ARREST OF SERVETUS AND ARNOULLET, THE PUBLISHER.—THE TRIAL FOR HERESY AT VIENNE—SERVETUS IS SUFFERED TO ESCAPE FROM PRISON.

April 4. After the receipt of Trie’s third epistle, a solemn council was convened within the Archiepiscopal ChÂteau of Roussillon, at which were present the Cardinal Tournon, the Archbishop of Vienne, the two Grand Vicars, the Inquisitor Ory, and many Ecclesiastics and Doctors in Divinity. There and then the letters of Trie, the printed leaves of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ and more than twenty epistles addressed to John Calvin, were examined with every care and attention, all being reported the work of Michael Servetus, alias RevÉs, living at Vienne under the assumed name of Michel Villeneuve. The documents being held of the most seriously compromising character, the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons and the Archbishop of Vienne, with the concurrence of the whole assembly, now gave orders for the arrest of Michel Villeneuve, Physician, and Balthasar Arnoullet, bookseller, to answer for their faith on certain charges and informations to be laid against them.

The Archbishop of Vienne returned home in the afternoon in company with his Grand Vicar, Arzelier, and having summoned the Vibailly de la Cour to the Palace, informed him of the resolutions come to and the pleasure of the Cardinal. In order that nothing might transpire, and no understanding be come to between the parties incriminated, the Vicar and Vibailly agreed so to arrange matters that Villeneuve and Arnoullet should be arrested at the same moment, but imprisoned separately. The Vibailly accordingly proceeded to the house of Arnoullet, and having sent in a message desiring him to bring a copy of the New Testament but just printed, Arnoullet was arrested on the spot, and carried off to the Archiepiscopal prison. Proceeding next to the house of M. de Maugiron, the Lieutenant-Governor of Dauphiny, then indisposed, and on whom it was known that Doctor Villeneuve was in attendance, the Vibailly informed the Doctor that there were several prisoners sick and some wounded in the hospital of the royal prison who required his services, as was indeed the case. Doctor Villeneuve replied that independently of his profession making it imperative on him immediately to obey such a summons, he still took pleasure in being so usefully employed. He therefore went at once; and whilst engaged in his visit, the Vibailly sent requesting the presence of the Grand Vicar. On his arrival Villeneuve was informed that certain charges having been made and informations laid against him, he must consent to hold himself a prisoner until he had given satisfactory answers to the questions that would be put to him. The gaoler, Anton Bonin, was then summoned and enjoined to guard the prisoner strictly, but to treat him respectfully, according to his quality. He was to be allowed his personal attendant or valet, BenoÎt Perrin, a lad fifteen years of age, to wait on him; and his friends were to have free access to him.

April 5. Archbishop Paumier now hastened to inform Brother Ory, the inquisitor, that they had Villeneuve in custody, and begged him to come immediately to Vienne. Ory, like a vulture swooping on the carcass, is said to have made such haste—pressa tellement sa monture—that he arrived in an incredibly short space of time at Vienne. As it was then about the hour of the midday meal, however, the Archbishop and he, thinking it well to recruit the inward man before entering on the serious business they had on hand, sate themselves quietly down to table and dined. The cravings of nature satisfied, Arzelier the Vicar-General, and De la Cour the Vibailly of Vienne, were summoned to the Palace—the secular in aid of the spiritual arm—and the party proceeded to the prison.

Having had Michel Villeneuve, sworn physician, and now prisoner at their instance, brought before them in the Criminal Court of the Palace, they proceeded to question him on matters of which they at the moment knew more than he, though we may well believe his fears pointed in the true direction. Informing the prisoner, as a preliminary, that he was bound to answer truthfully to the interrogatories put to him, which he promised to do, he was then sworn on the Gospels and asked his name, his age, his place of birth, and his profession.

His name, he replied, was Michel Villeneuve, doctor in medicine, forty-four years of age, and a native of Tudela, in the kingdom of Navarre, residing for the present, as he had done during the last twelve years or thereabouts, at Vienne.

Asked where and in what places he had lived since he left his native country; he said that some seven or eight and twenty years ago, before the Emperor Charles V. left Spain for Italy, in view of his coronation, he had entered the service of brother John Quintana, the Confessor of the Emperor, being then no more than fifteen or sixteen years old; that he had gone to Italy in the suite of the Emperor, and been present at his coronation at Bologna. That he then accompanied Quintana to Germany, in which country he resided for about a year, when his patron died; since which time he had lived without a master, first at Paris, having had lodgings in the CollÉge de Calvi, and then in the CollÉge des Lombards, engaged in the study of Mathematics. From Paris he had gone to Lyons, and spent some time between that city and Avignon, but had finally settled at Charlieu, where, having lived practising his profession, for about three years, he had finally been induced by Messeigneurs the Archbishop of Vienne and the Archbishop of Maurice, to quit Charlieu and establish himself at Vienne, in which city, as said, he had lived since then to the present time.

