THE TRIAL CONTINUED—THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL RECEIVES FRESH INSTRUCTIONS FOR ITS CONDUCT.

In the course of this extraordinary trial there seems never to have been the slightest difficulty made about shifting the grounds of the Accusation. The particulars on which the prisoner was interrogated were scarcely the same in all respects on any two successive days, and often wide as the poles asunder of the proper articles of impeachment produced against him. The petition just presented by the prisoner was thus, without scruple as without challenge, now made the ground of a series of questions and harangues by the prosecutor, studiously calculated to prejudice him in the eyes of his Judges.

Rigot had in fact made a great mistake in his own articles of inculpation. The prisoner, as it seemed, was even likely to escape through his mismanagement; but, otherwise advised, and as if to make amends for the line he had taken at first, he now showed himself either indisposed or afraid to follow further the dictates of his own more equitable nature. He had been in conclave with Calvin and received fresh instructions from him, as Servetus affirmed without being contradicted. Rigot, in truth, was no longer free, but cowed by the stern resolve of the man of mind and iron will.85

August 28.—Abandoning the moderate tone he had hitherto observed, and taking the petition of the prisoner for his text, Rigot now entered on the task prescribed him of showing that the early Christian Emperors, contrary to the allegation in the petition, did take cognisance of heresy, and by their Laws and Constitutions consigned all who denied the doctrine of the Trinity to death. ‘But the prisoner,’ said Rigot, ‘his own conscience condemning him and arguing him deserving of death, would have the magistrate deprived of the right to punish the heretic capitally. To escape such a fate it is that he has now put forward the false plea that for false doctrine the guilty are never to be summarily punished. Not to seem to favour the errors of the Anabaptists, moreover, ever rebellious against the authority of the magistrate, it is that the prisoner in his petition now pretends to repudiate their doctrines; yet can he not show a single passage in his writings in which he reprobates their principles and practices.’ All this was obviously most unfair to the prisoner. He was certainly opposed to infant baptism, and in so much agreed with the Anabaptists; but, far from declaring himself inimical to the constituted authorities of the state, he is emphatic in proclaiming the necessity of upholding them in the exercise of their lawful authority, and on the duty incumbent on subjects to obey.87

‘The further allegation of the prisoner,’ continued the public prosecutor, still harping on the petition, ‘that he never communicated his opinions to anyone, is manifestly false; for here we have had him saying that he should think he offended God did he not impart to others that which God had revealed to him. How shall we believe that, for the thirty years during which he has been engaged in elaborating and printing his horrible heresies, he has never communicated a word of them to anyone? Bethink ye, that he began at the age of twenty—an age when young people invariably communicate their views and opinions to one another, their friends and fellow-students—and by this judge of the kind of conscience the man puts into his answers with a view to abuse justice—as if he repented in any way of his horrible misdeeds! for though now saying that he is ready to submit to correction and ask pardon, he again and far oftener audaciously maintains that he has said nothing and done nothing amiss.’

Whether influenced by Calvin, to whose party in the State Rigot appears to have belonged, or involved in the suit, and believing it his duty to do all in his power to obtain the conviction of the prisoner, we see him now speaking as if he were intimately persuaded of Servetus’s culpability, and even looking on him as already condemned; hence the indignation with which he repels the petitioner’s request to have Counsel to assist him in his defence. This, indeed, was a demand that could by no means be granted without taking the case from the criminal category in which it had been placed by Calvin from the first. It is not so very long since the felon or the incriminated for felony among ourselves was denied the advantage of Counsel, and we are not to wonder at the same rule obtaining in the Republic of Geneva more than three hundred years ago.

Had Servetus succeeded in obtaining Counsel, he could not, by the laws of Geneva, have been dealt with capitally; and this would not have met the views of Calvin, it being impossible in his opinion adequately to punish the crime of which he held the man had been guilty by any infliction short of death. Rigot therefore became eloquent on the petitioner’s insolence, as he called it, in asking for Counsel to aid him in his defence. ‘Skilled in lying as he is,’ said M. Rigot, ‘there is no reason why he should now demand an advocate. Who is there indeed,’ he proceeds, ‘who would or who could consent to assist him in his impudent falsehoods and horrible propositions? It has not yet come to this that such seducers as he have been allowed to speak through Counsel; and then there is not a shadow of the simplicity that might seem to require assistance of the kind. Let him therefore be disabused of any hope he may have conceived that so impertinent a demand can for a moment be entertained, and ordered to reply by yea or nay to the further questions to be put to him.’ Rigot, we might fancy, must have thought that artful lying was a principal part of a counsel’s duties to his client.

