Monsieur mon Cousin!—I had hoped I should satisfy your demands, in essentials at least, by sending you, as I did, the handwriting of the author of the book. With my last letter, indeed, you will find an acknowledgement by the man himself of his real name, which he had disguised, and the excuse he makes for calling himself Villeneuve, when his proper name is Servetus or Revés. For the rest, I promise you, God willing, to furnish you, if need be, not only with the entire book he has just had printed, but with another in his handwriting, in addition to the letters [already forwarded]. I should indeed have already sent the book [in MS.] which I refer to, had it been in this city; but it has been at Lausanne these two years past. Had M. Calvin kept it by him, I believe he would long ago, for all it is worth, have returned it to the writer; but having lent it for perusal to another, it was, as it seems, retained by him. I have formerly heard Monsieur [Calvin] say that, having given answers sufficient to satisfy any reasonable man, to no purpose, he had at length left off reading more of the babble and foolish reveries, of which he soon had had more than enough, there being nothing but reiteration of the same song over and over again. And that you may understand that it is not of yesterday that this unhappy person persists in troubling the Church, striving ever to lead the ignorant into the same confusion as himself, it is now more than twenty-four years since he was rejected and expelled by the chief Churches of Germany; had he remained in that country, indeed, he would never have left it alive. Among the letters of Œcolampadius, you will see that the first and second are addressed to him under his proper name and designation: Serveto Hispano neganti Christum esse Dei Filium, consubstantialem Patri—To Servetus the Spaniard, denying that Christ is the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father. Melanchthon also speaks of him in some passages of his writings. But methinks you have really warrant enough in what is already sent you to dive deeper into the matter, and to put him on his trial. As to the printers of the book, I did not send you the table of contents as any proof that Balthasar Arnoullet and William Geroult, his brother-in-law, were the parties; but of the fact that they were so we are well assured, nor indeed will it be possible for them to deny it. The printing was probably done at the author’s expense, and he may have taken the impression into his own keeping; he must have done so, indeed, if you find it has left the premises of the persons named. I rather think I omitted to say that when you have done with the epistles, I beg you will be good enough to return them to me. And now, commending myself to your good grace, and praying God so to guide you that you may do all that is agreeable in his sight,
I am yours, &c.,
Guillaume Trie.Geneva, this last day of March, 1553.
It must still be needless to say that neither is this any letter of young Trie. What could he have known of the printed works of Michael Serveto, alias Revés, or of his being condemned by the Churches of Germany—which by the way he never was—or of his expulsion from that country—which is also against the fact? What intimation could he have had that Œcolampadius had written to Servetus, the Spaniard, combating his heresies and that Melanchthon had mentioned him in sundry passages of his work, the ‘Loci communes’? Calvin, on the other hand, was not only well informed of much that had happened to Michael Servetus from the date of their meeting in Paris in 1534, even to the hour in which he was now writing by the hand of William Trie, but was himself the author of some of the statements put into the mouth of that worthy.[64]
CHAPTER XX.
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.