Asked whether he had not had several books printed for him? he replied that at Paris he had a book printed, the title of which was: Syruporum universa ratio ad Galeni censuram disposita—a treatise on Syrups according to the principles of Galen; and a pamphlet entitled: In Leonartum Fussinum, Apologia pro Symphoriano Campeggio—an apologetic address to Leonard Fuchs for Symphorian Campeccius. He had further edited and annotated the ‘Geography of Ptolemy.’ Other than these, the works now named, he had written none, nor had he had any others printed for him; but he admitted that he had corrected the text of many more, without adding to them anything of his own, or taking from them anything of their writers.

Being now shown two sheets of paper, printed on both sides and having marginal annotations in writing, and admonished that the matter of the writing might bring him into trouble, he was informed, further, that he, if he were the writer, might be able to explain or to say in what sense he understood what was there set down. One of the propositions in the writing was particularly pointed out to this effect: Justificantur ergo Parvuli sine Christi fide, prodigium, monstrum dÆmonum!—Infants therefore are justified without faith in Christ, a prodigy, a portent of devils! and he was informed that if he understood the words to say that infants had not by their regeneration [through baptism, understood] received the perfect grace of Christ and so were acquitted of Adam’s sin, this would be to contemn Christ. He was therefore required to declare how he understood the words. He replied that he firmly believed that the grace of Christ, imparted by baptism, overcame the sin of Adam, as St. Paul declares (Rom. v.): ‘Where sin abounds there doth grace more abound;’ and that infants are saved without faith acquired, but through faith then infused by the Holy Ghost.

Having shown him how necessary it was that he should alter several words in the written matter, he promised to do so, saying however that he was not prepared at a moment’s notice to say whether the writing was his or not. It was very long, indeed, since he had written anything. On examining the character particularly, however, he now thinks it must be his. In all that concerns the faith he yet begs to say that he submits himself entirely to his holy mother the Church, from whose teachings he has never wished to swerve. If there be some things in the papers before the Court open to objection, he believes he must have written them inconsiderately, or only advanced them as subjects for discussion. He then goes on to say that, having now looked closely at the writing on the two leaves, he acknowledges it as his, having the opportunity at the same time of explaining the sense in which he would have it understood. If there were anything else, he concluded, that was found objectionable or that savoured of false doctrine, he was ready on having it pointed out to him to alter and amend it. The two leaves paged from 421 to 424, and treating of baptism,65 were then ordered to be marked by the clerk of the Court, and with the other papers produced, to be taken under his charge; after which the sitting was suspended.

April 6. Sworn as before upon the Gospels to speak the truth (and from what we know and have just seen feeling assured how indifferently he had hitherto kept his word), Villeneuve was further interrogated as follows: 1st. How he understands a proposition in an epistle numbered xv., wherein the Living Faith and the Dead Faith are treated of in terms that seem perfectly Catholic, and wholly opposed to the errors of Geneva, the words being these, Mori autem sensim dicitur in nobis Fides quando tolluntur vestimenta—now faith dies perceptibly in us when its vestments are thrown off? To this he answered that he believed the vestments of faith to be works of charity and mercy. 2nd. Shown another epistle, numbered xvi., on Free will, in opposition to those who hold that the will is not free, he is asked how he understands what is there said? With tears in his eyes he replies, ‘Sirs, these letters were written when I was in Germany, now some five and twenty years ago, when there was printed in that country a book by a certain Servetus, a Spaniard; but from what part of Spain I know not, neither do I know in what part of Germany he dwelt, though I have heard say that it was at Agnon (Hagenau in Elsass), four leagues from Strasburg, that the book in question was printed. Having read it when I was very young—not more than fifteen or sixteen—I thought that the writer said many things that were good, that were better treated by him, indeed, than by others.’ Quitting Germany for France, without taking any books with him, Villeneuve went on to say, that he had gone to Paris with a view to study mathematics and medicine, and had lived there, as already said, for some years. Whilst residing there, having heard Monsieur Calvin spoken of as a learned man, he had, out of curiosity, and without knowing him personally, entered into correspondence with him, but begged him to hold his letters as private and confidential—sub sigillo secreti. ‘I, on my part,’ he proceeds, ‘seeking brotherly correction, as it were, but saying that if he could not wean me from my opinions or I wean him from his, I should not feel myself bound to accept his conclusions. On which I proposed certain weighty questions for discussion. He replied to me shortly after, and seeing that my questions were to the same effect as those discussed by Servetus, he said that I must myself be Servetus. To this I answered that, though I was not Servetus, nevertheless, and that I might continue the discussion, I was content for the time to personate Servetus, and should reply, as I believed he would have done, not caring for what he might please to think of me, but only that we might debate our views and opinions with freedom. With this understanding we interchanged many letters, but finally fell out, got angry, and began to abuse each other. Matters having come to this pass, I ceased writing, and for ten years or so I have neither heard from him nor he from me. And here, gentlemen, I protest before God and before you all, that I had no will to dogmatise, or to substitute aught of mine that might be found adverse to the Church or the Christian Religion.’

