Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

  When he was crucified, his side was opened by one of the Jews, who began to rummage* for the child’s heart. He failed to find it, and he was suddenly checked by the child’s question— “What do you seek, Jew? If you seek my heart, you are in error to seek it on that side; seek on the other, and you will find it.”

  [* “Rummage” is the only word that does justice to the original; “Eljudio andaba buscando el corazon, revolviendo las entrafSas con su mano carniciera, y no lo hallando, le pergunté: ‘Que buscas, Judio? Si buscas el corazon yerras buscandolo en esa parte, buscalo al otro lado y lo incontraras.’”— “Historia del Santo Niño,” .]

  In the very moment of his death, Moreno tells us, the Santo Niño performed his first miracle. His mother, who had been blind from birth, received the gift of sight in the instant that her child expired.*

  [* “Historia del Santo Niño,” .]

  This interpolation appears to be entirely Moreno’s own, and it is one of the justifications of our assumption that the work is to be placed in the category of pious frauds. But he is, of course, mistaken, by his own narrative, in announcing this as the first of the child’s miracles. He overlooks the miracle entailed in the capacity to count displayed by a boy of four years of age, and the further miracle of the speech addressed by the crucified infant to the Jew who had opened his side.

  Benito Garcia was given the heart, together with a consecrated wafer which had been stolen by the sacristan of the Church of Sta. Maria de La Guardia, and with these he departed to seek out the mage who was to perform the enchantment. It happened, however, that in passing through Astorga, Benito — who was himself a converso — pretending that he was a faithful Catholic, repaired to church, and, kneeling there, the more thoroughly to perform this comedy of devoutness, he pulled out a Prayer Book, between the leaves of which the consecrated wafer had been secreted.

  A good Christian kneeling some little way behind him was startled to see a resplendent effluence of light from the book. Naturally he concluded that he was in the presence of a miracle, and that this stranger was some very holy man. Filled with reverent interest, he followed the Jew to the inn where he was lodged, and then went straight to the father inquisitors to inform them of the portent he had witnessed, that they might investigate it.

  The inquisitors sent their familiars to find the man, and at sight of them Benito fell into terror, “so that his very face manifested how great was his crime.” He was at once arrested, and taken before the inquisitors for examination. There he immediately confessed the whole affair.

  Upon being desired to surrender the heart, he produced the box in which it had been placed, but upon opening the cloth that had been wrapped round it, the heart was discovered to have miraculously vanished.

  Yet another miracle mentioned by Moreno is that when the inquisitors opened the grave . where it was said that the infant had been buried, they found the place empty, and the Doctor considers that since the child had suffered all the bitterness of the Saviour’s Passion, it was God’s will that he should also know the glories of the Resurrection, and that his body had been assoomed into heaven.

  The “Testimonio” from the archives of the parochial church of La Guardia, printed on tablets preserved in the Sanctuary of the Santo Niño, is quoted by Moreno,* and runs as follows:

  [* “Historia del Santo Niño,” et seq.]

  “We, Pedro de Tapia, Alonso Doriga and Matheo Vazquez, secretaries of the Council of the Holy and General Inquisition, witness to all who may see this that by certain proceedings taken by the Holy Office in the year 1491, the Most Reverend Frey Tomás de Torquemada being Inquisitor-General in the Kingdoms of Spain, and the inquisitors and judges by him deputed in the City of Avila being the Very Reverend Dr. D. Pedro de Villada, Abbot of San Marcial and San Millan in the Churches of Leon ,and Burgos, the Licentiate Juan Lopez de Cigales, Canon of the Church of Cuenca, and Frey Fernando de Santo Domingo of the Order of Preachers, inquisitors as is said against heretical pravity, and with power and special commission from the Very Reverend D. Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, Cardinal of Santa Cruz, Archbishop of Toledo, Primate of Spain, Grand Chancellor of Castile, and Bishop of Siguenza.

