296 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



flask of wine, in order that it might not be said that he was drunk. 

 He went to San Felipe and committed the sacrilege. 



The next day, when brought again before the tribunal, his en- 

 thusiasm had evaporated. Excitement had been followed by re- 

 action ; he realized the terrible fate in store for him, and was 

 eager to avert it in any way he could. He had been drunk, he 

 said, the day before, and had stumbled against the priest ; he was 

 crazy ; people had given him food which rendered him insane, 

 and the ill-treatment to which he had been exposed habitually on 

 the road had driven him mad. At Consuegra he had been beaten ; 

 at Medellin, beaten, imprisoned, and his goods confiscated ; he 

 was a good Catholic, and believed all that the Church believed, 

 and he remembered nothing of the confession of yesterday ; or, if 

 he had said such things, he must have been out of his senses. 

 "When, later in the day, his formal defense was drawn up- and 

 presented by his advocate, it was that he had been drunk, and he 

 now supplicated mercy and penance. 



Probably no trial before the Inquisition, since the abounding 

 harvest of its early days, was ever conducted so speedily. Though 

 all the formalities were observed, on Sunday, July 7th, the con- 

 sultation was held to determine the sentence. The opinion was 

 unanimous that he should be relaxed to the secular arm for burn- 

 ing, but on the question of preliminary torture a difference arose. 

 The Inquisition was naturally desirous to know whether he had 

 accomplices; the simultaneous crime of Gabriel de Guevara 

 pointed to concerted action ; besides, one of the witnesses had 

 testified that Rene' entered San Felipe with two men clad in the 

 French fashion, who departed at the commencement of the mass. 

 Rene' had consistently denied this, asserting his independence of 

 action and sole responsibility ; but heretic plots were always float- 

 ing before the inquisitorial imagination, and it was manifestly 

 impolitic to burn Rene* without utilizing him for the conviction 

 of his possible confederates. While, therefore, all the consulters 

 agreed that he should be subjected to unlimited torture, some 

 held that it should be in caput alienum, to discover his associates ; 

 while others, in view of his varying confessions, humanely urged 

 that it should be employed for the benefit of his soul, and to con- 

 firm him in the faith. The next day the Supreme Council, in 

 approving the sentence, decided that the torture should be in 

 caput alienum. 



At ten o'clock that night Rene* was brought before his judges 

 and questioned as to accomplices, but he only repeated his story, 

 with a few additional details. In the torture which followed he 

 manifested a curious mingling of strength and weakness. Before 

 it commenced he flung himself on his knees and begged piteously 

 for mercy, but refused to forfeit his soul by perjury, for he had 



