extremely popular satire against absurd preachers, the History of the
famous preacher Fray Gerondif, published under the pseudonym of Don
Francisco Lobon de Salazar--a kind of ecclesiastical Don Quixote--so
infuriated the preaching monks that the Holy Office received "an
almost infinite number of denunciations of the book." Ista, however,
was a Jesuit, and escaped, through the influence of his order, with
a warning. [1619] Influence, indeed, could achieve almost anything in
the Holy Office, whether for culprits or against the uninculpable. In
1796, Don Raymond de Salas, a professor at Salamanca, was actually
prosecuted by the Inquisition of Madrid as being suspected of having
adopted the principles of Voltaire, Rousseau, and other modern
philosophers, he having read their works. The poor man proved that
he had done so only in order to refute them, and produced the theses
publicly maintained at Salamanca by his pupils as a result of his
teachings. The prosecution was a pure work of personal enmity on the
part of the Archbishop of Santiago (formerly bishop of Salamanca)
and others, and Salas was acquitted, with the statement that he was
entitled to reparation. Again and again did his enemies revive the
case, despite repeated acquittals, he being all the while in durance,
and at length he had to "abjure," and was banished the capital. After
a time the matter was forced on the attention of the Government,
with the result that even Charles IV was asked by his ministers to
ordain that henceforth the Inquisition should not arrest anyone without
prior intimation to the king. At this stage, however, the intriguing
archbishop successfully intervened, and the ancient machinery for
the stifling of thought remained intact for the time. [1620]