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.