The Inquisition revealed

by Thomas Timpson

“The picture of female convents requires a more delicate pencil, yet I cannot find tints sufficiently dark and gloomy to portray the miseries which I have witnessed in their inmates. Crime, indeed, makes its way into those recesses, in spite of the spiked walls and prison gates which protect the inhabitants. This I know, with all the certainty which the self-accusation of the guilty can give. It is, besides, a notorious fact, that the nunneries in Estremadura and Portugal are frequently infected with vice of the grossest kind. But I will not dwell on this revolting part of the picture!”

“Auricular confession,” with its authorised rules and questions, seems, above everything in human intercourse, adapted to corrupt the heart of the priest, and prepare him for the most vicious practices. And the dangers to unprotected nuns cannot but be inexpressible. How can a virtuous mind contemplate this practice, in the nature of things, without revolting from it with indignation? The MIND surrendered to the keeping of a fellow-being, who probes every feeling and knows every thought!—the MIND forced into a mould, as of iron, and there held by an unholy priest!—maidens unbosoming themselves in secret to unmarried men,—to men who are trained up from childhood for the priesthood, as the sure means of a respectable livelihood! Married women exhibiting the inmost recesses of their hearts to strange men! Is there not iniquity unspeakable in this practice? It seems necessary, therefore, to complete the present work, to offer some exhibition of the state of those prisons of females, kept under the government of priests,—and especially as they exist in the metropolis of the Roman pontiff. This appears essential to the “Inquisition Revealed.”

Popish policy regarding convents, and the fact of their being secret prisons, similar to those of the Inquisition, will appear more fully from an atrocious case of priestly intrigue, in violation of the law of God, the particulars of which are given in The Times newspaper of Friday, November 15, 1844:—

“A popular French writer has recently asserted, in a work of fiction, in which he virulently, though not always unjustly, assails the policy of the Romish clergy, that the pretensions of the more unscrupulous agents of that church openly defy all the most sacred relations of mankind; that they dare to set at nought even the ties of filial duty; and that no artifices are too base for them to resort to, in furtherance of their ends. But we have met with nothing in the pages of fiction which illustrates these serious and almost incredible charges more forcibly, than an occurrence which has actually taken place in the course of the present year, in one of the capitals of the south of Europe. We feel impelled to give to these painful events, and most sinister machinations, a greater publicity than they have hitherto received; not only because it is well that the actors in such transactions should learn, that they cannot escape the animadversions of Europe, but because the case we are about to relate affords a warning not to be overlooked by our Protestant fellow-countrymen, whose families may chance to fall within the reach of the same dangerous influences.

“The post of Dutch minister at the court of Turin had been reputably filled, for some years, by a Protestant gentleman of the name of Heldivier, who resided with his family in that city, until, in consequence of some new diplomatic arrangements on the part of the Dutch government, he received, in May last, his letters of recall. Some domestic anxiety had been occasioned to this family by one of the daughters, a young lady of ardent and independent temperament, who was supposed to have formed an attachment to a young lawyer of the town, whose character and position did not make him a suitable match for her. Their departure was, therefore, hastened; but after M. Heldivier had presented his letters to the king of Sardinia, he was accidentally detained, by the illness of another of his children, for a few days, in an hotel at Turin. On the 8th of June, a display of fireworks took place, in honour of the birth of an heir to the duke of Savoy. The ex-minister and his wife were induced to attend this fête, and very reluctantly to leave their daughter, who excused herself on some pretext, at home. They were absent but a short time; yet, in the interval, the vague apprehensions they seem to have entertained were fatally verified. Their daughter had disappeared—and for ever. At that hour of the night she had quitted the hotel, alone, and without even a change of dress. The police were immediately sent in search of the fugitive. The young advocate, who was at first suspected to have had a hand in the elopement, was examined, but he proved himself to be totally ignorant of the occurrence; not a vestige of her was to be found within the jurisdiction of the authorities of the city; but this absence of all evidence raised a strong presumption that she would be found in the precincts of some convent, more inaccessible than a prison or a tomb.

