In order to qualify as an Inquisitor, or to hold any office in the Inquisition, it was necessary for the candidate to be descended, and to be able to prove his descent, from a line of "perfect Christians." Having given this proof, he was obliged to take an oath of secrecy and fidelity to the Inquisition, the violation of which was punishable with death. The body of informers were bound by the same oaths, and if it was necessary to procure the "removal" of any person or persons, these men were employed as _agents provocateurs_, death being the alternative if ever they disclosed the methods of their Christlike patrons and employers. As we have seen, both the _Hermandad_ and the _Cruciata_ were the Inquisition's agents throughout the Peninsula, and were employed mostly for the purposes of watching and seizing victims. The smallest hamlets swarmed with these vermin and they were mainly drawn by the Inquisitors from the worst characters in the country. They themselves were often victims of the Inquisition, whose influence had destroyed all kinds of secular industry in order that the Church should profit by it, and members of both brotherhoods served for the lowest wage the system which had robbed them of all chance of procuring an honourable livelihood. In order to possess the better claim upon their patrons, they had devoted all the faculties of mind and heart to perfecting the arts of espionage, and no system has ever produced more crafty, more ruthless, more persevering servants. When once their attention was fixed upon a victim, it was but of small importance that he was innocent, for his doom was settled from that moment. If his reputation, his rank, his riches did not allow of his immediate seizure, then recourse was had to stratagem. All means, however vile or base, were allowed; they employed all arts, they assumed all characters, they made use of every dress, they adopted every possible method of circumventing and capturing their prey. Caresses, flattery, entertainments, gold, were all employed in forwarding their designs; months and years often passed before a victim was entrapped, but the _Hermandad_ never lost a victim once it had fixed its eyes upon his belongings. The _Cruciata_ was formed with the object of watching over members of the Catholic body and seeing that its members performed their religious duties. It is not difficult to conceive to what a degree of hypocrisy such an establishment must have brought a nation, and if "most Catholic Spain" were Catholic at all in those days, it was rather from fear of the _Cruciata_ than from love of God. So then the Inquisition had two first-class _corps d'espionnage_ which formed two active armies, always on the alert and always moving among the masses, through which both their political and their spiritual ascendancy remained assured.