With this auto the murderous activity of the tribunal may be said virtually to end. Until the end of the century its business consisted almost exclusively in the commonplace routine of bigamists, blasphemers, petty sorcerers, soliciting confessors, clerics administering the sacraments without priest’s orders and the like. Thus in an auto celebrated January 15, 1696, out of twenty-six penitents, there was but one heretic with a sanbenito; there was a Greek schismatic reconciled and the rest were sixteen bigamists, one Franciscan tertiary for Illuminism, a woman for imposture and four men and two women for the superstitious practices conveniently classed as sorcery with explicit or implicit pact with the demon.[472] Yet during this half-century there were a couple of cases showing that a nearly bloodless career was not due to any surcease of fanatic zeal. In November, 1673, was arrested a wandering hermit named Juan Bautista de Cardenas, charged with being _iluso y alumbrado_, with grave suspicion of sacramentarian heresy. After giving the customary account of his life he took refuge in absolute silence, which suggested that he was possessed by a demon, but exorcism proved unavailing. Sharp torture was then tried, but it elicited only the usual shrieks of pain. The conclusion drawn from this was that he was a contumacious heretic and in July, 1675, he was condemned to relaxation, when, on being notified of it, he only said that if he was carried to the quemadero he would die for God. The tribunal however did not dare to execute its own sentence and sent the papers to the Suprema which, June 22, 1676, altered it to abjuration _de levi_, deprivation of the habit he wore and exile from the cities of Mexico and Puebla, adding that the torture had been abusive seeing that he had not been formally testified against for heresy. The other case was that of Fray Francisco Manuel de Cuadros, who had left his Order and practised as a _curandero_, or curer of disease by charms. He was thrown in prison, November 14, 1663, and during his trial, which was protracted for nearly fifteen years, he confessed to being an agnostic, except as to the existence of God, but he admitted that he was ignorant and half-crazy. At the auto of March 20, 1679, he was condemned to relaxation after degradation, but at the quemadero he showed signs of repentance, in virtue of which he was admitted to the sacraments and was strangled before burning.[473] * * * * *