Aug. 19. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



137 



LONDON. SATURDAY, AUGUST 19. 1854. 



THE INQUISITION. 



{Concluded from p. 122.) 



To substitute truth for fiction, we may here 

 give a more trustworthy statement than that be- 

 fore quoted. It is from a gentleman who really 

 inspected 'this house of the Inquisition at Madrid 

 in March, 1820, when that evil sanhedriin was 

 legally suppressed. The relator, an eye-witness, 

 was no inventor of marvellous and doleful stories 

 to defame it; neither had he, we may be sure, 

 asked for its restitution, like the Duke de Bailen. 

 His account is as follows : 



« At the change of the absolute government of Fer- 

 dinand VII. for the constitutional rule of the Cortes, on 

 the 7th of March, 1820, the Tribunal of the Inquisition 

 was .legally suppressed. The people of Madrid, more 

 from' curiosity than a well-judging hatred, flocked ma 

 «rowd to see and examine the building. It was found in 

 the street known bv its odious name, entering by the 

 right-hand from the Plazuela de San Domingo, commu- 

 nicating at the back with the Dominican Convent Del 

 Eosario in the Calle ancha de San Bernardo, that leads 

 to the gate of Fuencaral, without which was the Quema- 

 dero, or burning place. There was a communication from 

 the building to the Dominican Convent by a subterra- 

 neous passage, as appeared by that we passed through. 

 Whether inquisitorial cruelty had been less active since 

 1814, than before the French invasion, or that the instru- 

 ments of torture had been removed, the fact was, that 

 nothing was now found except traces which proved the 

 use of them. 



" By the recommendation of Don Rodrigo de Aranda, 

 second alcaide at that time, who was commissioned to 

 ■collect the effects, books, and papers remaining there, 

 torches were provided to enable us to penetrate the dark- 

 ness of the passages below ground. Externally, the 

 building presented nothing remarkable. We went in from 

 the street by a large gateway ; a little to the right was 

 the door of entrance, large and massive, approached by 

 five or six stone steps. Crossing a short, wide, and dark 

 passage, and descending more steps than were at the first 

 door, we came out into a large patio, or inner court, with- 

 out corredores round it, as are usual in such cases. Access 

 was reached to the first floor by several staircases, some 

 wide, some narrow, that, by intricate communications 

 one with another, led, some to the halls of the Tribunal, 

 and some to the places of imprisonment. Here these, in 

 general, were roomy; with lofty ceilings and windows 

 more than two feet square, placed" at a considerable height 

 from the floor. Every prison had a very solid outer door, 

 braced with strong ironwork. When these were opened, 

 a small cell about four feet square was found within the 

 apartment, formed of solid masonry. In the right-hand 

 wall of this was a grating of strong iron bars about an 

 inch square ; and opposite the first door of entrance was 

 another very solid door with a similar iron grating. By 

 this means the jailor, by only opening the first door, 

 could review everything within the whole circle of the 

 apartment. These were distinguished by the names of 

 certain prisoners who had been confined in them ; such 

 as Friar's Prison, the Beata Clara's, Juan Van Halen's, 

 and others. 



" Returned to the ground-floor in order to descend to 



the vaults, the Senora Marquesa de B shrank back in 



terror; but the flambeaux being lighted by her footman, 

 and again reassured, we descended above thirty steps, 

 and found ourselves in an apartment some twenty feet ' 

 square ; entirely empty, and dimly lighted by a sky-light 

 from the ground of the patio, or inner court. The floor was 

 firm and level ; but perceiving halfway along the wall, 

 where the light from the court struck upon it, a moveable 

 part, we examined the spot by the light of the torches ; 

 and found at the height of some seven feet from the floor, 

 two large wooden plugs firmly bedded in the wall in a 

 line with each other. In one of them a large iron ring, 

 much rusted, of the thickness of a finger, still remained. 

 The inference is, that it was a kind of torture, by fixing 

 the wrists of the victim to the two rings, and removing 

 the part of the floor below, so as not to be able to feel his 

 feet at that height, he would be left suspended by the 

 wrists. After examining several other apartments con- 

 taining nothing worthy of notice, we entered one through 

 a breach that we found made through the thick masonry 

 of the entrance cell, such as before described in the upper 

 prisons. This was a very roomy parallelogram, and its 

 floor, although tolerably "firm, w'as very damp ; so much 

 so, that we thrust a walking-stick into it, without any 

 great force, up to the handle, and drew it out whitened as 

 though it had passed through moist chalk. Opposite the 

 place we entered stood an altar ; the whole square shaft 

 of it, and the step below, of yellow marble ; and on the 

 steps were many droppings from wax candles. We could 

 find no image, crucifix, or painting of any kind, nor aper- 

 ture where this vault could have received light, nor could 

 we discover the proper entrance to it. On the point of 

 leaving, we perceived a kind of large window shutter at 

 one corner, about five feet from the floor. It opened 

 without difiiculty, and we found a square space which led 

 down to a well or sunken shaft. To prove whether it was 

 so, we rolled a fragment of masonry into it. It returned 

 no splash of Avater, but a heavy sound like a blow upon 

 wood, followed by a lengthened creaking noise, as if of a 

 trap-door opened reluctantly. Withdrawing from this 

 frightful spot, the footman, who carried the torches, 

 picked up a rib of metal from the floor, one of the pair 

 that form the compass, legs of a lady's fan, by which it is 

 opened and folded. The metal was so corroded, that it 

 crumbled between the fingers. A singular thing to find 

 in such a place, having no communication from the street 

 or from the inner court. Leaving this dismal part of the 

 edifice, we took a staircase, that after a descent of twenty 

 steps, ended in a passage about a yard wide, and some- 

 thing like forty feet long ; terminating in another shorter 

 one that formed with this a cross, or head-line of the 

 letter T. In the left-hand arm of this cross was a large 

 square funnel ; on the upper part of it, on each side, were 

 fixed iron spikes, in the manner that gardeners call quin- 

 cunx. The damp and chillness of this underground vault 

 were most distressing to our feelings; and fearing that 

 the torches might become extinguished, and ourselves 

 left in total darkness, we hastened back by the passage 

 through which we entered ; noticing that in this passage 

 there were on each side recesses, or very narrow cells, the 

 frames of the doorways alone remaining. We found by a 

 plumbline, sunk from stage to stage, that these fearful 

 and noisome cells were fifty feet below the ground of the 

 principal court." 



This is the record of the house of the Inquisi- 

 tion at Madrid from the remembrance, after the 

 lapse of thirty years, of one whose character and 

 simple manners avouch its credibility ; and whose 

 name, if it might be given, would confirm it. 



