than the Protestant reformers had attempted. Though its thought is more developed, it does not essentially differ from the earlier works; but it is harsher than before, and while holding a position something between Catholics and Protestants it is especially bitter toward the reformers, while it violently attacks the traditional doctrine of the Trinity with every weapon to be drawn from reason, history, or Scripture. It is in this book that Servetus describes the circulation of the blood referred to above.

This work was printed early in 1553, a thousand copies of it. They were sent in bales to Lyon, where they were to be held until they could be put on sale at the Easter fairs there and at Frankfurt, the great book markets of northern Europe. Frellon, probably not foreseeing the consequences of his act, at once sent a copy to Calvin, who could easily see from a comparison of it with the manuscript which Servetus had sent him, that both were from the same author. It would never do to let such heresy be sown over Europe, to say nothing of the disrespect shown himself in the letters the book contained; and Calvin was quick to act. Now it happened that he had a neighbor and confidential friend, one Guillaume Trie, a Protestant refugee from Lyon, who was still in correspondene with a Catholic relative there. To him Calvin related what he knew of this new book and its author. Trie at once wrote to his Catholic relative (it is hard not to believe that this was done with Calvin's knowledge and approval, for he had himself previously denounced Servetus to the Archbishop of Lyon as a heretic), saying to him that there was a heretic in his vicinity who deserved to be burned alive for blaspheming the Trinity and uttering other dreadful heresies; that his name was Michael Servetus, though he now called himself Villeneuve; and that he was living at Vienne as a physician. To clinch the matter he

inclosed the first four sheets of the Restitutio.

It came out

as Trie (and Calvin) desired. The letter soon reached the hands of the Inquisitor. Steps were cautiously taken, Servetus was summoned before the authorities and questioned, and his lodgings were searched. The printers were likewise examined; but no evidence could be found, and the accused were all discharged.

Trie was then written to for further proof of what he had charged, and he produced it nothing loath, Calvin assisting. He forwarded a number of letters which Servetus had written to Calvin and marked confidential, and the copy of the Institutes with Servetus's notes on the margin, and later on also the manuscript book which Servetus had sent Calvin some years before. The judges examined these, found the evidence convincing, and caused Servetus to be arrested and brought before them. After artfully leading him on through questions as to his former life and writings and meeting with some evasion, the judges at length laid before him the letters written in his own hand which he could not well deny, but signed Servetus, thus identifying the Dr. Michel de Villeneuve before them with the notorious heretic Michael Servetus. Realizing that he was cornered, and grasping at any straw that might save him from death, he made an artful equivocation, which, however, did not deceive his judges. Before the examination was concluded the court adjourned for the night. That evening Servetus sent his servant from the prison to collect a large sum of money owing to him, and the next morning at daybreak he made his escape from prison-as was generally believed, not without connivance on the part of influential friends. When his escape was discovered, he was already well out of reach. The trial went on without him, and dragged on for ten weeks. The printers were discovered, and bales containing 500 copies of the

book were found at Lyon.1 Servetus was found guilty of heresy and various related crimes, and was condemned to be burned to death by a slow fire, along with his books.

It was not the custom in those times to put off the execution of a capital sentence simply because the condemned could not be found. An effigy of Servetus was therefore made that very day, and after being first duly hanged, was burned, together with his books, in the public square, whereat perhaps every one was well enough satisfied save the Inquisitor and Calvin. The trial had been by the civil court. The ecclesiastical court now proceeded to do its duty in trying Servetus on its own account. Two days before Christmas it too found him guilty of heresy, and again condemned him to be burned at the stake. But it was too late. Servetus had already met his fiery fate at Geneva two months before. How he came thither will be told in the

next chapter.

1 The rest of the edition, save a few copies retained by the prosecution, had been sent to Frankfurt, where they were later destroyed at Calvin's instance. The original is therefore one of the rarest books in the world, and only three copies are extant, in libraries at Vienna, Paris, and Edinburgh. A page-for-page reprint is also very rare.

CHAPTER XII

THE TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF SERVETUS AT GENEVA, 1553

Although escaped from his imprisonment at Vienne, Servetus found the world by no means a place in which he might feel free to go or be wherever he would. He dared not stay in France for fear of recapture. It was hardly more safe for him to return to the Rhine country whence he had fled years before, and where he might still be recognized. Still less could he think of returning to his native land in fanatical Spain. He therefore determined to go to Naples in order to practice his profession among his countrymen, of whom many had fled thither for the sake of enjoying greater religious liberty. He thought at first of crossing the Pyrenees and going through Spain, but danger of arrest on the border deterred him, and after wandering like a hunted thing for four months he at length turned to the route through Switzerland into northern Italy as the safest one for him. Fortunately for him, he was well provided with money.

Thus it was that Servetus at length arrived at an inn in Geneva one evening about the middle of August, intending as soon as possible to get a boat up the lake on his way to Zürich and Italy. He had meant to keep out of sight as much as possible, hoping thus to escape discovery; but unhappily for him the next day was Sunday, when the laws required every one to attend church, and he may indeed even

Here he was rec-
Calvin felt that

have been curious to hear Calvin preach. ognized before ever the sermon began. Servetus had long deserved death as a blasphemer and heretic, and he may have suspected that he had come in order to spread his heresies in Geneva itself, and thus to endanger the success of the Reformation there. He was the more keenly alive to this danger since he had but lately had a letter telling him how rapidly and widely the diabolical teachings of Servetus had spread in the cities of northern Italy. He therefore felt bound to do all in his power to rid the world of Servetus, now that the Inquisition at Vienne had failed of doing so, and he at once caused him to be arrested and thrown into prison. The law required that the accuser in such a case should be imprisoned with the accused until the charges were established, and since this would be inconvenient for himself Calvin got a student named Nicolas de la Fontaine, who was living in his household as his secretary, to enter the prison in his stead as the accuser.

Before proceeding to speak of the long trial that followed, it will be necessary for a clear understanding of it to say something of Calvin himself, and of conditions in Geneva at this time. John Calvin had been born in 1509, two years before Servetus, at Noyon in Picardie, and had been well educated and designed for the priesthood. Later falling out with the Church, he had, like Servetus, studied. law; and he was becoming converted to the views of the Reformation at the very time when Servetus was publishing his first books against the Trinity. In 1536 he had published his Institutes of the Christian Religion, a clear, logical, and able presentation of the Protestant system of belief, much the strongest work yet written in defense of the Protestant cause; and this had at once caused him to be recognized as the intellectual leader of the Reformed reli