Descending to further particulars suggested by the petition, the prisoner was asked, ‘On what grounds he rested the statement he makes concerning the judgment of heretics in the ancient church?’ To which he answered: ‘On the histories we have of Constantine the Great.’ ‘In the course of his law studies at Toulouse, however,’ said the prosecutor, ‘the prisoner must have made acquaintance with the code of Justinian, with the chapters in particular which treat of the Trinity, of the Catholic Faith, and of Heresy and Apostacy, in which he must know that opinions such as those he professes are condemned.’ The prisoner replied that ‘it was now twenty-four years since he had seen Justinian, and indeed he had never read him save in a cursory way, as young men at school or college are apt to do; and then,’ he went on to say, ‘Justinian did not live in the age of the primitive church, but in times when many things had become corrupted; when Bishops had begun to tyrannise and had already made the Church familiar with criminal prosecutions.’ To this most pertinent reply, no answer was attempted.

Reproached with having calumniated the Ministers of the Word of God as teachers of false doctrine—which on his part, said Monsieur Rigot, amounts to a capital crime—Servetus admitted that calumny of the kind deserved the severest punishment, but maintained nevertheless that in disputation it was common and not unpardonable for opponents to gainsay one another in strong language, without being held guilty of calumny or defamation, and so of deserving punishment by the civil authorities for what they say.

Referring next to his intercourse with Œcolampadius and Capito, to whom he had ascribed conformity with his views, although, said Rigot, he must know that they were both doctors well approved by the reformed churches, and consequently could not possibly be of his mind on the subjects in debate; he replied ‘that consonance in every particular was not universal either among the Reformers or the reformed churches; Luther and Melanchthon, for instance, had both of them written against Calvin on the subject of the sacraments and free will. Without being in a condition to prove what he says in his petition, he declares nevertheless that in conversation with Capito, when they were private and without other witness than God, he—Capito—did assent to his views. Œcolampadius, he owned, had withdrawn the approval he seemed to accord in the first instance.’

When we refer to Œcolampadius’s letters,88 we have no difficulty in believing what Servetus here asserts to be the truth. It was only after Servetus had more thoroughly exposed his opinions in conversation, that the Reformer of Basle saw the unsoundness, which had not appeared in the confession of faith sent him at an earlier period by his correspondent. And here let us observe that, whilst Œcolampadius is now particularly cited, nothing is said of Capito, still a Minister in the Reformed Church. Capito, however, was, as it seems, not entirely to be relied on in his views of the Trinity, that stumbling-block in the way of the first Reformers, so many of whom we have found giving but a half-hearted assent to the verbal contradictions it involves: the Reformers could spare one another as it seems, on the subject, though they had no mercy for Servetus!

It being objected to the prisoner that he was in manifest contradiction with himself when he said he thought he should offend God did he not impart the doctrine that had been revealed to him; he replied that what he had stated was his opinion and the truth; not-withstanding which he had spoken of his views to none but the doctors of the Reformed Church particularly named; a course he had followed, indeed, in consonance with the commandment of our Lord, not to cast pearls before swine: ‘I would not proclaim myself to incompetent persons, and I was living among Papists in times when there was active persecution going on and much cruelty practised.’

The prosecutor now alleged, but as usual without a tittle of evidence, that the prisoner had had extensive epistolary relations with Italy, a country in which it was believed his doctrines had many followers—a fact, said Rigot, which it was unlikely he did not know, and less likely, still, not to improve upon, did he know it. To this Servetus replied by a simple denial: he had had no communications with Italy by letter or otherwise; adding that his only correspondents had been Œcolampadius, Calvin, Abel Poupin, and F. Viret, from whom alone the Court had any information concerning letters of his. Had we no other intimation of Calvin’s prompting, at this stage of the proceedings, than the reference now made to the spread of Antitrinitarian doctrines in Italy, we should feel assured that it was he who was fighting under the mask of Rigot, as he had formerly fought under that of Trie and of De la Fontaine. Rigot was not likely to know much of the spread of Antitrinitarian views in Italy, but Calvin was, as we learn distinctly through the letter of Paul Gaddi to him, which we have quoted. Calvin, indeed, makes pointed and angry reference to such a state of things both in his ‘Refutatio Errorum’ and ‘DÉclaration pour maintenir la vraie Foy.’

