Book: A Vanished Arcadia,

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Don Bernardino's usual luck attended him in Santa Fe. This town then formed
part of the diocese of Buenos Ayres, though situated about four hundred miles
from the metropolis. It happened that the see of Buenos Ayres was vacant,
and the chapter of the cathedral invited Cardenas to visit
that portion of the diocese through which he had to pass.
Cardenas was, of course, delighted to show his talents for preaching,
as he had done before in Charcas and in Potosi. When he arrived at Corrientes
the enthusiasm for his holiness and talents was extraordinary.
In Corrientes, Don Bernardino seems to have felt, for the first time,
his calling and election really sure. At the time he landed (1642)
the land was sunk in ignorance and superstition. Even to-day in Corrientes
(the city of the seven currents), situated just at the junction of the rivers
Parana and Paraguay, close to the celebrated missions of the Jesuits,
the inhabitants, living in a country almost tropical,
are half Indians in type.

What Corrientes looked like in Don Bernardino's time
is matter of conjecture. Perhaps it was not greatly
different from some remote Spanish-American frontier towns
some five-and-twenty years ago, save for the groups of Spanish soldiery,
with their steel morions, trunk hose and heavy arquebuses lounging about,
and in the matter of the scarcity of horses in the streets.
No doubt the self-same listless air hung over everything,
and in the place of the modern blue and white barred flags
with a rising sun or cap of liberty stuck like a trade-mark in the corner,
the blood and orange Spanish colours with the quarterings
of castles and of lions flapped heavily against the flagstaff of the fort.
The Indian women dressed all in white, their hair cut
square across the forehead and hanging down their backs,
sat with their baskets of fruit and flowers in the market-place. The town,
as now, built chiefly of adobes, with a few wooden huts dotted about,
was semi-oriental in design. On every church were cupolas
after the eastern fashion, flat roofs on every house, and everything
shone dazzling white against the dark, metallic-looking foliage of the trees.
The streets, as now, were sandy water-courses, crossed here and there
with traverses of rough-hewn stone to break the force of the water
in the season of the rains.

At night the fireflies glistened amongst the heavy leaves
of the mamayes and the orange-trees, whilst from the Chaco rose
the mysterious voices of the desert night, and from the outskirts of the town
the wailing Indian Jarabis and Cielitos sung in a high falsetto key
to the tinkling of a cracked guitar, but broken now and then
by the sharp warning cry `Alerta centinela!' of the soldiers on the walls.
Could one have landed there, one would have felt much as a sailor feels,
dropped on the beach of Eromango or on some yet unbemissionaried island
of the Paumotus Group.

Embarking from Corrientes up the river Paraguay, the Bishop met two vessels
sent from Asuncion to do him honour. When night approached he put in practice
one of the manoeuvres which in Peru had stood him in good stead.
On every side a swarm of launches and canoes accompanied the ship
to see the Bishop, whom already many believed a saint. He asked them all
to retire a little from his ship. All did so but the guard of honour
sent from Asuncion. Towards the middle of the night the sound of scourging
wakened them. It was their Bishop trying to prepare himself for the duties
that awaited him. Every succeeding night the same thing happened.
During the day he celebrated Mass pontifically upon the deck. Voyages upon
the river Paraguay before the days of steamers took a considerable time,
especially as every night the custom was to anchor or to make fast the vessel
to a tree. Soon the rumour reached Asuncion that a second St. Thomas
was on his way to visit them. St. Thomas, as is said, once visited Paraguay,
and a cave in the vicinity of a town called Paraguari, where he once lived,
exists to-day to prove the passage of the saint.

Fate seemed determined that the Bishop should always meet the Jesuits,
no matter where he went.

Becoming weary of the slow progress of the ships, he disembarked
four leagues below Asuncion, at a farm belonging to the Company.
He managed to dissemble his resentment so perfectly that no one knew
he had a grudge against them. Arrived at the capital,
he went at once to the church of San Blas, then to the Cathedral,
where he celebrated Mass and preached, his mitre on his head.
After service he dismissed the people to their homes to dine, saying, however,
that he himself was nourished by an invisible food and by a beverage
which men could not perceive. `My food' (he said) `is but to do
the work and will of Him who sent me.' Therefore he remained
in prayer and meditation until vespers, and that office finished,
he retired to the palace accompanied by a shouting crowd.

