[24] Rev. xviii. 3. [25] Every offence of which the Inquisition takes cognisance is called "an offence against the Holy Office." CHAPTER V. THE SUBTLETY OF THE INQUISITION. THE case of this poor woman, obliged to denounce her son, is in accordance with both the old and new regulations of the Inquisition; and the manner in which it was endeavoured to be enforced is of common occurrence. Many other means are also in use among the artifices of this Holy Office, to induce persons to betray their friends. A wife, however, who is called upon to accuse her husband, has to encounter still more difficulty than a mother under the obligation to accuse her children. Indeed, such a circumstance would never take place, if the husband could discover that it was the intention of his wife to lay open his secret thoughts before so horrible a tribunal, the consequence of which would be speedy arrest, torture, and condemnation!! The difficulty of this case could not escape the observation of the Roman Court. If it was known as a certainty, in even a single instance, that a wife, to oblige a priest, had betrayed her own husband, and that the priest had made use of the confessional to induce the woman to the commission of such an act, would any husband calmly see his wife going to confession, and not apprehend that between her and the confessor some plot might be hatching against him? A single doubt, a mere suspicion, would be enough to sow discord between a married pair; and as in Italy the physical temperament is sufficiently ardent easily to fall into excesses, it might happen that, through the agency of the priest, the husband might beat, repudiate, or even murder his wife. How then is it to be managed that the wife shall betray her husband with the least chance of his discovering her treachery? The best method is, that she should be instructed by her confessor to go to another town, where she is not known, and there make her disclosure; keeping it secret that she is the wife of the accused, and concealing his real name, till the confessor has disclosed the affair to the Inquisition, which alone knows all the intricacies of the proceedings. And since, moreover, it might happen that the husband might know that his wife, under a false pretence, had gone to another place to see the Inquisitor, or the Bishop's Vicar, the Inquisition grants to other persons the privilege of receiving an accusation; constituting them Sub-Inquisitors for that single case, under the pledge of inviolable secrecy. This arrangement is not merely imaginary, but really takes place; and in confirmation of it, I will here, for the first time, relate another fact which happened to myself.