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401 MARIA THERESA. After the restoration of peace, Maria Theresa renewed her exertions for the welfare of her people. Though a devout Roman Catholic, she resisted the efforts of the Pope to control the ecclesiastical affairs of her empire* and so checked the power of the Inquisition that her successors were able to suppress that terrible institution. One of her best acts was the abolition of torture in the administration of justice — a reform which was greatly due to the eloquent and pathetic denunciations of Vol- taire. At that time, in almost every country, criminals were put to the torture, either to compel them to confess their own guilt or to reveal the names of their accom- plices. The unhappy prisoner, pale and trembling with terror, was conducted to a vault underground, and there, in the presence of a magistrate and recording clerks, he was subjected to increasing degrees of anguish, until the attending surgeon decided that he could bear no more without danger of his life. Many poor wretches, to gain a moment's respite from agony, accused innocent persons, who, denying their guilt, were in turn subjected to the same infernal cruelty. The first monarch of continental Europe to abolish this most irrational and horrid system was Frederick the Great ; the second was Catherine II, of Russia ; the third was Maria Theresa ; the fourth was Louis XVI, of France. Readers may remember that when the benevolent Howard made his tours among the jails of Europe, about the time of the American Revolu- tion, he found the torture chamber in almost every city that he visited, and in many of them it was still employed. It used to be considered a stain upon the administra- tion of the Empress Maria Theresa that she consented to the dismemberment of Poland, and to accept a large por- tion of that country as her share of the spoil. More recent writers, however, who have looked into that affair closely, are disposed to think the act justifiable and even