The prisoner being shown a third epistle numbered xvii., on the Baptism of Infants, in which he says, ‘Parvuli carnis non sunt capaces doni Spiritus—Infants as mere carnal beings are incapable of receiving the gift of the Spirit,’—was desired to say in what sense he meant these words to be taken. He answered that he had formerly been of opinion that infants were incompetent in the matter, as stated; but that he had long given up such an opinion and now desired to range himself with the teaching of the Church. Shown a fourth epistle, numbered xviii., its heading or argument being, ‘Of the Trinity, and the Generation of the Son of God, according to Servetus,’ he acknowledged it as having been written by him in the course of his discussion with Calvin, when he was assuming the part of Servetus; but as he had said of the former letter, No. xvii., so he says of this, that he does not now believe what is there set down, everything in the letter having only been propounded to learn what Calvin might have to advance in opposition to the views set forth. A fifth letter, the burden of which is, ‘Of the glorified flesh of Christ absorbed in the Glory of the Deity more fully than it was at the Transfiguration,’ being handed to him, he said that when he addressed his correspondent on this subject, he felt at greater liberty than usual to say all he thought of it individually, and was now ready to answer any question put to him bearing upon it. None, however, were asked.

But the letters to Calvin were not yet done with. A whole bundle of them, fourteen in number, was exhibited, and the prisoner informed that the judges found much matter there for which very particular answers would be required. Having looked at the letters, the prisoner said he saw that they were all addressed to Calvin long ago, and with a view to learn from him what he thought of the questions raised, as already said. But he added that he was by no means now disposed to abide by all he had written of old, save and except in respect of such views as might be approved by the Church and his Judges. He was therefore ready to answer to each particular head on which he might be interrogated. This the Judges proposed to do at their next meeting, and meantime having ordered a schedule of the principal points upon which there appeared to be error against the faith to be drawn up from the writings, all the documents being duly labelled and signed, the session was suspended until the morrow.

Immediately after the second interrogatory to which he was subjected, Servetus on his return to prison sent his servant Perrin to the Monastery of St. Pierre to ask the Grand Prior if he had received the 300 crowns owing to him—Villeneuve by M. St. AndrÉ. The money having been received, was remitted by the hands of Perrin to his master. Had Servetus put off his message to the Prior but for an hour, he would have lost his money, the Inquisitor Ory having given fresh orders to the gaoler to guard M. Villeneuve very strictly, and to suffer him to see and have speech of no one without his—the Inquisitor’s express permission. Ory, we may presume, had not only no favour for Servetus, but, with so much against him as already appeared, could have had little doubt of bringing conviction home to him and so having him sent in smoke as an acceptable sacrifice to heaven. But Villeneuve had friends among his other judges who were every way disposed to aid him, if it were possible. Matters certainly looked very black indeed: Michel Villeneuve was plainly Michael Servetus of evil theological reputation; flagrant heresy was already manifest in the documents produced, and his answers to the interrogatories were so little satisfactory that acquittal from the charges laid against him, even at the outset of the process, seemed out of the question. The judges, however, were not all Brother Orys nor Cardinal Tournons, though most of them were churchmen, and, to their honour, both tolerant and merciful in circumstances where their creed prescribed intolerance and deadening of the heart to pity. Servetus had however to be sent back to his prison; but the door of the cage might be left open and the bird allowed to fly. And everything leads to the conclusion that this was exactly what was done.

Connected with the prison there was a garden having a raised terrace looking on to the court of the palace of justice; and, abutting on the garden wall, a shed, by the roof of which and a projecting buttress on the other side a descent into the court-yard of the palace could easily be made. The garden as a rule was kept shut, but prisoners above the common in station were permitted to use it for exercise and also for occasions of nature. Having enjoyed this privilege from the first, Servetus appears to have scrutinised everything in the afternoon of April 6, after the conclusion of his second examination. On the morning of the seventh he rose at four o’clock and asked the gaoler, whom he found afoot and going out to tend his vines, for the key of the garden. The man, seeing his prisoner in velvet cap and dressing-gown, not aware that he was completely dressed and had his hat under his robe de chambre, gave him the key and went out shortly afterwards to his work. Servetus, on his part, when he thought the coast must be clear, left his black velvet cap and furred dressing-gown at the foot of a tree, leaped from the terrace on to the roof of the outhouse and from that, without breaking any bones, gained the open court of the Palais de Justice Dauphinal. Thence he made for the gate of the Pont du RhÔne, which was at no great distance from the prison and passed into the Lyonnais—these latter facts being by and by deposed to by a peasant woman who had met him. Two hours or more elapsed before his escape became known in the prison, the gaoler’s wife having been the first to discover it. She in her zeal and alarm committed a hundred extravagances; and in her vexation tore her hair, beat her children, her servants, and some of the prisoners who chanced to come in her way. Her rage that anyone should have had the audacity to break the dauphinal prison of Vienne, of which her husband was custodier, was such, that she even ran the risk of her life by clambering to the roof of a neighbouring house, in her eagerness to find traces of the fugitive.

