But, from first to last, there was no real relaxation in the intolerance of the Church. The fires of the Inquisition had burnt as if Philip the Second were on the throne. At least one _auto da fé_ was celebrated annually in each of the seventeen tribunals into which the country was divided; so that the entire number of these atrocious popular exhibitions of bigotry during the reign of Philip the Fifth exceeded seven hundred and eighty. How many persons were burnt alive in them is not exactly known; but it is believed, that there were more than a thousand, and that at least twelve times that number were, in different ways, subjected to public punishments and disgrace. Judaism, which had penetrated anew into Spain, from the period of the conquest of Portugal, was the great crime, to be hunted down with all the ingenuity of persecution; and undoubtedly all that could be found of the Hebrew nation or faith was now for the second time extirpated, as nearly as it is possible to extirpate what conscience refuses to give up, and fear and hatred have so many ways to hide. But some men of letters--like Belando, who wrote a civil history of part of the reign of Philip the Fifth, which he dedicated to that monarch, and which bore on its pages all the regular permissions to be printed--were punished without the pretence of being guilty of heresy or unbelief; and many more disappeared from society, who, like Macanaz, were known to entertain political opinions offensive to the Church or the government, but of whom nothing else was known that could render them obnoxious to censure. On the whole, therefore, down to the death of Philip the Fifth, the old alliance between the government of the state and the power of the Church--an alliance supported by the general assent of the people--must still be assumed to have continued unbroken, and its authority must still be felt to have been sufficient to control all freedom of discussion, and effectually to check and silence such intellectual activity as it deemed dangerous.[313] [313] Llorente, Hist., Tom. II. pp. 420, 424, Tom. IV. p. 31. The _data_ of Llorente are not so precise as they ought to be, but any thing approaching his results is of most fearful import. In a pamphlet, however, printed in 1817, (as he declares in his Autobiography, p. 170,) he asserts that, between 1680 and 1808, there perished in the fires of the Inquisition fifteen hundred and seventy-eight persons, and that eleven thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight more were subjected to degrading punishments, making a grand total of fourteen thousand three hundred and sixty-four victims, of which the fifteen hundred and seventy-eight burnt alive must all have perished between 1680 and 1781, when, as we shall see in the next chapter, the last victim was immolated.