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.
CHAPTER XXI.
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.