col. De Lisle, 

 for its execution; that the building, situated a 

 short distance from Madrid, was in point of 

 strength a fortress of itself, garrisoned by soldiers 

 of the Holy Office, who being quickly over- 

 powered, and the place taken, the Inquisitor- 

 General, with a number of priests in their official 

 robes, were made prisoners. That they found the 

 apartments splendidly furnished with altars, cru- 

 cifixes, and candles in {abundance ; but could find 

 no places of torture, dungeons, or prisoners, until 

 Col. De Lisle thought of testing the floor by float- 

 ing it with water, when a seam was thus dis- 

 covered through which it escaped below ; and the 

 marble slab being struck by the butt end of a 

 musket, a spring raised it up, and revealed 'a 

 staircase leading down to the Hall of Judgment 

 below. That there they found cells for prisoners, 

 some empty, some tenanted by living victims, 

 some by corpses in a state of decay, and some with 

 life but lately departed from them ; that the living 

 prisoners being naked, were partially clothed by 

 the French soldiers and liberated, amounting to 

 one hundred in number. That they found there 

 all kinds of instruments of torture, which so ex- 

 asperated the French, that they could not be 

 restrained from exercising them upon the captive 

 inquisitors ; Col. De Lisle standing by whilst four 

 different kinds were applied, and then leaving the 

 apartment in disgust ; and finally, that when the 

 inmates had been removed, Col. De Lisle went to 

 Madrid, obtained gunpowder, placed it in the 

 vaults of the building, and lighting a slow match, 

 made a joyful sight to thousands of spectators. 

 " The walls and massive turrets of that dark edi- 

 fice were lifted towards the heavens, and the 

 Inquisition of Madrid was no more." 



Now this attractive and romantic narrative of 

 vindicated liberty, justice, and charity, must 

 take its place among other unsubstantial and 

 amusing fictions. The story, as far as I have 

 been able to trace it, originates in a relation 

 said to have been made by Col. Lemanousky 

 whilst in the United States of America, to a 

 Mr. Killog of Illinois, who published it in the 

 Western Luminary. A refugee Pole, and a back- 

 states newspaper ! 



It is copied with more or less detail into various 

 publications, which in this manner add a sanction 

 of their own to its pretended authenticity. Not 

 to mention various recent periodicals and news- 

 papers, it appears in The Mystery Unveiled, or 

 Popery as its Dogmas and Pretensions appear in 

 the Light of Reason, the Bible, and History, by the 



Rev. James Bell, Edinburgh, 1834, at p. 424., 

 quoting from the Christian Treasury, a Scotch 

 periodical : — Ferreal (M. de V.), Mysteres de VLi- 

 quisition et autres Societes secretes d'JEspagne, avec 

 notes historiques, et une introduction de M. Manuel 

 de Cuendias, Paris, 1845, 8vo., at pp. 79 — 84. : — 

 The Inquisition, Sfc, Dublin, 1850, at pp. 209-14. : 

 after giving the story at length, with some colour- 

 ing, the writer adds, that " the Holy Catholic 

 Church in this, as In other things, was grossly 

 misrepresented:" a remark perhaps ingeniously 

 introduced to cast a doubt upon all the circum- 

 stances in the volume, true as well as untrue ; thus 

 to render error and truth undistinguishable : — The 

 Curse of Christendom, or the Spirit of Poetry 

 Exhibited and Exposed, by the Rev. J. B. Pike, 

 1852, 8vo., at pp. 261—264. 



It is strange that such respectable writers never 

 thought of consulting the current histories of the 

 Peninsular war, or the leading newspapers of the 

 time — The Courier and Morning Chronicle — 

 which could scarcely have passed so public an 

 event by without recording it ; and that they did 

 not mistrust the tale from the silence of Llorente 

 and Puigblanch, who would certainly have men- 

 tioned it ; for neither the ex-secretary of the tri- 

 bunal, nor Sn. Puigblanch, who first published 

 his Inquisicion sin Mascara at Cadiz in 1811, and 

 occupied the Hebrew Professor's chair in the 

 central university of Madrid in 1820-1, could 

 have remained ignorant of such a consummating 

 circumstance. Neglecting the palnS to verify the 

 fact, they have left it in their pages ; a striking 

 instance for an intelligent opponent to point at, of 

 simple credulity and the unsubstantial worth of 

 their books. 



In 1808, Napoleon decreed the suppression of 

 the Tribunals of the Inquisition, at Chamartin, a 

 village one league from Madrid, at a house of the 

 Duke del Infantado's, where he lodged. They 

 were again established by a decree of Ferdi- 

 nand VII. on July 21, 1814; and again sup- 

 pressed by the constitutional government of 1820. 

 There were two houses of the Inquisition at 

 Madrid, and they still exist. Marshal Soult did 

 not command at Madrid, nor is it true that he 

 ordered their demolition. The front and appear- 

 ance of one of them has been altered only four or 

 five years ago, but it was not pulled down. Who- 

 ever will take the trouble to look at the plan of 

 Madrid, published for sixpence by the Society ot 

 Useful Knowledge, may see near the north-west 

 corner, not far from the new Royal Palace, a 

 shaded spot, stretching from the Calle ancha de 

 San Bernardo to the Calle de la Inquisition, which 

 opens into the Plazuela de San Domingo. That 

 spot marks the principal building of the Inquisi- 

 tion at Madrid ; there was none beyond the town. 

 It Is one of the most substantial edifices, erected 

 upon a granite basement; and, judging from some 



