526 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the first few sheets of the Christianismi Restitutio. By a subse- 

 quent mail he sent by the same man about twenty letters, which 

 he had received from time to time from Servetus. On this the 

 latter was arrested, and conveyed to prison on the pretense of 

 being required to see some sick prisoner. He was immediately 

 examined closely as to his early history and the meaning of some 

 of his writings. Taken by surprise, as he was, he appears to have 

 prevaricated, and tried to hide his identity with the author of De 

 Trinitatis Erroribus, by pretending that in his letters with Cal- 

 vin he had personated Servetus merely for the purpose of discus- 

 sion. Facts looked very black against him, but he probably had 

 very powerful friends, and it may have been with the connivance 

 of some of them that two days afterward he made his escape from 

 prison. The whole plot was soon ferreted out by Matthew Ory, 

 the Inquisitor; the books were seized, and Servetus was con- 

 demned " in a pecuniary mulct of a thousand livres, to be paid 

 to the King of Dauphiny " ; and the sentence went on, " as soon 

 as he shall be taken he shall be drawn in a dung-cart, with his 

 books, on the market-day and hour, from the gate of the Royal 

 Palace, through the streets and accustomed places, to the common 

 hall of the present city, and from thence to the place called Char- 

 neve, and there he shall be burnt alive, with a slow fire, until 

 his body shall be reduced to ashes. In the mean time the present 

 sentence shall be executed in effigy, with which the said books 

 shall be burnt/' 



This sentence was duly carried out on June 17, 1553, the effigy 

 and five bales of books being burned to ashes. 



Of such action as Calvin's in thus betraying what had been 

 communicated to him in the confidence of a letter, into the hands 

 of a professed enemy of both, Erasmus expresses himself as fol- 

 lows : " You are not ignorant how abhorrent, I do not say from 

 virtue, but entirely from all humanity, it is to betray the secrets 

 of friendship; forasmuch as we detest even those who, after a 

 breach of friendship, shall divulge what was said in confidence 

 before ; nor can those of a generous disposition suffer themselves 

 to betray that which they know, from the confidence of ancient 

 friendship, will expose one to the resentment of his greatest 

 enemies." 



Having escaped from Vienne, Servetus probably remained in 

 hiding first at Lyons. But the discovery of the whole matter, and 

 his subsequent condemnation, made it imperative that he should 

 get out of France. Many Spaniards were settled at Naples, and 

 thither he now seems to have determined to push his way. For 

 some reason or other, probably because he expected more leniency 

 from Reformers than from Catholics, he preferred to go through 

 Switzerland rather than Piedmont. He reached Geneva, and 



