CHAPTER V.

THE TRIAL IN ITS SECOND PHASE, WITH THE ATTORNEYGENERAL OF GENEVA AS PROSECUTOR.

ARRIVED at this stage, all the documents on which it was proposed to proceed being before the Court, and something more than a presumption of the prisoner's heretical opinions having already been made to appear, Nicolas de la Fontaine, on his petition to that effect, and his bail, Anthony Calvin, were formally discharged as parties to the suit, its further prosecution being handed over to Claude Rigot, the Attorney-General of the city of Geneva.

Before breaking up, however, and as if to occupy the time until the usual hour of rising, a number of questions irrelevant to the main plea, but tending to gratify the curiosity of the Court, were put to the prisoner. Among the number of these he was asked particularly how he had contrived to escape from the prison of Vienne. He informed the Judges, that he had only passed two nights there; that the Vibailly, De la Cour, was well disposed towards him, he having been of great service to M. Maugiron, an intimate friend of the Vibailly, who had ordered the gaoler to use

him well, and allow him the freedom of the garden. Taking advantage of this, he had scaled the wall and got away in the manner already described, the Vibailly having taken care that he should not be pursued and recaptured.

He added that he had intended and even tried in the first instance to get to Spain, his native country; but finding the obstacles so many, and fearing arrest at every moment, he retraced his steps and made his way to Geneva, purposing to proceed to Italy.

Questioned further about the printing of the Restitutio Christianismi,' he said it had been thrown off to the extent of 1,000 copies, of which the publisher had sent a bale to Frankfort in anticipation of the Easter book-fair of that great mart. This was a piece of information that was not lost on Calvin. He wrote a few days after, having meantime gained further information, to one of the Frankfort members, giving him intimation of what had been done, telling him where the packet was bestowed, and recommending its immediate seizure and destruction, for which he seems also to have furnished some sort of warrant or authority, how obtained we are not informed, though it was probably from Frelon.

Interrogated as to the money he had about him when imprisoned at Vienne, he replied that his cash and valuables had not been taken from him on his arrest there, but were still in his possession when he reached Geneva.

The result of the unwarranted and eventful prosecution of which he was the subject had thus far been anything but favourable to the prisoner. The intervention of Berthelier, above all, may be said to have been highly prejudicial by bringing Calvin into the field in person, and supplying him with an additional motive for urging the suit to the issue that could alone prove satisfactory to him-the condemnation capitally of his insolent, personal, and dreaded theological opponent, now associated with his political enemies. Calvin was in truth much too formidable a personage to be gainsaid on trifling grounds. More than one member of the Court who might have been disposed to favour the prisoner, could it have been done without open defiance of the Reformer, quailed under his glance, and shrank from the responsibility of opposing him, when the direction the prosecution had taken came to be understood. It was even said to be more dangerous to offend John Calvin in Geneva than the King of France on his throne! The prisoner whose life was in debate was a stranger, unknown to the majority of the Councillors; and it was doubtless thought better by the timid to leave him to his fate, than to compromise themselves by taking part with one who on his own admission entertained opinions adverse not only to the doctrine of the Church of Geneva, but to all they had ever had presented to them as characteristic of the Christian faith. There could be no doubt that the man was a schismatic, a heretic; and heretic in Geneva

meant an opponent of the head of its Church and the form of Christianity it represented.

Having by this time arrived at a better knowledge of the state of affairs around him, and more than ever aware of the possible danger in which he stood; beginning moreover to feel less confidence in the support which we may be certain had been privately promised him, face to face in fact with the man who had already sought his life and so nearly succeeded in bringing him to a fiery death, Servetus seems now to have seen the necessity of changing the somewhat confident tone he had hitherto maintained in defending his opinions : reticence takes the place of open assertion, and instead

of

any clear avowal or defence of the views he held, he is now found fencing with the obvious meaning of the language he has used, and the conclusions to which it leads, prevaricating too at times; in a word, doing all in his power to appear not to have written in the way the charges brought against him show from his works that he had.

The trial from this time may be said to have acquired new significance. The private prosecutor and his bail discharged, and the further conduct of the suit handed over to the public prosecutor of the city, gave it additional importance in the eyes of the community at large, and heightened the interest felt in the issues involved.

Thrown into fresh hands, proceedings were necessarily stayed for a few days to give the State Attorney

time to get ready his case, so that there was no meeting of the Court until the 21st. Between this date and that of the suspension on the 17th, Calvin is said to have been busy among those of the Council he reckoned either as friends or not as avowed antagonists, satisfying their doubts or strengthening their presumptions of the prisoner's guilt; showing them the importance to the cause of religion and society that he should be convicted; picturing him as perhaps even less dangerous, if that were possible, on account of the particular theological grounds set forth, than as the enemy of all religion, sole foundation, as he said, of the entire social fabric. The man had been already tried, convicted, and condemned to death by the Roman Catholics of Vienne. Would they, the Senators of Geneva, show themselves less zealous than the Papists of France in the cause of God and their own true faith? Surely they would not, but doing their duty and finding on the evidence, which Calvin relied on as overwhelming, declare the prisoner guilty of the heresies laid to his charge.

Whether seen from a Popish or Protestant point of view, though the matters in debate had no more to do with real piety, with morality, or the foundations of society than with the course of the seasons, Servetus certainly entertained opinions on various topics of transcendental theology different from those commonly received, and in so far was a heretic. Of this much Calvin had no difficulty in satisfying his supporters,