However strongly pressed, he resisted, and so violently, giving no reason, that all were persuaded that his mind was unhinged by the fear of death.  Saint-Thomas of Villeneuve, Archbishop of Valencia, heard of his obstinacy.  Valencia was the place where his sentence was given.  The worthy prelate was so charitable as to try to persuade the criminal to make his confession, so as not to lose his soul as well as his body.  Great was his surprise, when he asked the reason of the refusal, to hear the doomed man declare that he hated confessors, because he had been condemned through the treachery of his own priest, who was the only person who knew about the murder.  In confession he had admitted his crime and said where the body was buried, and all about it; his confessor had revealed it all, and he could not deny it, and so he had been condemned.  He had only just learned, what he did not know at the time he confessed, that his confessor was the brother of the man he had killed, and that the desire for vengeance had prompted the bad priest to betray his confession.  Saint-Thomas, hearing this, thought that this incident was of more importance than the trial, which concerned the life of only one person, whereas the honour of religion was at stake, with consequences infinitely more important.  He felt he must verify this statement, and summoned the confessor.  When he had admitted the breach of faith, the judges were obliged to revoke their sentence and pardon the criminal, much to the gratification of the public mind.  The confessor was adjudged a very severe penance, which Saint-Thomas modified because of his prompt avowal of his fault, and still more because he had given an opportunity for the public exhibition of that reverence which judges themselves are bound to pay to confessions.

Secondcase

In 1579 an innkeeper at Toulouse killed with his own hand, unknown to the inmates of his house, a stranger who had come to lodge with him, and buried him secretly in the cellar.  The wretch then suffered from remorse, and confessed the crime with all its circumstances, telling his confessor where the body was buried.  The relations of the dead man, after making all possible search to get news of him, at last proclaimed through the town a large reward to be given to anyone who would discover what had happened to him.  The confessor, tempted by this bait, secretly gave word that they had only to search in the innkeeper’s cellar and they would find the corpse.  And they found it in the place indicated.  The innkeeper was thrown into prison, was tortured, and confessed his crime.  But afterwards he always maintained that his confessor was the only person who could have betrayed him.  Then the Parliament, indignant with such means of finding out the truth, declared him innocent, failing other proof than what came through his confessor.  The confessor was himself condemned to be hanged, and his body was burnt.  So fully did the tribunal in its wisdom recognise the importance of securing the sanctity of a sacrament that is indispensable to salvation.