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.