SKETCH OF MICHAEL SERVETUS. 101 



vin ; not only indisposed to yield one jot or tittle, but negligent also 

 of opportunities to defend his conclusions. Perhaps he knew it was 

 useless to argue, for, as a Spanish proverb says, "No man is so deaf 

 as he who will not hear." Perhaps Perrin and Berthelier, the leaders 

 of the Libertines, too, had fed his brain with false hopes and promises. 

 The trial was now interrupted through differences between Calvin 

 and the city fathers about municipal affairs. On September loth 

 Servetus wrote to the council a letter, from which we quote the first 

 paragraph : 



" My most Honored Lords : I humbly entreat of you to put an end to these 

 great delays, or to exonerate me of the criminal charge. You must see that 

 Calvin is at his wit's end, and knows not what more to say, but for his pleasure 

 would have me rot here in prison. The lice eat me up alive ; my breeches are 

 in rags, and I have no change no doublet, and but a single shirt in tatters. I 

 have also demanded to have a counsel assigned me. This woidd have been granted 

 me in my native country; and here I am a stranger, and ignorant of the laws 

 and customs of the land. Yet you have given counsel to my accuser, 1 refusing 

 it to me." 



On the 22d of September, perhaps instigated by Berthelier, Serve- 

 tus took a bold step : he accused Calvin as his calumniator, and asked 

 him to be declared subject to the law of retaliation ; but the council 

 took no more notice of this than they had of the previous petition. The 

 appeal to the churches of Switzerland caused another pause in the 

 proceedings, and Michael Servetus, October 10th, forwarded the fol- 

 lowing letter to the council : 



" Most Noble Lords : It is now about three weeks since I petitioned for an 

 audience, and still I have no reply. I entreat you for the love of Jesus Christ 

 not to refuse me that you would grant to a Turk, when I ask for justice at your 

 hands. As to what you may have commanded to be done for me in the way of 

 cleanliness, I have to inform you that nothing has been done, and that I am in 

 a more filthy plight than ever. In addition, I suffer terribly from the cold, and 

 from colic, and my rupture, which causes me miseries of other kinds, I should 

 feel shame in writing about more particularly. It is very cruel that I am 

 neither allowed to speak nor to have my most pressing wants supplied; for the 

 love of God, sirs, in pity or in duty, give orders in my behalf ! ' : 



This appeal of the prisoner, as far as his needs were concerned, 

 met with an immediate response ; but the audience was never granted. 

 The answers of the Swiss churches arrived at last, and as Calvin had 

 been their inspirer, and they had been taken in concert, they unani- 

 mously condemned Servetus's theological views. On the 20th of Oc- 

 tober the council solemnly assembled and condemned Servetus to be 

 burned alive with his books ; the sentence to be carried into effect on 

 the morrow ! In a letter to Farel, alluding to the vain attempts made 

 by Perrin, the first syndic, by delay and entreaty, to save the pris- 

 oner's life, Calvin speaks of the merciful man by the nickname under 

 1 Germain Colladon was introduced as counsel for Mcolas La Fontaine, and continued 

 all through the trial as Calvin's champion. 