  “It transpires that the said inquisitors proceeding against certain Jews and some New-Christians converted from Jews, of the neighbourhood of La Guardia, Quintanar, and Tenbleque, ascertained that amongst other crimes by these committed was that: one of the said Jews and one of the newly-converted being in Toledo and witnessing a burning that was being done by the Holy Office in that city, they were cast down by this execution of justice. The Jew said to the convert that he feared the great harm that might come and did come to them from the Holy Inquisition, and having treated of various matters germane to this subject, the Jew said that if they could obtain the heart of a Christian boy all could be remedied. And so, after his wide practice in this matter, the Jew from the neighbourhood of Quintanar undertook to procure a Christian boy for the said purpose.

  “And it was agreed that the said New-Christian should go to Quintanar as soon as bidden by the Jew; and upon this understanding each of the aforesaid left the City of Toledo and returned to his own district.

  “A few days later the said Jew summoned the New-Christian to come to him in the village of Tenbleque, where he awaited him in his father’s house. There they foregathered, and agreed upon a day when they should meet at Quintanar, whither the New-Christian now returned, and informed, as he had agreed, a brother of his own, who like himself was also a New-Christian, and he related fully all that had been arranged, his brother being of the same mind.

  “The better to execute their accursed project, they arranged a place to which the child should be brought, and what was to be done — that this should be in a cave near La Guardia, on the road to Ocaña, on the right-hand side. And thus to execute the matter, the said New-Christian went to Quintanar on the day arranged together with the said Jew.

  “The better to dissemble, he went to a tavern, where presently he was able to communicate with the Jew, and as a result of what passed between them, the New-Christian went out to await him on the road to Villa Palomas in a ravine, where presently he was joined by the said Jew on an ass with the child before him — of the age of three or four years.

  “They went on together, and arrived after nightfall at the said cave, whither came, as was arranged, the brother of the New-Christian, and with him other newly-converted Jews, with whom it appears that the aforesaid matter had been treated.

  “Being all assembled in the cave, they lighted a candle of yellow wax, and so that the light should not be seen they hung a cloak over the mouth of the cave. They seized the boy, whom the said Jew had taken from the Puerta del Perdon in Toledo — which boy was named Juan, son of Alonso Pasamontes and of Juana La Guindera. The said New-Christians now made a cross out of the timbers of a ladder which had been brought from a mill. They threw a rope round the boy’s neck and they set him on the cross, and with another rope they tied his legs and arms, and they nailed his feet and hands to the cross with nails.

  “Being thus placed (puesto), one of the NewChristians from the neighbourhood of La Guardia bled the child, opening the veins of his arms with a knife, and he caught the blood that flowed in a cauldron; and with a rope in which they had tied knots some whipped him, whilst others set a crown of thorns upon his head. They struck him, spat upon him, and used opprobrious words to him, pretending that what they were saying to the said child was addressed to the Person of Christ. And whilst they whipped him, they said: ‘Betrayer, trickster, who, when you preached, preached falsehood against the Law of God and Moses; now you shall pay here for what you said then. You thought to destroy us and to exalt yourself But we shall destroy you.’ And further: ‘Crucify this betrayer who once announced himself King, who was to destroy our temple...’ etc. etc.*

  [* There is a great deal more of this, but the alleged insults become too obscene for translation.]

  “After the ill-treatment and vituperation,
one of the New-Christians from La Guardia opened the left side of the child with a knife and drew out his heart, upon which he threw some salt; and so the child expired upon the cross. All of which was done in mockery of the Passion of Christ; and some of the New-Christians took the body of the child and buried it in a vineyard near Sta. Maria de Pera.

  “A few days later the said Jew and NewChristians met again in the cave and attempted certain enchantments and conjurations with the heart of the child and a consecrated Host obtained through a sacristan who was a New-Christian. This coniuration and experiment they performed with the intention that the inquisitors of heretical pravity and all other Christians should enrage and die raging (rabiendo), and the Law of Jesus Christ our Redeemer should be entirely destroyed and superseded by the Law of Moses.