“Application was made to the archbishop of Turin, as the supreme ecclesiastical power of the kingdom, for leave to pursue these inquiries, or for information, if he possessed it, on the subject; for, meanwhile, the anxiety and anguish of this unfortunate family had been raised to a pitch which we shall not attempt to describe; and even the public, startled by the actual disappearance of a young lady, still a minor, the daughter of a gentleman who came amongst them as the representative of a foreign sovereign, took the liveliest interest in their extreme distress.

“The archbishop thought fit to reply to this application, that he had reason to believe that Mademoiselle Heldivier had indeed sought refuge in a convent, but that he was unable to state where she was at present. A few days more, however, brought the whole transaction to light. When the archbishop of Turin asserted that he was unable to state where the young lady was, he might have stated, and he did afterwards acknowledge, that no person living had had so great a hand in the affair as himself. For two years he had been carrying on a system of secret communication with Mademoiselle Heldivier! Thwarted by her parents in her attachment for the young advocate, she had sought to avenge herself upon them by transferring her confidence from her father to this priest—from her natural protectors, to the jealous arms of the church of Rome. The archbishop, unwilling to commit himself by a written order, had furnished his convert with one-half of a sheet of paper, cut in a particular manner; the other half was given to the abbess of the convent of Santa Croce, in Turin, with orders to receive the bearer of the corresponding fragment at any hour of the day or night. Provided with these credentials, the fugitive found shelter in the convent walls; but, by the advice of the archbishop, her flight was deferred until her father, by the delivery of his letters of recall, had, as these clerical conspirators contend, surrendered those diplomatic rights and privileges which would have been fatal to their scheme.

“The fact being thus ascertained, a strong effort was made to bring the authors of this plot to account for their action, and to yield up the young person whom they had gotten into their possession. Setting aside the odious secret arts by which this alleged conversion had been effected, and the irreparable injury done to an honourable family, the case was one which demanded the strongest remonstrances, as an unparalleled invasion of the law of nations, and of the rights of diplomatic persons. A Dutch subject—a minor—the child of a Dutch minister—is encouraged to quit her father’s abode, received into a convent, and there detained, not only by moral but by actual force, since every attempt even to search these convents was successfully resisted by the clergy. His Majesty granted him an audience; but, in answer to the prayers and demands of M. Heldivier, that his daughter might be restored to him, the only reply which the absolute monarch dared to make was, that whatever might be his own opinion on the subject, if he presumed to interfere with the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the convents, he should be excommunicated! Such an answer, on such an occasion, might have been expected from a Philip II. of Spain; and such powers as are thus recognised and established fall little short of those of the Inquisition! The principle contended for, on behalf of the church of Rome, is this—that any child, having completed the age of twelve years, may, for any cause, motive, or pretext, throw off the parental authority, and fling itself under the protection of the church. If the child be a Protestant, so much the better, since, while it abjures its filial duties, it abandons its religious faith; but, whether Catholic or Protestant, the protection of the church, thus sought and thus given, is absolute and inviolable!

“There are few countries now, in Europe or the world, where such a doctrine as this would not be demolished by the ordinary notions of civil rights and justice. But the dominions of the king of Sardinia are not one of those countries. In vain did Mr. Abercromby, our own intelligent minister at the court of Turin, and Baron Mortier, the representative of France, represent that M. Heldivier, as a diplomatic person, had an incontestable right to quit the country in peace, taking with him all his family. The inexorable grasp of the infallible church prevailed. The king of Holland appears to have taken this outrage upon the family of his minister with a most unbecoming indifference and pusillanimity; and Mademoiselle Heldivier remains in the convent of Santa Croce, where she has formally abjured the Protestant heresy, and will, probably, take the veil on the completion of her noviciate.

“We have no wish to draw any excessive or unjust inferences from this strange occurrence, which seems to belong, not only to another country, but to another age; but it exhibits an awful picture of what the uncontrolled power of the Romish clergy may still dare to effect, and a humiliating example of a government, which has allowed the ties of private right and public law to be broken asunder, because it is itself a victim to the worst form of bigotry, and the most servile subjection to spiritual oppression!”