The fidalgos of Portugal have never forgotten the lesson they that day learned. Alarm and mistrust entered into every social circle; no one dared write, or scarce speak, to another, for fear of treachery; and day after day the prisons were filled with fresh victims of the Minister’s despotism. The most trivial expressions were remarked and punished with rigour. One day, a nobleman, a licensed favourite at Court, was conversing with the Queen and a party of ladies, when the subject of the lost King Sebastian was introduced, one asserting that the common people firmly expected his return. “Oh, they are perfectly right,” exclaimed the Count: “King Sebastian reigns at present in Portugal.”
A few days after this speech he found himself an inhabitant of a prison, in which he lived for many years.
The King now bestowed on his Minister the title of the Count of Oyeras, nor was he made Marquis of Pombal for many years afterwards.
Though the King still drove about as usual unattended, Carvalho never appeared abroad without a body-guard to attend him, so fearful had he become of the revenge of the friends of those he had slaughtered or imprisoned. The most beneficial act of his life to Portugal was the expulsion of the Jesuits, nearly all of whom he transported to Italy, the rest he imprisoned; among the latter was the Father Jacinto da Costa, who never more appeared in the world. He was too subtle a foe to be allowed to wander loose. He is supposed to have died in one of the solitary dungeons built by Carvalho’s command.
Malagrida was also imprisoned; but three years passed before he was brought to trial. He was delivered up into the hands of the spiritual court of the Inquisition of Portugal, who found him guilty of heresy, hypocrisy, false prophecies, impostures, and various other heinous crimes, for which they condemned him to be burnt alive, having first undergone the effectual public and legal degradation from his orders. He obtained, by way of mitigation, that he should be strangled before the faggots were kindled around him. The whole ceremonial was adjusted according to the fashion of the most barbarous times. A lofty scaffold, in the square of the Rociò, was erected in the form of an amphitheatre, and richly decorated, convenient seats being provided for the most distinguished nobility, and the members of the administration, who were formally invited as to a spectacle of festivity. Fifty-two persons were condemned to appear in the procession of this Auto-da-fé, clothed in red garments and high conical caps, with representations of devils, in all attitudes and occupations, worked on them; but Malagrida, who walked at their head, was alone to furnish the horrible amusement of the day. Crowds assembled from all parts to witness the spectacle, and shouted with savage glee as the flames consumed the remains of the insane old man. Hypocrite and knave though he had been, he was then more fit for commiseration than punishment.
As his ashes were scattered to the wind—“Now!” exclaimed the Prime Minister, “I have no other foes to fear!”
Volume Three—Chapter Nineteen.
Ours is a tale of human woe and human suffering; of blighted hopes, of disappointed ambition, of noble promise, and of bright aspirations doomed never to be realised; of crime, of repentance, of despair a description of a dark and gloomy picture, with but a few green spots to enliven it—a picture of the world!