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.’
‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude!’
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.