Among the prohibited books, were found several writings by Constantine Ponce de Fuente, which treated of the true church according to the principles of the Lutherans, and proved in their manner, that this church was not that of the _papists_: he also discussed in them several other points on which the Lutherans differed from the Catholics. Constantine could not deny these papers, as they were in his own hand-writing; he confessed that they contained the profession of his faith, but refused to name his accomplices and disciples. The inquisitors, instead of decreeing the torture, plunged him into a deep, humid, and obscure dungeon, where the air, impregnated with the most dangerous miasma, soon altered his health. Overcome by this persecution, he exclaimed, "_My God, were there no Scythians or cannibals into whose hands to deliver me, rather than to let me fall into the power of these barbarians!_" This situation could not last long; Constantine fell sick, and died of a dysentery: it was reported, when the _auto-da-fé_ was celebrated, that he had killed himself to avoid his punishment. His trial was as celebrated as his person. The inquisitors caused the _merits_ or charges against him to be read in a pulpit close to their seats, where the people could not hear them; the Corregidor Calderon remarked the circumstance twice, and they were obliged to begin it again where those of the other trials were read. Constantine had published the first part of a catechism; the second was not printed. The following works of Constantine were inserted in the prohibitory Index, published in 1559, by Don Ferdinand Valdés:--An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine; a Dialogue on the same subject, between a Master and his Disciple; The Confession of a Sinner to Jesus Christ; A Christian Catechism; An Exposition of the Psalm, _Beatus qui non abiit in concilio impiorum_. Alphonso de Ulloa, in his Life of Charles V., gives the highest praise to the works of Constantine, particularly his Treatise on the Christian Doctrine, which was translated into Italian[22]. The effigy of Contantine was not like those of the other condemned persons (which were an unformed mass surmounted by a head); it was an entire figure with the arms spread, as Constantine was accustomed to do when preaching, and was clothed in garments which appeared to have belonged to him. After the _auto-da-fé_, this figure was taken back to the Holy Office, and a common effigy was burnt with the bones of the condemned.