In his position his conduct was most adroit, for, as his Bulls
had not arrived, he must have known he had no legal status, and that,
in default of that, he had to conquer public sympathy. The chapter
never doubted that Don Bernardino would place himself entirely in their hands
as his Bulls had not arrived. He, however, seems to have thought
that the act of celebrating Mass pontifically in the Cathedral
had put him in possession of his powers. So he named one Cristobal Sanchez
as his Vicar-General. Two of the members of the chapter,
Don Diego Ponce de Leon and Don Fernando Sanchez, remonstrated,
but a considerable portion of the chapter sided with Cardenas.
The stronger party left the Cathedral and celebrated Mass
in the church belonging to the Jesuits, thus giving Cardenas
a second cause of offence against the Company.

The Bishop, not being secure of his position, had recourse to every art*
to catch the public eye: fasting and scourging, prayers before the altar,
two Masses every day, barefoot processions -- himself the central figure,
carrying a cross -- each had their turn. Along the deep red roads
between the orange-gardens which lead from Asuncion towards
the Recoleta and the Campo Grande, he used to take his way
accompanied by Indians crowned with flowers, giving his benediction
as he passed, to turn away (according to himself) the plague and to insure
a fertile harvest. Not being content with the opportunities
which life afforded, he instituted an evening service in a church
in order to prepare for death.

--
* But besides putting into execution all his histrionic talents, he had
the adroitness to address himself to those feelings of self-interest which
he knew were perhaps more powerful than those of admiration and respect
for his own saintly proceedings in his new diocese. Cretineau Joly,
in his `Histoire de la Compagnie de Jesus', vol. iii., p. 333
(Paris, 1845), tells us that Cardenas `parle aux Espagnols,
il s'addresse a\ leurs intere^ts, il re/veille les vieux levain
de discorde . . . et il accuse les missionnaires d'e^tre seuls
les apo^tres de la liberte/ des Indiens.'
--

Soon, as was to be expected in such a country, this service proved
the occasion of much scandal, and, instead of showing people
how to leave the world, became the means of introducing many into life
in a clandestine way. The rector of the Jesuit college thought it his duty
to inform the Bishop; but he, like all good men, thought nothing bad
could spring from anything that he himself originated. No doubt
he put it down to malice, as good people will when worldlings put the finger
on the weak spot of a religious institution; but anyhow,
regardless of the scandals, he continued his nocturnal rites.

The Governor of Paraguay at that time was one Gregorio de Hinostrosa,
an officer born in Chile, an honest, pious, wooden-headed man,
and much beloved by the inhabitants of Paraguay. On his arrival
Don Bernardino tried to conciliate him. Unluckily, a friendship
with the Bishop was impossible without a blind submission to his will.
In the beginning all was flattery; when Don Gregorio attended Mass,
the Bishop used to meet him at the church door. Not to be outdone,
the Governor returned the Bishop's politeness in a similar way,
but went so far in his complaisance that Don Bernardino
ceased to respect him. Soon there arose bickerings and jealousies,
and at length they hated one another fervently.

Nor was the Bishop more successful with his clergy. Some of them laughed
at his pretensions to be a saint, and called him an ambitious schemer.
Again, amongst the laity, many did not quite understand
his habit of celebrating two Masses every day. He answered
that he never celebrated without releasing a soul from purgatory,
and that there had been saints who celebrated nine Masses every day,
and, moreover, that he was Pope in his own diocese. This cut the ground from
under the feet of his detractors, for in a town of the calibre of Asuncion
the people looked on a service in a church as a welcome means of getting
through the day, and had he celebrated a dozen masses they would but have been
more delighted with their new Bishop.

Under the pretext that there were not enough priests to serve the churches,
he, by degrees, took several parishes into his own hands,
and went from church to church to celebrate his Mass in each,
whilst not forgetting to draw the various stipends for his work.
But, not content with this, he began to ordain young men who knew no Latin,
and even criminals, setting forth the view that ordination
was a sort of second baptism, which purged all crimes --
a most convenient theory, and one which is not half enough insisted on
in these degenerate days.

The position of Asuncion gave him an opportunity of an almost unique kind
to show his talents in another sphere. Across the river Paraguay,
there about one mile broad, extends the country called the Chaco,
a vast domain of swamp and forest, inhabited in those days, as at present,
by tribes of wandering Indians. From the city walls, whilst listening to
the church-bells, one can see the smoke of Indian encampments across the river
only a mile away.