  “When they saw that the said experiment did not operate nor had the result they hoped, they assembled again elsewhere, and having treated of all that they desired to effect, by common consent one of them was sent with the heart of the said child and the consecrated Host to the Aljama of Zamora, which they accounted the principal Aljama in Castile, to the end that certain Jews there, known to be wise men, should with the said heart and Host perform the said experiment and sorcery that the Christians might enrage and die, and thus accomplish what they so ardently desired.

  “And for the greater ascertaining of the crime and demonstration of the truth, the said inquisitors having arrested some of the said offenders, New-Christians and Jews, they set the accused face to face, so that in the confession of their crimes there was conformity, and these confessions consisted of what has been here set down. In addition other further steps were taken to verify the places where the crimes were committed and the place where the child was buried; and they took one of the principal accused to the place where the child was buried, and there they found signs and demonstration of the truth of all.* Some of the said accused, and some already deceased, being prosecuted, they were sentenced and abandoned to the secular arm, all that we have set down being in accordance with the records of the proceedings to which we refer.

  [* But they did not find the body — a circumstance which appears to be here slurred over.]

  “The said ‘Testimonio’ written upon three sheets bearing our rubrics, we the said secretaries deliver by request of the Procurator-General of the village of La Guardia, by order of the Very Illustrious Senores of His Majesty’s Council of the Holy Inquisition in the City of Madrid in the Diocese of Toledo, on the 1 9th day of September of the year of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, 1569.

  “ALONSO DE DORIGA = Nee auro frangenda fides. MATHEO VAZQUEZ = In cujus fide foedera consistunt. PEDRO DE TAPIA.”

  This “Testimonio” does not afford us the name of any one of the offenders — presumably that the holy place in which the tablets were exposed should not be desecrated. When it is compared with the account left by Moreno and the discrepancies between the two become apparent, when, further, the extravagances of Moreno’s story are considered, it is not surprising that the conclusion should have been reached that the whole affair was trumped up to forward that campaign against the Jews to which Torquemada was employing his enormous energies.

  But the records of the trial of Yucé Franco discovered by Fidel Fita throw a very different light upon the matter. And whilst we know that Torquemada did avail himself to the utmost of this affair of the Santo Niño to encompass the banishment of the Jews from Spain, we must consider all notion that he himself simply invented the story to that end as completely dispelled by the evidence that is now to be examined.

  From the records of the trial of Yucé Franco we are to-day not only able very largely to reconstruct the event, but also to present a complete instance of the application of the jurisprudence of the Inquisition. Indeed, had the archives of the Holy Office been ransacked for an entirely typical prosecution, embodying all the features peculiar to that terrible court, no better instance than this could have been forthcoming.

  CHAPTER XX. THE ARREST OF YUCÉ FRANCO

  In May or June of 1490 — the time of year being approximately determined by the events that follow — a baptized Jew of Las Mesuras named Benito Garcia put up at an inn in the northern village of Astorga. He was an elderly man of some sixty years of age, a wool-comber by trade and a considerable traveller in the course of his trading.

  In the common-room of the tavern where he sat at table were several men of Astorga, who, either in a drunken frolic or because they were thieves, went through the contents of his knapsack, and discovered in it some herbs and a communion wafer, which they at once assumed to be consecrated (and which it was grossest sacrilege for a layman so much as to touch).

  Uproar followed the announcement of the discovery. With cries of “Sacrilege!” these thieving drunkards fell upon the Jew. They beat him. They flung a rope about his neck, dragged him from the inn and haled him into the presence of the Provisor of Astorga, Dr. Pedro de Villada. The reverend doctor discharged there the functions of an agent of the Holy Office. He was fully experienced in inquisitorial affairs, and he was upon the eve of being promoted to the dignity of inquisitor in the court of Avila.

