l the bells in the capital began to toll, and a
solemn procession was seen to move from the dismal fortress of the
Inquisition. In the van marched a body of troops, to secure a free
passage for the procession. Then came the condemned, each attended by
two familiars of the Holy Office, and those who were to suffer at the
stake by two friars, in addition, exhorting the heretic to abjure his
errors. Those admitted to penitence wore a sable dress; while the
unfortunate martyr was enveloped in a loose sack of yellow cloth,--the
_san benito_,--with his head surmounted by a cap of pasteboard of a
conical form, which, together with the cloak, was embroidered with
figures of flames and of devils fanning and feeding them; all
emblematical of the destiny of the heretic's soul in the world to come,
as well as of his body in the present. Then came the magistrates of the
city, the judges of the courts, the ecclesiastical orders, and the
nobles of the land on horseback. These were followed by the members of
the dread tribunal, and the fiscal, bearing a standard of crimson
damask, on one side of which were displayed the arms of the Inquisition,
and on the other the insignia of its founders, Sixtus the Fifth and
Ferdinand the Catholic. Next came a numerous train of familiars, well
mounted, among whom were many gentry of the province, proud to act as
the body-guard of the Holy Office. The rear was brought up by an immense
concourse of the common people, stimulated on the present occasion, no
doubt, by the loyal desire to see their new sovereign, as well as by the
ambition to share in the triumphs of the _auto da fe_. The number thus
drawn together from the capital and the country, far exceeding what was
usual on such occasions, is estimated by one present at full two hundred
thousand.[441]

[Sidenote: AUTOS DA FE.]

As the multitude defiled into the square, the inquisitors took their
place on the seats prepared for their reception. The condemned were
conducted to the scaffold, and the royal station was occupied by Philip,
with the different members of his household. At his side sat his sister,
the late regent, his son, Don Carlos, his nephew, Alexander Farnese,
several foreign ambassadors, and the principal grandees and higher
ecclesiastics in attendance on the court. It was an august assembly of
the greatest and the proudest in the land. But the most indifferent
spectator, who had a spark of humanity in his bosom, might have turned
wi