man was simply trying to remove from
his fingers the ink gathered while writing from the ink-horn which he
carried in his girdle; but this explanation was too simple to satisfy
those who first observed him or those who afterward tried him: a mob was
raised and he was thrown into prison. Being tortured, he at first did
not know what to confess; but, on inquiring from the jailer and others,
he learned what the charge was, and, on being again subjected to torture
utterly beyond endurance, he confessed everything which was suggested
to him; and, on being tortured again and again to give the names of his
accomplices, he accused, at hazard, the first people in the city whom
he thought of. These, being arrested and tortured beyond endurance,
confessed and implicated a still greater number, until members of the
foremost families were included in the charge. Again and again all these
unfortunates were tortured beyond endurance. Under paganism, the rule
regarding torture had been that it should not be carried beyond human
endurance; and we therefore find Cicero ridiculing it as a means of
detecting crime, because a stalwart criminal of strong nerves might
resist it and go free, while a physically delicate man, though innocent,
would be forced to confess. Hence it was that under paganism a limit
was imposed to the torture which could be administered; but, when
Christianity had become predominant throughout Europe, torture was
developed with a cruelty never before known. There had been evolved a
doctrine of "excepted cases"--these "excepted cases" being especially
heresy and witchcraft; for by a very simple and logical process of
theological reasoning it was held that Satan would give supernatural
strength to his special devotees--that is, to heretics and witches--and
therefore that, in dealing with them, there should be no limit to the
torture. The result was in this particular case, as in tens of thousands
besides, that the accused confessed everything which could be suggested
to them, and often in the delirium of their agony confessed far more
than all that the zeal of the prosecutors could suggest. Finally, a
great number of worthy people were sentenced to the most cruel death
which could be invented. The records of their trials and deaths are
frightful. The treatise which in recent years has first brought to
light in connected form an authentic account of the proceedings in this
affair, and which gives at the end engravings of