"The desires of Terranova and of the estates," says the royalist, Tassis, "were diametrically contrary, to each other.

The King wished that the exercise of the Roman Catholic religion should be exclusively established, and the absolute prerogative preserved in its integrity." On the other hand, the provinces desired their charters and a religious' peace.

In these perpetual lines and curves ran the asymptotical negotiation from beginning to end--and so it might have run for two centuries, without hope of coincidence.

Neither party was yet vanquished.

The freshly united provinces were no readier now than before to admit that the Holy Office formed part of their national institutions.
The despotic faction was not prepared to renounce that establishment.
Foiled, but not disheartened, sat the Inquisition, like a beldame, upon the border, impotently threatening the land whence she had been for ever excluded; while industrious as the Parcae, distaff in hand, sat, in Cologne, the inexorable three--Spain, the Empire, and Rome--grimly, spinning and severing the web of mortal destinies.
The first step in the proceedings had been a secret one.