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Only the Nero of the last part of the Annals, or the Tiberius of the first six books of that work, can properly stand forth, in his persecuting spirit, as the counterpart of the Dominican, John de Torquemada, who, in the performance of his duty, as the Inquisitor General in Spain, proceeded against upwards of 100,000 persons, 6,000 of whom he condemned to the flames.
He developed his individuality to the border line across which looms madness. The transmogrification of his temperament after living in Toledo was profound. Born Greek, in art a Venetian, the atmosphere of the Castilian plain changed the colour of his soul. In him there was material enough for both a Savonarola or a Torquemada his piety was at once iconoclastic and fanatical.
He had formed, with Torquemada, a vast and wide scheme of persecution, not only against Jews, but against Christians whose fathers had been of that race, and who were suspected of relapsing into Judaical practices. The two schemers of this grand design were actuated by different motives; the one wished to exterminate the crime, the other to sell forgiveness for it.
This we see in Torquemada, where the genius of Victor Hugo shows us how a man may send his fellows to the stake out of charity and sentimentalism.
"I told my man to copy a portrait of Alva." "Ah, that's right," said Kitty, nodding "that's right. Only it would have been better if it had been Torquemada." Rather nettled, Cliffe asked what there might be about him that so forcibly suggested the Grand Inquisitor. Kitty, cigarette in hand, with half-shut eyes, did not answer immediately. She seemed to be perusing his face with difficulty.
Of their religious observances, those which had doubtless been inherited from an older civilization, Prescott, quoting from Torquemada and Sahagun, says: "Many of their ceremonies were of a light and cheerful complexion, consisting of the national songs and dances, in which both sexes joined.
Restrained by her natural benevolence and magnanimity, urged forward by her strong piety and the influence of the Dominican Torquemada, Isabella assented to the introduction of the Inquisition aimed primarily at the Jews with its corollary of the Auto da fé, of which the actual meaning is "Act of Faith."
Of greater importance are the notices, of about the same period, preserved by Fray Juan de Torquemada in the first volume of his Monarchia Indiana . In this work we find the first mention of some Pueblo fetishes, with their names, as understood at the time. The letter of Fray Francisco de San Miguel, first priest of Pecos, given in print by Torquemada, is of considerable interest.
Nicholas Ignatiev, a rabid reactionary, a second Jeffreys, became chief of the Ministry of the Interior; Katkoff, a repentant liberal and exile, was appointed the czar's chief adviser, the Richelieu behind the throne; and Pobyedonostsev, whom Turgenief called the "Russian Torquemada," obtained supremacy over Melikoff, and was appointed procurator of the Holy Synod.
James foamed to the mouth at the insolence of the overseers in appointing such a monster of infidelity to the professorship. He ordered his books to be publicly burned in St. Paul's Churchyard and at both Universities, and would have burned the Professor himself with as much delight as Torquemada or Peter Titelman ever felt in roasting their victims, had not the day for such festivities gone by.
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