DISCOVERY OF ARNOULLET’S PRIVATE PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT—SEIZURE AND BURNING OF THE ‘CHRISTIANISMI RESTITUTIO’ ALONG WITH THE EFFIGY OF ITS AUTHOR.

The remainder of the month of April was spent in making a renewed and more particular examination of the books, papers, and letters of Villeneuve, and in having copies made of the letters addressed to Calvin, the originals of which were placed for safe custody under the official seals. And here, if our surmises be well founded: that the authorities of Vienne had really no wish, on testimony supplied by Calvin, to convict of heresy a man who had always comported himself as a good Catholic and still professed himself a true son of the Church, every way disposed to receive instruction and bow to the decisions of those who must know so much better than himself what was the true saving faith—the matter would probably have ended, in so far as those of Vienne were concerned. But Ory, the Inquisitor, nowise anxious like the others to hush up so promising an affair, had by some means been informed in the beginning of the month of May that there had been a couple of presses kept at work away from the proper printing establishment of Arnoullet.

Of this significant fact, no mention had been made either by Villeneuve or Arnoullet on their examination, and whence Ory had the intimation we are left to conjecture. There seems hardly room for doubt, however, that it reached him through the old channel, viz., Arneys; that Arneys had the news he gave to Ory from Trie, and that Trie had the tale he told from Calvin. Frelon, as we have seen, must have been in the secret of Servetus, and Frelon was also the friend of Calvin; from Frelon alone could Calvin have had the particular information he shows he possessed concerning the terms on which the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ was printed; and it was only from Calvin that Trie could have obtained intelligence of the kind he communicates to his relative Arneys of Lyons. The process against Servetus, as we know, began from Lyons; and from Lyons was it now resuscitated. But who living there was so likely to have heard of a printing press worked privately at Vienne, twelve miles away, as he who had all he knew about the heretic Villeneuve from Geneva, and had been the instrument in setting on foot the movement that was now to proceed to more disastrous issues?

With the new and important hint but just received, Ory sped off to Vienne from Lyons, his head-quarters; and he may possibly have used even greater diligence on this occasion than he did before when he is said to have spurred his steed so vigorously. Summoning the Vibailly and Grand Vicar to his side, the three proceeded immediately to the premises that had been indicated as the private printing place of the publisher Arnoullet; and entering, sure enough, they found three compositors at work, Straton, Du Bois, and Papillon by name. It is not difficult to imagine the terror of these men at the sight of such visitors. Before proceeding to interrogate them severally, the Inquisitor took care to address them generally on the enormity of the crime of which he assumed they had been guilty, and to say that they deserved the severest punishment for having withheld the important information they could have supplied. When proceedings were commenced against their master and M. Villeneuve, he said, they must be aware that it had been specially enjoined upon all and sundry, under pain of being dealt with as heretics, to communicate whatever they knew about the book, which he declared they must have known to be written by Villeneuve and printed by their master Arnoullet. Stretching a point, as we may imagine, he told the men further, that he had proofs in his hands that they were the very parties who had worked at the composition and printing of the book in question. He now, therefore, exhorted them to speak the truth and to ask pardon if they had been guilty or hoped for favour, the authorities he added, indeed, intending correction, not punishment.

The workmen, terribly alarmed, fell as with one accord upon their knees, and Straton, speaking for himself and the others, owned that they had printed an octavo volume entitled ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ but were not aware that it contained heretical doctrines, being ignorant of the Latin language in which it was written, and never having heard that it did, until after the prosecution had been set on foot. He informed his questioner further that he and his associates had been steadily engaged on the book from the feast of St. Michael to January 3 last—over three months—when the printing was completed; yet more, that they had not dared to give information of their part in the business for fear of being burned alive; and to conclude, they now sought forgiveness, and threw themselves on the mercy of the authorities. More particularly questioned, Straton said that Michel de Villeneuve had had the book in question printed at his own expense, and had corrected the proofs in person. To end the tale, and he may have thought to make amends for his past silence, he said further that on January 13 he had despatched five bales of the book to the care of Pierre Merrin, typefounder, of Lyons.

Delighted with the great discovery just made, inasmuch as they would now have grounds of their own to proceed upon, the three associates hastened to communicate the information they had acquired to the Archbishop of Vienne, who in turn imparted it to Cardinal Tournon. Next day the Inquisitor Ory and the Grand Vicar Arzelier set off for Lyons. Proceeding at once to the establishment of Pierre Merrin, they questioned him as to what he knew of the business, and particularly about certain bales, five in number, that had lately come into his possession and were believed to contain heretical books. Merrin, having no motive for concealment, informed his visitors that about four months back he had received by the canal boat of Vienne five bales with the following address: From M. Michel de Villeneuve, doctor in medicine, these five bales, to be delivered to Pierre Merrin, typefounder, near Notre Dame de Confort, Lyons. On the day the bales were received, he added, a priest of Vienne, Jacques Charmier by name, had come to him and requested him to keep the bales until called for, saying that they contained nothing but printing-paper. From the time named, however, he had heard nothing from the sender, neither had anyone called to enquire after the bales or to take them away; and for his part he knew not whether they contained white paper for printing as said, or printed books as now alleged.

Having finished their interrogatory and seen the bales, the Inquisitor and Vicar made no scruple about seizing them in the name of the public authorities. Carrying them off at once, they were taken to Vienne and deposited in a room of the Archiepiscopal palace.