The circumstances connected with the printing of the ‘Restoration of Christianity’ at Vienne were once more brought up, the prisoner being particularly questioned as to his relations with the publisher Arnoullet and his manager Geroult. In contradiction to what he had already admitted on this head, and with the letter of Arnoullet to Bertet lying open before the Court, he now averred that he had not had any, even indirect, communication with Geroult on the subject of his book! This, we regret to think, must necessarily be untrue. The difficulty he had had to find a publisher, as we see by the letter of his friend Marrinus; the premium he had paid Arnoullet to have the work undertaken, the secrecy with which the printing had been carried on, added to other minor terms of the contract—that all was to be at his proper cost, that he was to be his own corrector of the press, &c.—-everything, in a word, assures us that both Arnoullet and Geroult were as well aware of what they were about as the author himself. Arnoullet, we may be certain, never intended to appear as either the printer or publisher of the heretical work. It was to come out in Italy, in Switzerland, in Germany—anywhere, everywhere, save at Vienne, Lyons, or Paris, the principal emporia of the book trade of France. Neither, indeed, did Michel Villeneuve, the Physician, intend to show himself at once as its author. The M.S.V., on the last page, was a private mark by which the child might be known and claimed by the parent at some future time, when his fame had spread over Europe, when he had been eagerly enquired after by an admiring world, and raised above the heads of Luther, Melanchthon, Œcolampadius and Calvin, as the great ‘Restorer of Christianity’!

The persistence with which Servetus stuck to the untruth now uttered is not difficult of explanation: his first admission of complicity on the part of the Viennese publisher and his manager was made inadvertently and without forethought; his retractation and denial came of reflection and better feeling, when he saw that the admission was calculated to bring the two men who had aided him in his undertaking into the same trouble as himself. In spite of what M. Rigot says, Michael Servetus never meets us save as a man of a perfectly guileless nature—more guileless perhaps than truthful.

As every point in the several indictments was made subject of renewed inquiry, so do we now find further questions addressed to the prisoner on his life and social habits; for the prosecution, as we have seen, held it matter of moment to present him, if possible, as a person of immoral and ill-regulated life. They had not now, however, any more than formerly, a particle of evidence to show that he had ever lived otherwise than soberly, chastely, and respectably; and as to the allegation, brought up against him for the second time, that he had said women were not such paragons of virtue as to make matrimony necessary to secure their more intimate converse, he declared, as he had done already, that he had no recollection of ever having said anything of the kind; but if he had, it was by way of bravado, and to conceal a certain infirmity under which he laboured which indisposed or incapacitated him, as he believed, from entering on matrimony.89

Making an abrupt change of front, the prosecutor now inquired of the prisoner what he meant by the passage in his book where he says that, ‘The Truth begins to declare itself and will be accomplished for all ere long.’ ‘Do you mean that your doctrine is the Truth, and will shortly be universally received?’ ‘I mean to speak of the progress of the Reformation,’ said Servetus; ‘the truth began to be declared in the time of Luther, and has gone on spreading since then until now.’ Had he stopped here, all would have been well and the answer must have been scored to his credit; but he went on to particularise and to say that ‘the Reformation would have to advance upon some matters which in his opinion were not yet well set forth.’

This was immediately seized upon as a challenge by the men who believed that the Reformation had already been accomplished or completed through them; so that he was forthwith required to explain what he meant by such language. Here, however, he dared not be outspoken; and though he made no denial of his doctrine, which was seen of all to be in his estimation the complement and crown of the Reformation, he diverged into a variety of topics, floundered, and wound up by proposing to enlighten the Court by a reference to the Bible and the Fathers, or to explain himself more fully than he had done in his book if they would grant him a conference, in their presence, with one or more men of learning. Pressed further, he said that he could not divine whether his doctrine would ever be generally accepted or not; but he believed and should continue to believe that it was founded in truth until shown to be otherwise. ‘Such things,’ said he in conclusion, ‘are commonly enough denounced and condemned as erroneous at first, but are by and by acknowledged for truth and universally accepted.’

