784 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
Calvin, of which the latter gives us an account. Servetus, proud as he was, humbly asked his pardon. Calvin protested that he had never pursued any personal quarrel against him. " Sixteen years ago," he said, " I spared no pains at Paris to gain you to our Lord. You then shunned the light. I did not cease to exhort you by letters, but all in vain. You have heaped upon me I know not how much fury rather than anger. But as to the rest, I pass by what concerns myself. Think rather of crying for mercy to God whom you have blasphemed." This address had no more effect than the exhortation of Farel, and Calvin left the room in obedience, as he says, to St. Paul's order (Tit. 3 : 10, 11), to withdraw from a self-condemned heretic. Servetus appeared as mild and humble as he had been bold and arrogant, but did not change his conviction.
At eleven o'clock on the 27th of October, Servetus was led from the prison to the gates of the City Hall, to hear the sentence read from the balcony by the Lord Syndic Darlod. When he heard the last words, he fell on his knees and exclaimed : " The sword ! in mercy I and not fire ! Or I may lose my soul in despair." He protested that if he had sinned, it was through ignorance. Farel raised him up and said : " Confess thy crime, and God will have mergy on your soul." Servetus replied : " I am not guilty ; I have not merited death." Then he smote his breast, invoked God for pardon, confessed Christ as his Saviour, and besought God to pardon his accusers.^
On the short journey to the place of execution, Farel again attempted to obtain a confession, but Servetus was silent. He showed the courage and consistency of a martyr in these last awful moments.
Champel is a little hill south of Geneva with a fine view
1 " Ut Deus accusatoribus esset propitius." Farel. This is certainly a Christian act. Henry (III. 191) admits that Servetus in his last moments showed some noble traits towards his enemies.
§ 155. EXECUTION OF SERVETUS. 785
on one of the loveliest paradises of nature. i There was prepared a funeral pile hidden in part by the autumnal leaves of the oak trees. The Lord Lieutenant and the herald on horseback, both arrayed in the insignia of their office, arrive with the doomed man and the old pastor, followed by a small procession of spectators. Farel invites Servetus to solicit the prayers of the people and to unite his prayers with theirs. Servetus obeys in silence. The executioner fastens him by iron chains to the stake amidst the fagots, puts a crown of leaves covered with sulphur on his head, and binds his book by his side. The sight of the flaming torch extorts from him a piercing shriek of " misericordias " in his native tongue. The spectators fall back with a shudder. The flames soon reach him and consume his mortal frame in the forty-fourth year of his fitful life. In the last moment he is heard to pray, in smoke and agony, with a loud voice : " Jesus Christ, thou Son of the eternal God, have mercy upon me ! " ^
This was at once a confession of his faith and of his error. He could not be induced, says Farel, to confess that Christ was the eternal Son of God.
The tragedy ended when the clock of St. Peter's struck twelve. The people quietly dispersed to their homes. Farel returned at once to Neuchatel, even without calling on Calvin. The subject was too painful to be discussed.
^ It is now covered by a beautiful villa, gardens, and vineyards. The pleasant road of half an hour from the city to Champel is called " the Philosophers' Way," on which Arminius, when a student of Beza, is said to have begun his meditations on the mysteries of predestination and free-will, which immortalized his name. So Henry reports in his small biography of Calvin, p. 346, and in his large work, III. 198, note 1.
■^ Farel does not mention this, nor some other circumstances which are more or less apocryphal (and omitted by Rilliet) : for instance, that the executioner did not understand his business, and piled up green oak-wood ; that many threw dry bundles into the slow-burning fire, and that Servetus suffered nearly half an hour. See the anonymous Hisloria de Morte Serveti, ascribed to a Genevese, who was an enemy of Calvin. Henry, III. 200 sq.