Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/112

102 which he was wont to characterize his great Libertine opponent, and says:

"Our comical Cæsar (Perrin), having feigned illness for three days, mounted the tribune at length, with a view to aid the 'wicked scoundrel' to escape punishment. Nor did he blush to demand that the cause might be remitted to the Council of the Two Hundred. But in vain; all was refused, the prisoner was condemned, and to-morrow he will suffer death."

The sentence was imparted to Servetus in the early morning of the following day—his last. Encouraged by the Libertines, and knowing himself guilty of no intentional blasphemy, he had never thought it possible that he would be condemned to death. He was at first as if struck dumb by the intelligence. He did but groan and sigh, as though his heart would burst, and cry, in his native language, "Misericordia!" Having by degrees recovered self-possession, he requested to see Calvin. Accompanied by two councilors, Calvin entered the prison and asked what he wanted of him. Servetus had the heroic virtue to ask pardon of him—the man who had brought him to his death! Hard to say: the intolerant despot of Geneva, devoid of all humanity, had not a word of mercy for his victim, when a word of his would have saved him!

An hour before noon of October 27, 1553, Servetus was taken from his jail to receive his sentence from my lords the councilors and justices of Geneva. The tribunal, in conformity with custom, assembled before the porch of the Hôtel-de-Ville, and received the prisoner, all standing. The proper officer then proceeded to recapitulate the heads of the process against him, "Michael Servetus, of Villanova, in the kingdom of Aragon, in Spain," in which he is charged—

"First, with having, between twenty-three and twenty-four years ago, caused to be printed at Hagenau, in Germany, a book against the Holy Trinity, full of blasphemies, to the great scandal of the churches of Germany, the book having been condemned by all their doctors, and he, the writer, forced to fly that country. Item. With having, in spite of this, not only persisted in his errors and infected many with them, but with having lately had another book clandestinely printed at Vienne, in Dauphiny, filled with the like heresies and execrable blasphemies against the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, the baptism of infants, and other sacred doctrines, the foundation of the Christian religion. Item. With having in the said book called all who believe in a Trinity, tritheists, and even atheists, and the Trinity itself a demon or monster having three heads. Item. With having blasphemed horribly, and said that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God from all eternity, but only became so from his incarnation; that he is not the son of David according to the flesh, but was created of the substance of God, having received three of his constituent elements from God. and one only from the Virgin Mary, whereby he wickedly proposed to abolish the true and entire humanity of Jesus Christ. Item. With declaring the baptism of infants to be sorcery and a diabolical invention. Item. With having uttered other blasphemies, with which the book in question is full, all alike against the majesty of God, the Son of God, and the Holy Ghost, to the ruin of many poor souls, betrayed and desolated by such detestable doctrines. Item. With having,