Of all the Indian tribes in the time of Cardenas, the most ferocious
were the Guaycurus. The Jesuits had laboured almost in vain amongst them.
Missions had been founded, and all gone well for months, and even years,
when on a sudden, and without reason, the Guaycurus had burned the houses,
killed the priests, and gone back to the wilds. From Santa Fe
up to the province of Matto Grosso they kept the frontier in a turmoil,
crossing the river and feeding like locusts on the settlements in Paraguay.

Not long before his arrival the Guaycurus had intimated
their intention of holding a conference with Don Gregorio Hinostrosa.
Don Bernardino thought the chance too good to lose, and at once declared that,
as a Bishop, it was his place to carry on negotiations with the barbarians.
Dressed in his robes and with an escort furnished by the Governor, he met
the chiefs -- who no doubt looked on him as a new kind of medicine-man --
preached to them through an interpreter, curiously being without
the gift of tongues, but notwithstanding that a reasonable number of them
were baptized. On his return, he wrote to the King that by his efforts
he had appeased the most ferocious Indians within his Majesty's domains.

Within a week the Guaycurus surprised and burned a settlement
a little higher up the stream. Not content with this Caligulesque apostolate
to the Guaycurus, the Bishop longed for serious occupation,
and caused it to be rumoured about the city that he did nothing
except by the direct authority of the Holy Ghost, an allegation
hard to confute, and if allowed, likely to lead to difficulties
even in Paraguay.

Some years before the advent of Don Bernardino the Dominicans had built
a convent in Asuncion. As they had no license to build,
they were in the position of religious squatters on the domain of God.
The citizens had applied to the Audiencia of Charcas, the supreme court on
all such matters in South America, situated, with true Spanish unpracticality,
in one of the most secluded districts of the continent. The Audiencia
had refused the license, but had taken the matter `ad advisandum'
for ten years. To take a matter into consideration for ten years,
even in Spain or South America, where the law's delay is generally more mortal
than in any other country, was as good as giving a permission.
So the Dominicans construed it, and no one dreamed of now molesting them.

One day the Bishop, dressed in his robes, proceeded from his palace
to the convent, informing the Governor that he wanted him to meet him there.
Entering the convent church, he took the sacrament from off the altar
and stripped the church of all its ornaments, setting a gang of workmen
to demolish both the convent and the church. When the work was over,
he went to a neighbouring church, and then and there, without confession,
celebrated Mass, remarking to the faithful that there was no need for him
to make confession, as he was satisfied of the condition of his conscience.
Some murmured; but the greater portion of the people, always ready
to take a saint at his own valuation, were delighted with his act.
Doubts must have crossed his mind, as shortly afterwards he wrote
to Don Melchior Maldonado, Bishop of Tucuman, for his opinion.
That Bishop answered rather tartly that his zeal appeared to him
to savour more of the zeal of Elias than of Jesus Christ,
and that in a country where churches were so few it seemed imprudent
to pull down rather than to build. `However,' he added,
`my light is not so brilliant as the light your lordship is illumined by.'

When once a man is well convinced that all he does comes from the Holy Ghost,
there is but little that he cannot do with satisfaction to himself.
Self-murderers, according to the custom of those times,
were not allowed admission into holy ground, as if the fact
of having found their life unbearable debarred them from the right
to be considered men. Such a man a few years previously had been buried
at a cross-road. It now occurred to Cardenas to have a special revelation
on the subject; and, curiously enough, this special revelation
was on the side of common-sense. `This body,' said the Bishop,
`is that of a Christian, and I feel pretty sure his soul is now in bliss.'
He gave no reason for his opinion, as is the way of most religious folk,
but, as he had special means of communication with heaven,
most people were contented. Incontinently he had the corpse dug up
and buried in the church of the Incarnation, himself performing
all the funeral rites.

Although a miracle or two would have shocked nobody,
still, in the matter of the suicide he had gone too far
for the simple people of the place. They murmured, and for a moment
the Bishop's prestige was in jeopardy; but in the nick of time
his Bulls arrived, brought by his nephew, Pedro de Cardenas,
who, like himself, was a Franciscan friar. This saved him,
and gave the people something new to think of, though at the same time
he incurred a new anxiety.

