Guevára, the prosecutor, is there, and Dr. Villada announces that additional proof is now before the court. He orders copies of the latest depositions, obtained in the torture-chamber, to be delivered to the defendant, and he accords the latter three days within which he must lodge any objection to anything contained in them.
But Yucé does not require so long. He realizes that all is lost, and he forthwith confesses that what has been deponed by the witnesses against him concerning the vituperations he used is true with certain exceptions, and these were the most blasphemous and insulting.
Upon that the fiscal Guevára formally petitions the court to pass sentence. The inquisitor Santo Domingo declares the trial to be at an end, and dismisses both parties, requiring them to come before the court again in three days’ time to hear the sentence.[214]
Yet, before proceeding to this, on the 14th day of that month of November, the inquisitors ordered all the prisoners (with the exception of Juan Franco) to be introduced together into the audience-chamber. There, in the presence of his co-accused, each was bidden to recite what he had already confessed, this being done with the aim of obtaining a greater unanimity upon details.
Last of all, Juan Franco is brought in, and he now admits that it is true that he brought the boy from Toledo, that they had crucified him as he has confessed, that he himself had opened the boy’s side and taken out his heart, and that his brother Alonso had opened the veins of the child’s arms, etc.—all as confessed—and further that it is true that he and his brother Alfonso had afterwards buried their victim.
He now corroborates Benito’s statement that on the day they stole the child he and Benito went together to Toledo, and that they agreed that one should seek in one quarter of the city whilst the other sought in another. And further, he says that he found the child in the doorway—known as the Puerta del Perdon—of the cathedral, as he has already stated in his confession (which is not before us).[215]
On the next day Guevára appears before the inquisitors to petition that in view of what has been deponed against the deceased Mosé Franco, Yucé Tazarte, and David Perejon, their Paternities should order it to be recorded ad perpetuam rei memoriam, to enable the execution of the deceased in effigy, the confiscation of their property, and the infamy of their heirs.
That is on November 15. On the 16th the last scene of this protracted trial is played in the market-square of Avila.
There, near the church of St. Peter, the scaffolds have been erected for the Auto de Fé. On one, in their hideous yellow sanbenitos, are grouped the eight prisoners and the three effigies. On the other are the inquisitors, Dr. Pedro de Villada and Frey Antonio de Santo Domingo, with all the personnel of the Holy Office, their notaries, the fiscal Guevára, familiars, and apparitors. Round the scaffolds thronged the greater part of the inhabitants of Avila and many who had come in from the surrounding country districts, whence it is clear that the Auto had been announced some days before. The popular feeling against the Jews runs high, and it is an angry, turbulent mob that witnesses the Auto. Avila, indeed, is in uproar, and no Jew dare show himself abroad without risk of being insulted or assaulted in the street.[216]
The sentences are read by the notary Antonio Gonçales, commencing with a very full narrative of the crimes of each of the accused, which we need not render here as it is a summary of all that has been gone through and practically a repetition of the matter contained in the “Testimonio.”