This was not the sort of man for a persecutor. But the progress of the Inquisition during his reign is a remarkable instance of the degree in which the policy of the Church overrides the individual tendencies of the man who may be the temporary occupant of St. Peter's chair, whenever either the imbecility or the scruples of the latter may seem to endanger the interests of the corporation over which he presides. Whether the moderate, politic, and worldly–minded statesman, Paul III., the poco–curante voluptuary Julius III., or the pure and saintly sage Marcellus II., were pontiff, the crusade against free thought knew no relaxation. Caraffa and his Inquisitors pursued _their_ work at least with zeal and unflagging perseverance. Duke Hercules took his cue readily enough as to the duties of an orthodox prince; and as he had the misfortune of labouring under the ill–repute that attached to a wife of notoriously heretical inclinations, it was all the more necessary that he should prove his attachment to the Holy See by the most unmistakeable zeal for the purity of the faith. [Sidenote: FANNIO THE MARTYR.] Under these circumstances the arrest of a young man named Fannio, at Faenza, for holding and disseminating heterodox opinions, was a lucky chance to be made the most of. At first, however, it seemed that he would turn craven, and show no sport. The unhappy man had a wife tenderly attached to him, and her tears and entreaties induced him to recant, and accept his liberty as the price of declaring that he believed what his persecutors and judges knew perfectly well he did not believe. But his life became intolerable to him under such conditions. Though he had forced his tongue to utter the lying words that were the price demanded for his life, he could not live up to his lie; so he "relapsed," was again arrested, and this time thrown into the dungeons of Ferrara. Some time elapsed, while his "trial" for heresy was going through the regular edifying forms before the tribunal of the Inquisition at Rome. Condemnation was of course perfectly certain; and the terror among the numerous band of more or less suspected Protestants at Ferrara was great. Yet, hazardous as it must have been to attract attention by any such manifestation of sympathy, we are assured,[82] that many visited him in his prison, and "were consoled by his exhortations." It seems strange that such visits should have been permitted. The Inquisition which had thrown him into prison for preaching, could hardly intend that he should have the means of continuing the offence with all the extra prestige of martyrdom. And the fact would seem to indicate, that the "secular arm," or at least those subordinate executive officers of its will who had not the same reasons for being in love with orthodoxy that moved the prince, had little sympathy with the new persecuting tribunal recently established among them, and seconded its intentions as little as might be.