The roasting of a human victim at the _auto da fe_ was a purely democratic institution. The _leperos_, who were beneath the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, felt none of the terrors that haunted the rich even in night visions. Without the least apprehension, they enjoyed the magnificence of the spectacle, and their hatred toward the high-born was gratified by the sight of one, and sometimes many, respectable persons burned in the fire for their entertainment. They were always ready to manifest their gratitude to the holy office by assailing and perhaps murdering any one who had incurred the displeasure of the priests, but whom it was not politic to arrest. Thus, by a threefold power, did the Inquisition enforce the discipline of the Church: by the authority of the king and the law, the dread which it inspired; the sympathies of a rabble, whom it was their interest to keep brutalized; and the religious sentiment of the nation, so far as there was any. But this last was a very uncertain reliance, for the same law which makes heresy a crime, legalizes hypocrisy, and the inquisitor cared very little for the thoughts of men so long as they remain unuttered; and as no two men think alike, the crime of heresy appears to consist in expressing too frankly the logical deductions of the understanding upon the all-important subject of religion. To speak disrespectfully of the holy office, the Inquisition, was the worst of heresy. THE HALLS OF THE INQUISITION. The north front of the Plazuelo of the Inquisition, now generally called the Plaza of the Dominicans, is occupied by the great yard of the Dominican convent, which is separated by a high wall from the Plaza, and by a street from the buildings of the Inquisition. Within this yard there is a large flagstone, with a hole in its centre, which stone, on days of the _auto da fe_, used to be brought out into the Plaza, and, with iron post, neck-ring, and chain attached, constituted the simple apparatus for the human sacrifice. The Dominican fathers have carefully laid aside the iron post, with its ring and chain, and perhaps, with them, the most valuable of the instruments of torture, which were removed from the Inquisition building. As there are two classes of bull-fights, the ordinary and the grand bull-fight, so there was the ordinary _auto da fe_, performed in this Little Plaza, and the grand act of faith, _auto da fe general_, which ordinarily ought to come off in the Grand Plaza of the city, in front of the vice-regal palace.