lacking in deference. Though perfectly respectful, his attitude to
them was anything but subservient. The judges were accustomed to see
prisoners who were brought before them crushed with awe and a sense of
impending doom. Conscious of the baselessness of the charges against
him, the accused seemed to take his acquittal as certain; and he stood
so little in awe of his judges that he announced his intention of
appealing over their heads to the members of the Supreme
Inquisition.[84] Timidity was not among his failings. A priest of
Astudillo, formerly a student at Salamanca, had occasionally strayed
into Luis de Leon's densely-packed lecture-room, and retained an
abiding impression of the professor's _desenvoltura_ in his chair.[85]
Luis de Leon had not become wholly subdued during the intervening
years. He did not mince words in court, and indulged in sweeping
denunciations of large groups of men; he branded all Dominicans as
'enemies';[86] he was scarcely more indulgent in speaking of the
Jeromites (who resented his opposition to the candidature of their
representative, Hector Pinto, for a chair at Salamanca);[87] and on
general grounds, not unconnected with ancient academic rancours, he
objected to the entire faculty of theology at the University of Alcalá
de Henares.[88] The evidence of such persons should, he suggested, be
discounted in advance. Slow to think evil of his neighbours, Luis de
Leon was apt, once his suspicions were aroused, to fling his net
widely. He had some inkling that he and his had the fatal gift of
rousing antagonism. His uncle had been a practising lawyer, and Luis
de Leon argued that all who had suffered through the professional
activities of his kinsman should be debarred from testifying in his
case.[89] The unworldly man manifestly took it for granted that
witnesses who harboured any such grudge against him would willingly
admit it, if pressed on the point.