A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson

Charles III. The Spanish admiral Solano was denounced by his almoner to the Inquisition for having read Raynal, and had to demand pardon on his knees of the Inquisition and God. [1605] Aranda himself was from first to last four times arraigned before the Inquisition, [1606] escaping only by his prestige and power. So eminent a personage as P. A. J. Olavidès, known in France as the Count of Pilos (1726-1803), could not thus escape. He had been appointed by Charles III prefect of Seville, and had carried out for the king the great work of colonizing the Sierra Morena, [1607] of which region he was governor. At the height of his career, in 1776, he was arrested and imprisoned, "as suspected of professing impious sentiments, particularly those of Voltaire and Rousseau, with whom he had carried on a very intimate correspondence." He had spoken unwarily to inhabitants of the new towns under his jurisdiction concerning the exterior worship of deity in Spain, the worship of images, the fast days, the cessation of work on holy days, the offerings at mass, and all the rest of the apparatus of popular Catholicism. [1608] Olavidès prudently confessed his error, declaring that he had "never lost his inner faith." After two years' detention he was forced to make his penance at a lesser auto da fé in presence of sixty persons of distinction, many of whom were suspected of holding similar opinions, and were thus grimly warned to keep their counsel. During four hours the reading of his process went on, and then came the sentence. He was condemned to pass eight years in a convent; to be banished forever from Madrid, Seville, Cordova, and the new towns of the Sierra Morena, and to lose all his property; he was pronounced incapable henceforth of holding any public employment or title of honour; and he was forbidden to mount a horse, to wear any ornament of gold, silver, pearls, diamonds, or other precious stones, or clothing of silk or fine linen. On hearing his sentence he fainted. Afterwards, on his knees, he received absolution. Escaping some time afterwards from his convent, he reached France. After some years more, he cynically produced a work entitled The Gospel Triumphant, or the Philosopher Converted, which availed to procure a repeal of his sentence; and he returned into favour. [1609] In his youth he "had not the talent to play the hypocrite." In the end he mastered the art as few had done.