The prisoner had much the same difficulty in justifying his singular opinion that persons under the age of twenty were not accountable agents, or incapable of sin, and so not obnoxious to punishment for their misdeeds. He, in fact, made but an indifferent escape from such a paradox by declaring that, in speaking as he did, he had capital punishment only in view; not that he thought there should be penalties of no kind for evil-doers under age. They, he said, might be properly punished by flogging, seclusion, and the like. From what he says on another occasion we see that this fancy of Servetus was founded on a literal and arbitrary interpretation of the text where Jehovah, to punish the Israelites, determines that no one over twenty years of age is to enter the Land of Promise; all others are to leave their carcasses in the wilderness.

Having said a few words in his book implying no disapproval of the infidel Alkoran, the prisoner, in reply to the reproaches made him for having spoken without reprobation of such a personage as Mahomet and his book, now averred that he had only adduced Mahomet and the Koran to the greater glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and even ventured to add: ‘That though the book generally is bad, it nevertheless contains good things, which it is lawful to use’—language that was looked on as little short of blasphemy by his auditors, but that to us proclaims the superiority of the speaker over the bigots around him.

The last question in this day’s proceedings referred to a sojourn he was said to have made in Italy immediately before coming to Geneva, and how he had passed his time since he arrived there. And here again we find Calvin the prompter; for it is he who speaks of Servetus having wandered for four months in Italy before reaching Geneva. Any such journey or sojourn, however, as that now hinted at, Servetus positively denied; ‘and for such information as the Court might require of his doings since he had entered their city, he referred them to his host of the Rose, where he had had his quarters before being thrown into their prison.’ It is not difficult to see the drift of the latter clause of the question; but Servetus was on his guard now, and did not commit himself or his prompters, the Libertines, as he had done when the printer of his book was in question.

August 31.—After the lapse of three days an answer was received to the letter addressed by the Syndics and Council of Geneva to the authorities of Vienne. In this missive the Genevese were informed that it was impossible to comply with the request they had made to have the documents connected with the trial of Michel Villeneuve sent to them, inasmuch as the authorities of Vienne could not sanction any review or possible inculpation of their proceedings. They therefore only forwarded duplicates of the warrant of arrest and sentence of death passed upon the said Villeneuve, and for themselves they demanded ‘the delivery of that individual into their hands, in order that the sentence passed upon him might be carried into effect,’ engaging, as they went on to say, ‘that it should be of a sort that would make any search for further charges against him unnecessary.’90

To this communication from Vienne, the Council ordered a gracious answer to be returned; but they declined to send back the prisoner, ‘inasmuch as he was at present under trial before themselves for matters in which they, too, promised that strict justice should be done.’ To be sent back to Vienne, Servetus knew would be to be consigned to certain death at the shortest possible notice; so that to the somewhat needless question now put to him by the Court, their own expressed determination considered: ‘whether he preferred remaining in the hands of the Council of Geneva, or to be sent back to Vienne? he fell on his knees and entreated to be judged by the Council in presence, who might do with him what they pleased; but he begged them in no case to send him back to Vienne.’ There he knew that the stake was driven, and the faggots piled, whilst in Geneva, we must imagine from his bearing, he did not at present fear that anything of the kind could possibly come into requisition.

The business of Vienne thus brought into prominence, the Council proceeded to inquire of the prisoner concerning the trial there; touching once more on his escape from the prison, his coming to Geneva, and any communication he might have had since his arrival in the city with persons resident therein. On the subject of the trial and escape he could be open and communicative; but he denied explicitly that since he reached Geneva he had spoken with anyone save those who waited on him and brought him his meals in the hostel where he lodged—a denial against the truth of which more than suspicion may fairly be allowed. But let us observe that Servetus’s swervings from the absolute truth are mostly to screen others rather than to save himself. On the vital question of his religious opinions be never blenched before his judges of Geneva.

It was now that the prisoner mentioned incidentally the singular fact that the windows of the room he occupied in the Rose Inn had been nailed up. But why this was done he did not say; neither, strangely enough, was any notice taken of it by the Court. There can be little doubt, however, as we interpret the matter, that it was to prevent him from taking himself off without the knowledge of his prompters of the Libertine party. Realising the full hostility of Calvin, knowing that his life was aimed at, he was anxious to be gone; but Perrin and Berthelier had resolved to keep him and play him off against their tyrant and the Clericals, reckless of the risk he was thereby made to run, so as they might use him for their own selfish ends. Hence the otherwise inexplicable delay of the month in Geneva before his presence became known to Calvin—the fatal delay that cost him his life!

