Execution followed confession, but the number of condemned prisoners was allowed to accumulate, that a multitude of victims might grace each great gala-day.  The auto-da fe was a solemn festival.  The monarch, the high functionaries of the land, the reverend clergy, the populace regarded it as an inspiring and delightful recreation.  When the appointed morning arrived, the victim was taken from his dungeon.  He was then attired in a yellow robe without sleeves, like a herald’s coat, embroidered all over with black figures of devils.  A large conical paper mitre was placed upon his head, upon which was represented a human being in the midst of flames, surrounded by imps.  His tongue was then painfully gagged, so that he could neither open nor shut his mouth.  After he was thus accoutred, and just as he was leaving his cell, a breakfast, consisting of every delicacy, was placed before him, and he was urged, with ironical politeness, to satisfy his hunger.  He was then led forth into the public square.  The procession was formed with great pomp.  It was headed by the little school children, who were immediately followed by the band of prisoners, each attired in the horrible yet ludicrous manner described.  Then came the magistrates and nobility, the prelates and other dignitaries of the Church:  the holy inquisitors, with their officials and familiars, followed, all on horseback, with the blood-red flag of the “sacred office” waving above them, blazoned upon either side with the portraits of Alexander and of Ferdinand, the pair of brothers who had established the institution.  After the procession came the rabble.  When all had reached the neighborhood of the scaffold, and had been arranged in order, a sermon was preached to the assembled multitude.  It was filled with laudations of the inquisition, and with blasphemous revilings against the condemned prisoners.  Then the sentences were read to the individual victims.  Then the clergy chanted the fifty-first psalm, the whole vast throng uniting in one tremendous miserere.  If a priest happened to be among the culprits, he was now stripped of the canonicals which he had hitherto worn; while his hands, lips, and shaven crown were scraped with a bit of glass, by which process the oil of his consecration was supposed to be removed.  He was then thrown into the common herd.  Those of the prisoners who were reconciled, and those whose execution was not yet appointed, were now separated from the others.  The rest were compelled to mount a scaffold, where the executioner stood ready to conduct them to the fire.  The inquisitors then delivered them into his hands, with an ironical request that he would deal with them tenderly, and without blood-letting or injury.  Those who remained steadfast to the last were then burned at the stake; they who in the last extremity renounced their faith were strangled before being thrown into the flames.  Such was the Spanish inquisition—­technically—­so