The latter half of the eighteenth century witnessed the gradual disappearance of relaxation. Llorente tells us that during the reign of Carlos III (1759-1788) he has found accounts of only ten autos de fe, in which there were but four cases.[613] Probably the latest instance was that of Isabel María Herraiz, an impostor known as the _Beata de Cuenca_, who died in prison without confession and, being thus unable to recant and beg mercy, was burnt in effigy in 1802.[614] When it came to relaxing a living fellow-creature, however, the Inquisition by this time was honestly desirous of escaping the necessity. Padre Miguel Sorano, cura of Esco in Aragon, was an unmanageable heretic, who discarded tradition and the fathers and held that Scripture was the sole authority; purgatory and limbo were human inventions; fees for masses were simony; tithes were a fraud; the pope was not the vicar of Christ and his decretals were mere devices to raise money. All this he embodied in a book which he audaciously submitted to his bishop and other theologians. Tried by the Saragossa tribunal, he was pertinaciously impenitent, impervious alike to argument and threats, and there was no alternative but to vote for relaxation. Then the Suprema ordered fresh testimony to be sought and renewed efforts at conversion, but all proved fruitless and again relaxation was voted. As a last resource the Suprema ordered an investigation into his sanity. All the population of the vicinage was examined, and one doctor was found to say that some years before he had been dangerously sick, which might have affected his brain, and since then he had talked freely of these heretical doctrines. Taking advantage of this, renewed efforts were made to convert him without coming to a vote. While this was in progress he was attacked with mortal illness and, at the end of twenty days, he was told that the end was near. He merely said that he was in the hands of God; he refused all the consolations of religion and passed away unrepentant in 1805, to be buried in unconsecrated ground, when the Suprema ordered the case to be closed, without proceeding to conviction and burning in effigy.[615] We shall see that twenty years later the episcopal Inquisition was less merciful. CHAPTER V. THE AUTO DE FE.