758 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
himself at present Villeneuve, a practising physician at Vienne. In confirmation he sent the first leaf of the " Restitution," and named the printer Balthasar Arnoullet at Vienne.^
This letter, and two others of Trie which followed, look very much as if they had been dictated or inspired by Calvin. Servetus held him responsible.^ But Calvin denied the imputation as a calumny.^ At the same time he speaks rather lightly of it, and thinks that it would not have been dishonorable to denounce so dangerous a heretic to the proper authorities. He also frankly acknowledges that he caused his arrest at Geneva.* He could see no material difference in principle between doing the same thing, indirectly, at Vienne and, directly, at Geneva. He simply denies that he was the originator of the papal trial and of the letter of Trie ; but he does not deny that he furnished material for evidence, which was quite well known and publicly made use of in the trial' where Servetus's letters to Calvin are mentioned as pieces justificatives. There can be no doubt that Trie, who describes
1 " C'est un Espagnol Portugallois nomme Michael Servetus de son propre nom, viais il se nomme Villeneuve a present, faisant le Me'decin. II a demeure quelque temps a Lyon, maintenant il se tient a Vienne, ou le livre dont je parle a €t^ imprime par un quidam qui a la dresse imprimerie, nomme Balthazar d Arnoullet. Et afin que voHS ne pensiez que je en parle a cre'dit,je votis envoye la premiere feuille pour enseigne." The specimens seemed to have been the title-page, the index, and, perhaps, a few pages, which did not prove the authorship of Villeneuve, nor his identity with Servetus. The three letters of Trie are published in French by D'Artigny (p. 79 sq.) and Mosheim (p. 90), and in Calvin's Opera, VIII. 835-838, 840-844.
2 This was also the opinion of Bolsec and the pseudonymous Martinus Bellius, and is repeated by the Abbe d'Artigny, Wallace, Willis, and v. d. Linde, who charge Calvin with having deliberately and dishonorably betrayed Servetus. But this cannot be proven, and would involve a downright falsehood, of which Calvin was incapable. ,
^ He calls it a "futilis calumnia," and thinks it preposterous to suppose that he was in friendly correspondence with the popish authorities. " Unde mihi tanta cum papm satellitio repente familiar itas? unde etiam tanta gratia?" Refut. error. Mich. Serv., in Opera, VIII. 479.
•* " Nee sane dissimulo, mea opera consilioque jure in carcerem /uisse conjectum." Ibid. VIII. 461.
§ 148. THE TRIAL OF SEKVETUS AT VIENNE. 759
himself as a comparatively unlettered man, got his information about Servetus and his book from Calvin, or his colleagues, either directly from conversation, or from pulpit denunciations. We must acquit Calvin of direct agency, but we cannot free him of indirect agency in this denunciation.^
Calvin's indirect agency in the first, and his direct agency in the second arrest of Servetus admit of no proper justification, and are due to an excess of zeal for orthodoxy,
Arneys conveyed this information to the Rom'an Catholic authorities. The matter was brouofht to the knowledge of Cardinal Thurnon, at that time archbishop of Lyons, a cruel persecutor of the Protestants, and IMatthias Ory, a regularly trained inquisitor of the Roman see for the kingdom of France. They at once instituted judicial proceedings.
Villeneuve was summoned before the civil court of Vienna on the 16th of March. He kept the judges waiting for two hours (during which he probably destroyed all suspicious papers), and appeared without any show of embarrassment. He affirmed that he had lived long at Vienne, in frequent company with ecclesiastics, without incurring any suspicion
1 Trechsel thinks that it can by no means be proven that Calvin caused the letter of Trie, but that he probably gave occasion to it by incidental and unintentional expressions. "Weiin auch Calvin," he says, I. 144, " wahrscheinlich dnrch gelegentUche und imahsichtliche Aeusserungen zur Entdeckung Servets Anlass gab, so isi es dock durchaus unerwiesen, dass er Trie's Brief provocirt oder gar diciirt hahe." Dyer, who is not friendly to Calvin, gives as the result of his examination of the case, this judgment (p. 314): "The Abbe d'Artigny goes further than the evidence warrants, in positively asserting that Trie's letter was written at Calvin's dictation, and in calling it Calvin's letter in the name of Trie. It is just possible that Trie may have written the letter without Calvin's knowledge, and the latter is therefore entitled to the benefit of the doubt. He cannot absolutely be proved to have taken the first step in delivering Servetus into the fangs of the Roman Catholic inquisition ; but what we sliall now have to relate will show that he at least aided and abetted it." Principal Cunningham (The Reformers, pp. 323 sqq.) goes into an elaborate argument to vindicate Calvin from the charge of complicity, in opposition to Principal Tulloch, who denounces the conduct of Calvin, if it could be proven (he leaves it undecided), as " one of the blackest pictures of treachery." An evident rhetorical exaggeration.