The priest Charmier was of course the next person visited and questioned. He persistently denied all knowledge of the contents of the bales which he, as he was proceeding to Lyons, recommended to the care of Merrin, at the request of M. Villeneuve. The mere act of the poor priest, however, and his known intimacy with Villeneuve, were held to have compromised him to such an extent that he was put on his trial some time afterwards, and sentenced to imprisonment for three years!

The bales once safe in the Archiepiscopal palace of Vienne, were speedily undone, and there, sure enough, as Straton had said, five hundred copies of the ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ complete, were displayed to the eager eyes of the lookers-on. A single copy was abstracted and given to Ory, to enable him at his leisure to extract and take exception to such passages as he might deem heretical; the rest were left in safe custody under the palace roof.

Every information up to June 17—for so long had it taken to get at the facts as they have been stated—having now been acquired, and the proofs in the process being held complete, the Vibailly of Vienne, in a session of the Court duly summoned, and in the absence of Michel de Villeneuve, proceeded to pass sentence on him, finding him attainted and convicted of the crimes and misdemeanours laid to his charge, viz., Scandalous Heresy and Dogmatisation; Invention of New Doctrines; Writing heretical books; Disturbance of the public peace; Rebellion against the King; Disobedience of the ordinances touching heresy, and Breach of the Royal Prison of Vienne. ‘For reparation of the crimes and misdeeds set forth,’ said the Judge, ‘we condemn him, and he is hereby condemned, to pay a fine of 1000 livres Tournois to the King of Dauphiny; and further, as soon as he can be apprehended, to be taken, together with his books, on a tumbril or dust-cart to the place of public execution, and there burned alive by a slow fire until his body is reduced to ashes.’ The sentence now delivered, moreover, is ordered to be carried out forthwith on an effigy of the incriminated Villeneuve, which is to be publicly burned along with the five bales of the book in question, the fugitive being further condemned to pay the charges of justice, his goods and chattels being seized and confiscated, to the advantage of anyone showing just claims to the proceeds, the fine and expenses of the trial, as aforesaid, having been first duly discharged.

On the same day about noon the effigy of Villeneuve, made by the executioner of the High Court of Justice, having been put upon a tumbril along with the bales of the book, was paraded through the streets of Vienne, brought to the place of public execution, hanged upon a gibbet erected for the purpose, and finally set fire to, and with the five bales burned to ashes.

The matter, however, did not rest here; it was not yet concluded in all its parts. The secular arm had done what was required of it, having burned the criminal in effigy, failing his person, along with his heretical book; but the ecclesiastical authorities must also have their say in the case. When the utterance came, and it came not until six months after the civil trial and sham execution, it was in every particular confirmatory of the sentence already delivered, the grounds of the decision however being gone into with greater minuteness than before. Among other matters particularly mentioned now, are the marginal notes in the handwriting of the culprit on two printed leaves, cut out of a copy of Calvin’s ‘Institutions;’ Seventeen letters addressed to John Calvin and acknowledged by Villeneuve to be from him; his answers to the Inquisitor Ory, the Vibailly, and the rest, and the minutes which had been made of his escape from the prison; finally, his books, one entitled ‘Christianismi Restitutio,’ and another in two parts: ‘De Trinitatis Erroribus, Libri septem,’ and ‘De Trinitate, Dialogi duo.’ ‘From all that has been brought to light,’ the judgment proceeds, ‘it is made manifest that the said Villeneuve is a most egregious heretic, and as such is hereby adjudged, convicted and condemned, his body to be burned, and his goods to be confiscated, the judicial expenses incurred and yet to be incurred to be defrayed out of the proceeds of the sale.’ All the books written by Villeneuve are further ordered to be diligently searched for, and wherever found, to be seized and burned.

It is not unimportant to notice that Arnoullet, the publisher and printer, is associated with Servetus in this ecclesiastical judgment. ‘The said Villeneuve and Balthazar Arnoullet are attainted and to be held conjoined in the sentence because of their complicity and connection.’ Arnoullet however was more mercifully dealt with than Villeneuve; he was not condemned to be burned alive; neither did he suffer imprisonment for any great length of time, but was by and by set at liberty on giving security for his good behaviour in future. If Charmier, the priest, was sentenced to incarceration for three years, having, as far as we know, done nothing more than deliver a message from Villeneuve to Merrin the type-founder, we might have imagined that Arnoullet would scarcely have escaped with so little scath; for to have aided and abetted in the printing of such a book as that entitled the ‘Restoration of Christianity,’ which impugned the system that placed the whole of his judges—Cardinal Tournon, Archbishop Paumier, Ory, Arzelier, and the rest—in positions of affluence and influence, could only have been looked upon as a crime little less heinous than that of which the author of the book himself had been guilty. But Charmier was known to have been on friendly terms with Villeneuve; and Paumier may have guessed what that implied; for let us not forget that all we speak of came to pass shortly after Giovanni de Medici, under the title of Leo X., had been Pope; and that if the Reformation had more well-wishers in France than dared to proclaim themselves, Scepticism too, and of the deepest dye, was at the same time rife in high places. The poor priest Charmier, however, being of the rank and file only, must pay for having meddled; but let us hope that Archbishop Paumier interfered in due season and succeeded in greatly abridging the term of his imprisonment.

BOOK II.
SERVETUS IN GENEVA, FACE TO FACE WITH CALVIN.