In the Bulls there was a passage to the effect that, if at his consecration
any irregularity had been incurred, he was liable to suspension
from all his functions. This the Jesuit who translated the documents
into Spanish for the purpose of publication drew his attention to.
However, Cardenas was not a man to be intimidated by so small a matter,
but read the translation to the people in the Cathedral,
and intimated to them that the Pope had given him unlimited power in Paraguay,
both in matters spiritual and temporal.

Though Don Gregorio, the Governor, was present at the ceremony,
he made no protest at the assumption of temporal power by Cardenas.
He had remarked it, though, and secretly determined to show him
that his pretensions were unfounded. His nephew, Don Pedro de Cardenas,
furnished the occasion. This young man had been despatched to Spain
to get the Bulls. Upon the voyage he seems to have conducted himself
with scant propriety. On his return, when passing Corrientes,
he took on board a lady whom Charlevoix, quite in the spirit of the author
of the Book of Proverbs, describes as `une jeune femme bien faite'.
Having some qualms of conscience, he put on a secular dress,
and on nearing Asuncion put his religious habit over it.
In such a climate this double costume must have been inconvenient,
and why he should have worn one dress above the other does not appear.
His uncle, in his delight at the forthcoming of the Bulls,
most probably paid little attention to his appearance.
He lodged him in the palace, and assigned him a prebendary which was vacant.
Where the `jeune femme bien faite' was lodged is not set down,
and the people of Asuncion no doubt looked leniently on such affairs,
as does society to-day in England. After his usual fashion,
the Bishop set all down to calumny.

About this time the Governor had put in prison one Ambrosio Morales,
a sub-official of the Inquisition, who had had a quarrel with an officer.
Cardenas, being informed of this, could not lose so good a chance
of exercising the power he arrogated in temporal affairs.
Holding a monstrance in his hands, he went to the prison and asked
for the prisoner, placing the monstrance on a table at the prison gate.
The rector of the Jesuit college came and expostulated with him,
saying that it was not fitting to expose the body of Jesus Christ
in such a place, and that it was not decent that the Bishop himself
should stay there. Considering his position, and the times in which he lived,
it seems the rector was judicious in his expostulation. Cardenas replied
that he would stay there till the prisoner was released. The rector,
knowing him to be as obstinate as a male mule, went and begged the Governor
to let Morales out. This he did at once, and then the Bishop, cross in hand,
returned in triumph to the palace with the rescued Inquisitor
following amongst his train. The people, whose lives were dull,
snatched at the opportunity for some amusement, and said that it was good luck
the Governor and Bishop were not always of one mind, for that their agreement
had caused the demolition of a church and convent, and their quarrel
the setting of a prisoner free.

This little triumph emboldened the Bishop to go further. He admitted Morales
into minor orders, gave him the tonsure, and thus, having placed him
above the temporal power, enabled him to brave the Governor openly.
The Bishop's nephew, taking the Governor's kindness for weakness,
broke publicly into insulting terms about him. The Governor's brother,
Father Hinostrosa, pressed him to vindicate his dignity,
but he refused, saying he wanted peace at any price. This policy
the Bishop did not understand, for all concessions he set down as weakness,
and they encouraged him to fresh exactions and more violence.

Dining with the Governor, the Bishop chanced to see upon the table
a fine pair of silver candlesticks. To see and to desire
with Cardenas was to ask, and so he intimated to the Governor
his wish to have them. The Governor, thinking, perhaps,
to wipe out the remembrance of the difficulty about Morales,
sent them to the palace with his compliments. The Bishop took the present,
and, turning to the man who brought them, said, `I should now be quite content
if I only had the silver ewer and flagon which I noticed
in your master's house.' The Governor, we may suppose,
on hearing this made what the Spaniards call `la risa del conejo';
but sent the plate and a message, saying all his house contained was at
the Bishop's service. Don Bernardino, who, though he may have been a saint,
as his friends proclaimed, was certainly far from a gentleman,
sent for the flagon and the ewer, which he received at once,
together with a friendly message from the Governor.

But even this free-will offering brought no quiet, for a new quarrel
soon arose between the Bishop and the unlucky wielder of the temporal power.
The Society of the Holy Sacrament enjoyed an `encomienda'
at or near Asuncion. The Bishop, no doubt thinking he was most fitted
to indoctrinate the Indians, endeavoured to persuade the Governor to get
the Society of the Holy Sacrament to make their Indians over to himself.
The Governor, who knew his fellow-countrymen, flatly refused,
and upon this Don Bernardino fell into a fury, and reproached him with
such bitterness that Don Gregorio, too, overstepped the bounds of prudence,
and threw the conduct of his nephew with the `jeune femme bien faite'
into the Bishop's teeth.