How it happened that Servetus was ever made an object of interest to the Libertine party, detained as he certainly was by them in his passage through Geneva, is a question not altogether irrelevant. That he was unknown even by name to the chiefs of this party, and to everyone else resident in Geneva, save Calvin, seems certain; and Calvin who had not seen his Parisian acquaintance for nearly twenty years, had no intimation of his presence there for nearly a month. But William Geroult, the printer of Vienne, was in Geneva when Servetus reached the city. Having heard of his escape from prison, he may have been on the look-out for the possible coming of the fugitive. Geroult, though of the Reformed Faith, we have seen reason to believe was not among the number of Calvin’s admirers. But native of Geneva and of the Libertine party, we venture to think it was through him that Servetus was made known to Perrin and Berthelier; such particulars being further communicated as suggested to them the use that might be made of the fugitive against their clerical enemy. We have seen the proceedings of August 23rd concluded by a number of questions having reference to those with whom the prisoner might have held communication since he reached the city, and particularly if he had not seen and spoken with William Geroult, and if Geroult did not know that he intended to come to Geneva?

That they might leave no incident in the previous history of the prisoner unnoticed, the Court now questioned him on his opinions touching the Mass, which it was known he had declared to be a mockery and a wickedness, his habit nevertheless having been to attend its celebration during his residence at Vienne. To this, put to him reproachfully, he replied that he had but imitated Paul, who frequented the synagogue like the Jews in general, though he had inaugurated a new religion of his own; but for himself, he added that he had sinned through fear of death, and regretted what he had been obliged to do.

Confronted with the gaoler of Vienne, who had brought the missives of his masters to Geneva, and asked if he knew the man, he replied that of course he did, having been under his charge in prison for two days; but he exonerated the gaoler from all complicity with his escape. Furnished with a certificate to this effect, the gaoler was dismissed, and returned to Vienne.

September 1.—At the sitting on this day a letter was received from M. Maugiron, Lieutenant-General of the King of France for Dauphiny, which gave fresh occasion for recurrence to the affairs of Vienne. In his letter Maugiron informed the Syndics and Council of Geneva that the goods and chattels and debts due to Michel Villeneuve, estimated to amount to 400 crowns, had been escheated by his Majesty the King, and given to his—Maugiron’s—son; but that to come into possession it was necessary to have a list of the parties indebted to the doctor. He therefore requested the Council to interrogate their prisoner on this head, and furnish him with a list of the names and surnames of debtors to the prisoner’s estate, as well as of the sums severally due by each. The noble correspondent, Lieutenant of the King of France for Dauphiny, must have been oblivious of the professional services of the physician Villeneuve when he consented to write as he did to the Syndics and Council of Geneva; for we have seen that Servetus was actually taken from the house of this Monsieur Maugiron when in attendance on him, to find himself a prisoner. Anxious to clear himself of all suspicion of having aided and abetted in the evasion from the prison of Vienne, Maugiron goes on in his letter to express himself ‘rejoiced to know that Villeneuve is now in the hands of Messieurs de Geneve, and I thank God,’ he continues, ‘for the assurance I feel that you will take better care of him than did the Ministers of Justice of Vienne, and award him such punishment as will leave him no opportunity for dogmatising, or writing and publishing heretical doctrines in time to come.’

Let us not doubt that the heart of Michael Servetus swelled with indignation and contempt at this exhibition of heartlessness and meanness on the part of the man he had tended in his sickness. The experience of the physician, however, leads him to form no very high estimate of the world’s thankfulness for services in sickness: the fee at the moment is mostly held to close the account. Sick men are weak; and when they recover are usually well-disposed to forget not only their weakness, but the physician who has seen it.

The appeal made to the self-esteem of the Council of Geneva, and a possible desire on their part to enter into rivalry with the judicial tribunal of Vienne, may have contributed in some measure to the final condemnation of Servetus. We do not read that they took the becoming course at once of declining to question the prisoner on matters having not even the most remote connection with the cause; they seem actually to have tried to elicit information from him, that would have been of use to M. Maugiron, in making the gift of his Majesty the King of France of much avail; but Servetus positively declined to give any information of the kind desired, as having no bearing on the matters for which he was now on his trial, and being likely to distress many poor persons who were indebted to him.