Paul now turned his attention, with the fiery passion that distinguished him, to the reformation of ecclesiastical abuses.  On his accession he had published a Bull declaring that this would be a principal object of his reign.  Nor had he in the midst of other occupations forgotten his engagement.  A Congregation specially appointed for examining, classifying, and remedying such abuses had been established.  It was divided into three committees, consisting of eight Cardinals, fifteen prelates, and fifty men of learning.  At the same time the Inquisition was rigorously maintained.  Paul extended its jurisdiction, empowered it to use torture, and was constant in his attendance on its meetings and autos da fe.[26] But now that his plans for the expulsion of the Spaniards had failed, and his nephews had been hurled from their high station into the dust, there remained no other interest to distract his mind.  Every day witnessed the promulgation of some new edict touching monastic discipline, simony, sale of offices, collation to benefices, church ritual, performance of clerical duties, and appointment to ecclesiastical dignities.  It was his favorite boast that there would be no need of a Council to restore the Church to purity, since he was doing it.[27]

[Footnote 26:  Pallavicini, in his history of the Council of Trent (Lib. xiv. ix. 5), specially commends Paul’s zeal for the Holy Office:—­’Fra esse d’eterna lode lo fa degno il tribunal dell’inquisizione, che dal zelo di lui e prima in autorita di consigliero e poscia in podesta di principe riconosce il presente suo vigor nell’Italia, e dal quale riconosce l’Italia la sua conservata integrita della fede:  e per quest’ opera salutare egli rimane ora tanto piu benemerito ed onorabile quantao piu allora ne fu mal rimerilato e disonorato.’]

[Footnote 27:  See Luigi Mocenigo in Rel. degli Amb.  Veneti, vol. x. p. 25.] And indeed his measures formed the nucleus of the Tridentine decrees upon this topic in the final sessions of the Council.  Under this government Rome assumed an air of exemplary behavior which struck foreigners with mute astonishment.  Cardinals were compelled to preach in their basilicas.  The Pope himself, who was vain of his eloquence, preached.  Gravity of manners, external signs of piety, a composed and contrite face, ostentation of orthodoxy by frequent confession and attendance at the Mass, became fashionable; and the Court adopted for its motto the Si non caste tamen caute of the Counter-Reformation.[28] Aretino, with his usual blackguardly pointedness of expression, has given a hint of what the new regime implied in the following satiric lines:—­

    Carafla, ipocrita infingardo,
      Che tien per coscienza spirituale
      Quando si mette del pepe in sul cardo.

Paul IV. brought the first period of the transition to an end.  There were no attempts at dislodging the Spaniard, no Papal wars, no tyranny of Papal nephews converted into feudal princes, after his days.  He stamped Roman society with his own austere and bigoted religion.  That he was in any sense a hypocrite is wholly out of the question.  But he made Rome hypocritical, and by establishing the Inquisition on a firm basis, he introduced a reign of spiritual terror into Italy.