tended that a wicked priest, bound by sin, cannot absolve others, or what they say about the sacraments of the church? Afterwards, you must ask them, cautiously, whether they regard this doctrine as good and true, for he who grants this, has thereby confessed his heresy....Whereas if you had asked him bluntly whether he believed the same things, he would not have answered, because he would have suspected that you wished to take advantage of him and accuse him as a heretic.... These are very subtle foxes, and you can only take them by a crafty subtilty.""

We will add here a last instruction given by the inquisitor, the author of this work to his brother, drawn from his personal experience. "Note," says he, "that the inquisitor ought always to suppose a fact, without any proof, and only inquire after the circumstances of the fact. For example, he should say, How many times hast thou confessed thyself to the heretics? or, in what chamber have the heretics slept in thy house? or similar things."

"In like manner the inquisitor may, from time to time, consult a book, as if he had the life of the heretic written there, and all the questions that he was to put to him."

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Likewise, when a heretic confesses himself to him, he ought to impose upon him the duty of

1 Tractatus de Hæresi pauperum de Lugduno. Thes. Anecdot. t. v, p. 1787.

accusing his accomplices, otherwise he would not give a sign of true penitence."

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Likewise, when a heretic either does not fully confess his errors, or does not accuse his accomplices, you must say to him in order to terrify him, Very well, we see how it is. Think of thy soul, and fully renounce heresy, for thou art about to die, and nothing remains but to receive with true penitence all that shall happen to thee. And if he then says: Since I must die, I had rather die in my own faith than in that of the church; then it is certain that his repentance was feigned, and he may be delivered up to justice."

We have thought it our duty to dwell the longer on this new method of procedure against the heretics, and on the instructions given to the judges for the examination of consciences, because the form which was prescribed to them for their interrogatories, was soon after introduced into the criminal procedure, where it produced a revolution in the state of France. It was by artifices similar to these, by such moral tortures, that it was endeavoured to extort confessions from the accused, as soon as the suppression of the judicial combats rendered the office of the judge more complicated. The priests, as more skilful, as more accustomed by the confessional to penetrate into the secrets of conscience, gave the example, and in some measure established the theory of interrogatories. Ne

2 Tractatus de Hæresi Thes. Anecd. tom. v, p. 1793.

vertheless, it appears that at this period they had not added torture, properly so called, to their other means of investigation. There is no mention made of it in either of the instructions for the inquisitors, which we have under our eyes. Half a century later its use became as frequent as it was atrocious, both in the civil and ecclesiastical tribunals. The interrogatory of the suspected was not the only part of the procedure in which the practice of the inquisition influenced the courts of justice; the inquest by witnesses received from it also a new character. Every thing had been public in the ancient French jurisprudence, both under the Merovingians, where the citizens judged each other in their malli, and under the first of the Capets, in the baronial courts, where the peers of the accused sate in judgment upon him. But the monks, on the contrary, surrounded themselves with thick darkness; all was secret in their inquests; they suppressed the confrontation of witnesses, and even concealed, from the accused, the names of those who had deposed against them.3

The heretics supported their doctrines by the authority of the holy Scriptures; the first indication of heresy was, therefore, considered to be the citation either of the epistles or the gospels; secondly, any exhortation against lying; and finally, any signs of compassion shown to the prisoners

3 Guill, de Podio Laurentii, ch. xl, p. 692.

of the inquisition. The council of Toulouse for the first time decided, that the reading of the holy books should not be permitted to the people. "We prohibit, says the fourteenth canon, p. 430, the laics from having the books of the Old and New Testament; unless it be at most that any one wishes to have, from devotion, a psalter, a breviary for the divine offices, or the hours of the blessed Mary; but we forbid them, in the most express manner, to have the above books translated into the vulgar tongue." The following article merits also attention. "We command that whoever shall be accused of heresy or noted with suspicion shall be deprived of the assistance of a physician. Likewise when a sick person shall have received the holy communion of his priest, it is our will that he be watched with the greatest care to the day of his death or convalescence, that no heretic or one suspected of heresy may have access to him."

The establishment of the inquisition in Languedoc, was not, however, followed by a number of executions proportioned to the expectations of the orthodox. Many of the converted were obliged to wear upon their breast two crosses of a different colour from their clothes, to quit places suspected of heresy, and to establish themselves

4 Tractatus de Hares. Anecdot. Thes. tom. v, p. 1784-1786.

5 Labbei Consil. Tolosan. t. xi, p. 427 et seq. Fleury, Hist. Eccles. liv. lxxix, n. 58.

in cities zealous for the catholic faith, where the eyes of all were drawn upon them by the costume to which they had been condemned. Others, who were regarded as more culpable, or more suspected, were, in spite of their conversion, imprisoned for the remainder of their lives, or, in the language of the inquisition, were immured. But as for those who were called perfect heretics, or the relapsed, it became very difficult to find any in the province. It was in vain that the bishop Fouquet, having converted one of the most celebrated of the sect, William de Soliers, caused him to be reestablished, that he might testify his zeal in denouncing his ancient fellow-religionists. It was in vain that he ordered, by a most particular favour, that the testimony of this new convert should be considered equal to that of one of the faithful who had never erred. The reformed church had already been destroyed by the preceding massacres; some few individuals who were timid, and unstable in their faith, had alone been able to escape by frequently denying their belief. It was upon them, that the inquisition exercised, henceforward, all its severity. Terror became extreme, suspicion universal, all teaching of the proscribed doctrine had ceased, the very sight of a book made the people tremble, and ignorance was for the greater number a salutary guarantee. The reform had arisen from the first advance

6 Guill. de Podio Laurentii, ch. xl, p. 692.