  Villada received the wafer, heard the accusation, and took a short way with Benito when the latter refused to explain himself. He ordered him two hundred lashes, and finding the man still obdurate after this punishment, he submitted him to the watertorture. Under this the wretched fellow at last betrayed himself. Of precisely what he said we have no record taken at the time; but we have his own word for it — as reported afterwards by Yucé Franco to whom he uttered it — that “he had said more than he knew, and enough to burn him.”*

  [* Fidel Fita in “Boletin de la Real Academia,” vol. xi. . “Mas de lo que sabia” is the actual and rather ambiguous phrase. It may mean either that he had related more than was known to him at the time of the torture — i.e. more than was actually true; or that he had said more than he knew — i.e. more than he could recall — now, at the time of his conversation with Yucé Franco.]

  Having, as is clear, obtained from him an admission of his own guilt, Villada now proceeded, as prescribed by the “Directorium,” to induce him to incriminate others. We know the methods usually employed; from these and from what follows it is quite reasonable to assume that recourse was had to them now.

  Following Eymeric’s instructions, Villada would, no doubt, admonish him with extreme kindness, professing to cast no blame upon Benito himself but rather upon those evil ones who had seduced him into error, and he would exhort the prisoner to save himself by showing a true penitence, pointing out that the only proof of his penitence he could advance would be a frank and free delation of those who had led him so grievously astray.

  From the occasional glimpses of this Benito Garcia vouchsafed us in the records of the trial of Yucé Franco, we perceive a rather reckless personality, of a certain grim, sardonic humour, gleams of which actually pierce through the dehumanization of the legal documents to ensnare our sympathy.

  He is imbued with contempt for these Christians whose religion he embraced forty years ago, in what he accounts a weak moment of his youth, and from which he secretly seceded again some five years before his arrest. He is weighed down by remorse for having been false to the Jewish faith in which he was born; he believes himself overtaken by the curse which his father launched upon him when he took that apostatizing step; he is out of all conceit with Christianity; since seeing the bonfires of the Faith he has come to the conclusion that as a religion it is an utter failure; it has been his habit to sneer at Jews who were inclining to Christianity.

  “Get yourselves baptized,” was the gibe he flung at them, “and go and see how they burn the New-Christians.”*

  [* See this upon his own word, as related in Yucé Franco’s depositions (“Boletin,” xi. et seq.) and admitted by himself.]

  In the prison of Avila — when he gets there — his one professed aim is to die in the faith of his fathers.

  But it woul
d seem that when first taken in the toils of the Inquisition, and having experienced in his own person the horrors of its methods, he realizes the sweetness of life, and eagerly avails himself of the false loophole so alluringly exposed by the reverend doctor.

  In his examination of June 6 he betrays to Villada the course of his re-Judaizing. He relates that five years ago, whilst in talk with one Juan de Ocaña, a converso whom he believes to be a Jew at heart under an exterior of Christianity, the latter had urged him to return to the Jewish faith, saying that Christ and the Virgin were myths, and that there is no true law but that of Moses. Lending an ear to these persuasions, Benito had done many Jewish things, such as not going to church (although he whipped his children when they stayed away, lest their absence should betray his own apostasy) nor observing holy-days, eating meat on Fridays and fast-days at the house of Mosé Franco and Yucé Franco — Jews of the neighbourhood of Tenbleque — and wherever else he could eat it without being detected. Indeed, for the past five years, he admits, he has been a Jew at heart, and if during that time he did not more completely observe Jewish rites and practices, it was because he dared not for fear of being discovered; whilst all the Christian acts he had performed had been merely a simulation, that he might appear to be a Christian still. The confessions he had made to the priest of La Guardia had been false ones, and he had never gone to Communion— “believing that the Corpus Christi was all a farce (creyendo que todo era burla el Corpus Christi)!’ He even added that whenever he saw the Viaticum carried through the streets, it was his habit to spit and to make higas (a gesture of contempt).*