He accepted the appointment of Secretary to the Junta of Notables, which was then assembled at Bayonne, and soon after the office of Minister-Secretary of State. His generous intentions need no comments; they are known to all. The eulogium of this great man has just been made by our energetic and sincere advocate; the public will read it with pleasure and interest. During his ministry, he had the happiness of witnessing the decree which suppressed the formidable tribunal of the holy office, and declared it to be injurious to sovereignty.
Urquijo died at Paris, after an illness of six days, at the age of forty-nine. He died as he had lived—full of that courage, serenity, that philosophy, and love of virtue, which belong to the virtuous and wise alone. He was buried on the 4th of May, 1817, in the cemetery of Père la Chaise, where a magnificent monument of white Carrara marble has been erected to his memory.
In 1792 the inquisitors of Saragossa received a denunciation, and examined witnesses against Don Augustin Abad-y-la-Sierra, Bishop of Barbastro, who was accused of Jansenism, and of approving the principles which were the basis of the civil constitution of the French clergy under the constitutional assembly. During the progress of this affair, Don Manuel Abad-y-la-Sierra, the brother of Don Augustin, was made inquisitor-general, and the inquisitors were afraid to carry it on. When Don Manuel was dismissed from his office, he also was denounced as a Jansenist, but he was not prosecuted.
The bishop of Murcia and Carthagena, Victoriano Lopez Gonzalo, was denounced in 1800 as suspected of Jansenism and other heresies, and for having permitted certain propositions on some points of doctrine to be maintained in his seminary. The trial of the bishop was not carried farther than the summary instruction; because, on being informed of the plots of some scholastic doctors who were partisans of the Jesuits, he defended himself so ably before the inquisitor-general, that the members of council did not proceed against him; but they continued the prosecution of the theses, when they perceived that they were favourable to some conclusions on miracles, which had been condemned by qualifiers.
The subject of Jansenism created a great sensation in Spain. The Jesuits, who had been permitted to return to that kingdom in 1798, soon acquired a numerous party, and accused all who did not adopt their opinions of Jansenism. Their conduct was so impolitic, that they were a second time banished from the kingdom. They were the authors of the denunciations against the Countess de Montijo, and many other distinguished persons, of whom an account has been given in a former chapter.
The accusation of Jansenism against Don Antonio and Don Jerome de la Cuesta was the cause of the trial of Don Raphaël Muzquiz, Archbishop of Santiago, who had been confessor to Queen Louisa, wife of Charles IV.
The energetic defence of Don Jerome de la Cuesta obliged Muzquiz to defend himself against the imputation of calumny: he made representations which injured his cause, for he vilified the inquisitors of Valladolid, and even the inquisitor-general, and accused them of partiality and collusion with Cuesta: his rank protected him from the danger of an arrest which he incurred by this temerity, but he was condemned to pay a penalty of eight thousand ducats, and the Bishop of Valladolid four thousand. Muzquiz would have been more severely punished, if he had not been protected by a person, who obtained from the Prince of Peace that the affair should not be carried farther.
The same pretence of Jansenism was the cause of the trial of Don Joseph Espiga, almoner to the king, and a member of the tribunal of the nunciature in 1799. His accusers represented him as the author of the royal decree of the 5th of September in that year, after the death of Pius VI., forbidding any person to apply to Rome for matrimonial dispensations. Espiga was then the most intimate friend of the minister Urquijo, but he never allowed any one to influence him in official affairs. The Nuncio Cassoni made many useless representations to the king on this subject; however, he partly obtained his end by political intrigues, for though the bishops had promised to obey the ordinance, yet most of them avoided granting matrimonial dispensations, and those who did so were accused of Jansenism. The inquisitors, though they were all sold to the Nuncio and the Jesuits, were afraid to proceed, and the trial of Espiga was suspended. When his friend Urquijo was deprived of his office, he was obliged to retire to the cathedral of Lerida, of which he was a dignitary.
The year 1796 is remarkable for the prosecution commenced against the Prince of Peace, the king's cousin, by his marriage with Donna Maria Theresa de Bourbon, the daughter of the infant Don Louis. It may be easily supposed that much address was necessary in conducting an attack against a person so high in favour. Three denunciations were received at the holy office, accusing him of atheism, because he had not confessed himself or taken the pascal communion for eight years, and because he was married to two women at the same time, and the life he led with many others was a source of great scandal to the public. The three denouncers were monks, and there is some reason to suppose that they were directed by the authors of a court intrigue, to cause the prince to be disgraced.
The head of the Inquisition at that time was Cardinal Lorenzana, who was simple and easily deceived, but too timid not to be on his guard against anything which might displease the king and queen. Although the denunciations were presented to him, he did not dare to examine witnesses, or even the accusers. Don Antonio Despuig, Archbishop of Seville, and Don Raphaël Muzquiz, who were at the head of this intrigue, made every effort to induce Lorenzana to cause a private instruction to be taken, to arrest the prince in concert with the Supreme Council, and to obtain the approbation of the king, of which they thought themselves certain, if they could prove that his favourite was an atheist. This attempt was so repugnant to the disposition of Lorenzana, that the two conspirators agreed that Despuig should press his friend the Cardinal Vincenti, famous for his intrigues, to persuade Pius VI. to write to Lorenzana, and reproach him for the indifference with which he beheld a scandal so injurious to the purity of the religion professed by the Spanish nation. Vincenti obtained the letter from the Pope; Lorenzana promising, that if the Pope decided that the measure was necessary, he would do what they desired. Napoleon Bonaparte, who was then a general of the French Republic, intercepted a courier from Italy at Genoa. The letter of Cardinal Vincenti to Despuig, enclosing that of the Pope to Lorenzana, was found among his despatches: Bonaparte thought it necessary to the continuance of the good intelligence then established between France and Spain, to inform the Prince of Peace of the intrigue, and he commissioned General Pérignon, ambassador at Madrid, to remit the correspondence to Godoy. The favourite opposed another intrigue to his enemies, and succeeded in freeing himself from them by sending Lorenzana, Despuig, and Muzquiz to Rome, to carry the condolences of the king to the Pope, on the occasion of the entrance of the French army into his states. Their commission was dated the 14th March, 1797.