Hell has been said to have no fury equal to a woman scorned,
but a Bishop thwarted makes a very tolerable show. Don Bernardino
was one of those who think an insult to themselves carries with it
a challenge to God, an outrage on religion, and generally conceive
the honour of Heaven is attacked by any contradiction of themselves.
To animadvert upon the actions of a Bishop's nephew is as bad as heresy
-- far worse than simony -- and the man who does it cannot but be
a heretic at heart. So, at least, Don Bernardino thought;
for, with candle, bell, and book, and what was requisite,
he excommunicated the poor Governor, and declared him incompetent
to bear the royal standard in a religious festival which was shortly
to take place. Excommunication was at least as serious then
as bankruptcy is now, though in Spanish America it did not carry with it
such direful consequences as in European States.

Not wishing to use force, the Governor yielded the point,
and did not trouble the procession. His moderate conduct
gained him many partisans, and put many people against the Cardenas.
The nephew, Pedro de Cardenas, thought it a good occasion
to insult the Governor in public; so one day in the street he followed him,
casting reflections on his mother and his female relatives.
Don Gregorio, who was a man of tried courage, having served for years
against the Indians of Arauco, the bravest race of all the Indians of America,
controlled his temper, and, turning to the young Franciscan,
said, `Go with God, my father; but do not try me any more.'
It was not to be expected that in those times and such a place
a man like Don Gregorio de Hinostrosa, who had passed his life
upon the frontiers, and who held supreme authority, would quietly submit
to such a public insult; so one night he appeared at the Bishop's palace,
accompanied by soldiers, to arrest Don Pedro. Out came Cardenas,
and excommunicated the Governor and all his soldiers on the spot,
and Don Pedro pointed a pistol at his head. He, seeing himself obliged
either to make a public scandal or retire, being for peace at any price,
retired, and the triumphant Bishop published his edict of excommunication,
which he extended with a fine of fifty crowns to every soldier
who had been present at the scene. On reflection, thinking, perhaps,
it was unwise to excommunicate so many soldiers, who might be needed
to repel an Indian attack, he sent and told the Governor
he was ready to absolve him upon easy terms. The Governor,
who had made light of the first excommunication, was rather staggered
when he found the second posted at the Cathedral door.
And now a comedy ensued; for Don Gregorio went to the Bishop,
and on his knees asked for forgiveness. He, taken unawares,
also knelt down, and, when the Governor kissed his hand,
wished to return the compliment, and would have done so
had the rector of the Jesuit college not prevented him.

As Charlevoix says, `to see them on their knees, no one could have imagined
which one it was who asked the other's grace.' The Bishop granted absolution
to the Governor; but the soldiers' action had been flat sacrilege at least,
for every one of them was forced to pay the fine.

Two excommunications in a week were almost, one would think,
enough to satisfy a Pope; but having nominated one Diego Hernandez,
a Portuguese, to the post of Alguacil Mayor of the Inquisition,
and given him the right to wear a sword in virtue of his office,
the Governor, meeting the man in the street wearing a sword
against his regulations, made him a prisoner. At once Don Bernardino
launched another excommunication. But this time he had gone too far;
the Governor laughed at his thunder, and condemned the prisoner to be hanged.
At his wits' end, the Bishop sent a servant to the man,
and told him to fear nothing, for that, if he suffered death,
he was a martyr, and that he himself would preach his funeral sermon.
The Governor, who was perhaps a humorist, laughed at the message, which,
he said, was not consoling, and then himself let Hernandez out of prison
under heavy bail. The excommunication was then taken off,
and peace once more reigned in Asuncion.

As well as being not given to wine, it is essential that a Bishop
shall know how to keep his own counsel -- as Lorenzo Gracian expresses it,*
`not to lie, but not for that to speak out always the whole truth.'
Everyone who knew the Bishop and his hasty temper was astonished at
his behaviour to the Jesuits. No one imagined he had forgotten the attitude
the rector of the University of Cordova had assumed towards his consecration,
and still the Bishop seemed to show more favour to the Jesuits in Asuncion
than to the members of the other religious communities.
Perhaps he felt the want of partisans amongst the educated classes,
for his quarrel with the Governor had lost him many friends.
Certainly in Asuncion it was of great importance that the Jesuits
should not declare against him openly.

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