The accused was delivered over to a court that had no mercy, no common human sympathies, no administrative interest in the population.

He knew nothing of his accusers; and when he died or disappeared from view no record of his case survived him.
The Inquisition rested on the double basis of ecclesiastical fanaticism and protected delation.

The court was _prima facie_ hostile to the accused; and the accused could never hope to confront the detectives upon whose testimony he was arraigned before it.

Lives and reputations lay thus at the mercy of professional informers, private enemies, malicious calumniators.

The denunciation was sometimes anonymous, sometimes signed, with names of two corroborative witnesses.