The heretic was not permitted to dispose of his property, but if he did succeed in doing so the transaction was void; and, even though the property had passed through several hands, the last possessor was cheerfully deprived of it. As debts due to heretics and securities for loans by them were also void, business became almost impossible. Numerous complaints of the Inquisition’s rapacity show that no possessor of property felt safe. It is not easy to understand how society could continue to hold together when a stimulus was thus deliberately given to fraud, jealousy, quarrelling, litigation, commercial anarchy, and domestic misery. Possibly religious zeal was the original motive of the folly, but when persecution is made a paying concern the reins are given to greed and injustice of every conceivable kind. Venice made a stand against ecclesiastical corruption, and in 1289 enacted that the whole proceeds of confiscation should go to the State; and in the latter part of the fifteenth century Piedmont adopted a similar course, allowing the Inquisition only its expenses. A further abuse was that, from the beginning of its career, the Inquisition frequently made confiscations before the accused had been convicted, sometimes before he confessed. In 1319 sentence was passed in southern France on a man who had been charged in 1284, yet in 1301 the officials were quarrelling over his estate. These legal robberies were carried out with relentless severity, everything being seized to the last penny. On arrest for suspicion of heresy, the Holy Office took possession of a person’s property, promising that if the charge was not proven (a rare event) some of it would be returned for the support of his family. In the meantime the family were turned into the streets to starve, or to live on such charity as they could get. The case of one secret heretic, Gherardo, a rich noble of Florence and consul of the city, was a bad one. Between sixty and seventy years after his death the Inquisitor of the city started a successful persecution against his memory, and eleven of his descendants, who were not heretics, were included in the condemnation, and presumably reduced to penury. It was confiscation that kept alive religious persecution, because the heretics were ingeniously made to furnish the means for their own destruction, and when all the heretics had been disposed of the languishing state of the Holy Office began to arouse real concern on the part of those who made good livings out of it. Confiscation of property for an assumed crime was one of the most effectual agencies for the destruction of civilization, and it is strange that Rome did not see the error of its ways when countries that had no Inquisition were increasing in prosperity and happiness. _Relaxation and the Stake._