Llorente

Llorente, JUAN ANTONIO, the historian of the Spanish Inquisition, was born at Rincon del Soto, near Calahorra, in 1756. He was trained for the priesthood and took orders early, but his studies were chiefly secular—history, archaeology, and jurisprudence—and in his memoirs he confesses an inclination to the French philosophy of the day. His advancement, however, was rapid. He became vicar-general of the diocese in 1782, agent of the Inquisition at Logroño in 1785, and canon of Calahorra and secretary to the Inquisition in 1789. The projected reforms in the procedure of the Holy Office brought him into close connection with Jovellanos, and the imprisonment of the minister drove him into retirement for a time; but in 1805 he found favour with Godoy, whom he served by justifying on historical grounds his attack on the fueros of the Basque Provinces. In 1806 he was made canon of Toledo, and was on the high road to a bishopric when Napoleon put a stop to his promotion. He was, however, included among the Notables assembled at Bayonne to ratify the French usurpation. King Joseph, who stood in need of adaptable Spaniards, gave him a seat in his council of state, and appointed him to sundry posts more or less connected with confiscation; and in 1809, when the Inquisition was suppressed, placed all its archives in his hands that he might write its history. But the times afforded little leisure for the task. The ebb and flow of war kept Joseph always on the move, and Llorente followed his fortunes with a fidelity that would be admirable but for the fact that his life was not safe among his own countrymen. After the battle of Vitoria he effected his retreat to Paris, and there, translated into French under his own eyes by Alexis Pellier, the work came out at last in 1817-18. The Spanish edition did not appear till 1822, as the Inquisition, restored by Ferdinand, survived till 1820. The value and importance of the book, notwithstanding its want of method, were recognised at once. There was a 2d edition in 1818, and translations in German, English, and Italian followed speedily; but it provoked bitter feeling, to which Llorente added in 1822 by his Portrait Politique des Papes, and at the instance of the clerical party he was ordered to quit France forthwith. He set out for Madrid, and a few days after his arrival died (February 5, 1823), broken down by the fatigues of a hasty journey in severe winter weather. Llorente's time-serving character, his animus against the Inquisition, the Church, and the pope, and his admission of having burned documents have been urged as reasons against his trustworthiness. But the most learned of his opponents, Hefele, can bring no graver charge against him than that the number he gives for the victims at Seville in one year should have been distributed over several years and among several cities. His account of the burning of some of the papers is perfectly straightforward, and his sentiments as to the Inquisition are always frankly declared. It is open, of course, to its apologists to say that he may have kept back facts in its favour, but critics of unimpeachable impartiality and competence, Prescott, Ticknor, and Buckle, to name no others, testify to the accuracy and honesty of his work. His minor works, some twenty or thirty in number, include an account of the origin of the fueros of the Basque Provinces; the Annals of the Inquisition as far as the year 1530; a short autobiography, in which he defends his French partisanship as prudent patriotism; and his Critical Observations on Gil Blas (1822). See ISLA and LE SAGE.