During the Middle Ages, human life was generally held in small respect;
various judicial institutions--if not altogether secret, at least more or
less enveloped in mystery--were remarkable for being founded on the
monstrous right of issuing the most severe sentences with closed doors,
and of executing these sentences with inflexible rigour on individuals who
had not been allowed the slightest chance of defending themselves.
While passing judgment in secret, they often openly dealt blows as
unexpected and terrible as they were fatal. Therefore, the most innocent
and the most daring trembled at the very name of the _Free Judges of the
Terre-Rouge,_ an institution which adopted Westphalia as the special, or
rather as the central, region of its authority; the _Council of Ten_
exercised their power in Venice and the states of the republic; and the
_Assassins_ of Syria, in the time of St. Louis, made more than one
invasion into Christian Europe. We must nevertheless acknowledge that,
terrible as these mysterious institutions were, the general credulity, the
gross ignorance of the masses, and the love of the marvellous, helped not
a little to render them even more outrageous and alarming than they really
were.
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