The authorities, informed of what had happened, did all that became them, ordering the gates of the town to be shut and more carefully guarded than usual through the next few days and nights. Proclamation was made by sound of trumpet and beat of drum, and almost every house not only of the town, but of the neighbouring villages, was visited. The magistrates of Lyons and other towns, in which it was thought probable their late prisoner might have taken refuge, were written to by the Vienne authorities and inquiries made whether or not he had money in the bank, or had drawn out any he might have had there. His apartments were again visited, and all his papers, furniture and effects inventoried and put under the seal of justice.

In the town of Vienne it was generally thought that the Vibailly De la Cour had been the active party in favouring the evasion of Villeneuve. He was known to be intimate with the doctor, who had lately carried his daughter successfully through a long and dangerous illness, and had been loud in praise of the skill and devotion that had been shown with so happy a result. Chorier,66 the historian of Dauphiny, hints guardedly at something of the kind when he speaks of the imprisonment of M. Villeneuve on religious grounds. ‘It fell out,’ says Chorier, ‘that by his own ingenuity and the assistance of his friends, M. Villeneuve escaped from confinement.’

In the record of proceedings after the flight the only thing mentioned is the fact of the gaoler having given the prisoner the key of the garden; on all else there is absolute silence; whence, as D’Artigny says, we may infer that there is mystery of some sort connected with the escape. We, for our part, should have no difficulty in finding a key to the mystery, had there been fewer grounds for the presumption of friendly connivance than there undoubtedly were in the business. John Calvin, arch-heretic in the eyes of the Gallic Church and its heads, could not, we must presume, have been held in the highest possible esteem by the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons, to say nothing of brother Mathias Ory, Inquisitor of the king of France and all the Gauls. But the arrest of Villeneuve and the proceedings against him thus far, had depended entirely on information supplied by the Reformer of Geneva.

The managers of the process against Servetus were men much too astute, much too clear-sighted not to see that it was John Calvin who was writing under the mask of William Trie; and one among them at least may have known that the state of feeling between the Reformer of Geneva and the Physician of Vienne had long been such that he of Geneva might not be indisposed to make use of them to wreak his vengeance against a personal enemy under the guise of a common heretic. The Judges indeed must all have seen from the letters of Villeneuve to Calvin that the two men were at daggers-drawn, and that the provocation on either part was neither new nor slight, but of long standing, and, judging by his present attitude, on Calvin’s side deadly. We can fancy brother Mathias Ory chuckling over the sweet simplicity of the Viennese mediciner’s sorry subterfuge in pretending to enact the part of ‘Servetus the Spaniard, though he was no such personage, and knew nothing of the place in Spain where he was born!’

The authorities of Vienne, however, had no desire to have their friend Villeneuve burned alive for heresy on testimony gratuitously supplied by the arch-heretic of Geneva, and thereby give him, whom they hated and feared far more than a thousand lay schismatics, a triumph not only over an enemy, but over themselves, for their lack of insight and zeal as guardians of the only saving faith. And then, and in addition to all this, there was Monseigneur Paumier to be considered—Paumier, under whose patronage Villeneuve had settled at Vienne and lived so long in the very shadow of the archiepiscopal palace, on terms of intimacy with its distinguished occupant. How should the great man escape suspicion of heresy himself if it were known that he had been living as a friend with one who held all the most holy mysteries of the Roman Religion as mere vanities or inventions of the Devil! The man had lived, it is true, long and peaceably among them, respected in his life and trusted in his calling; and if Calvin found heresy and to spare in his writings against the tenets which he as well as they held in common, they discovered outpourings enough there against Predestination and Election by the Grace of God, Effectual calling, Justification by Faith, and the rest, that formed the groundwork of the objectionable doctrines both of Luther and Calvin. If M. the Vibailly De la Cour connived at the escape of Villeneuve, and that he did there can hardly be a doubt, we may be well assured that he acted with the concurrence of his more immediate associates in the administration of justice—lay and clerical. The Vibailly remained unchallenged in his office; the gaoler was not dismissed, and Arnoullet the printer, for the present at least, was set at liberty. Nothing of all this could have happened had Justice not consented to be hoodwinked. The gaoler’s wife, in fact, seems to have been the only person in downright earnest in the business of the escape.