Acting at once on the advice of the Cardinal, Maugiron sent to
the Vibailly, bidding him hold himself ready to act in a certain
unspecified contingency. Next day, March 16, the two Vicars in company
with the Vibailly proceeded to the office of the Sieur Peyrolles, Lay
official of the Primate, before whom Bautier, as the party immediately
interested in virtue of his office, made a deposition to the effect
that within the last few days letters had been received from Geneva
addressed to a personage resident in Lyons, in which great surprise
was expressed that a certain Michael Servetus, otherwise called
Villanovanus, should be then living unmolested at Vienne; that four
printed leaves of a book written by the said Villanovanus had also been
forwarded from Geneva and examined by brother Ory, Inquisitor of the
Faith, by whom they had been found heretical; and, to conclude, that
the Cardinal Archbishop, having been made acquainted with the matter,
had written to M. de Maugiron requesting him to take cognizance of the
business with all secrecy and dispatch. Bautier, at the same time, put
in the Geneva letter of Trie, and the four leaves of the printed book
entitled ‘_Christianismi Restitutio_,’ in support of his allegations;
the letter of the Inquisitor and that of the Cardinal to Maugiron being
added as further documents on which the Procurator of the King and the
Justiciary were to proceed.
The judicial authorities of Vienne lost no time in obeying their
instructions. On the same day they met at the house of M. Maugiron,
and having consulted with him, they sent to M. Michel de Villeneuve,
desiring his presence and saying they had something to communicate to
him. Being from home when the message arrived, and not appearing for a
couple of hours, the authorities were fearful that he had been somehow
warned of the danger which threatened him and so had fled; but their
fears were unfounded: he came at length, and with a perfectly confident
air, it is said. The authorities informed him that they had certain
informations against him which would make it necessary for them to
visit and search his lodgings for books or papers of a heretical
tendency. Villeneuve replied that he had lived long at Vienne on good
terms with the clergy and professors of theology, and had never until
now been suspected of heresy; but he was quite ready to open his rooms
to them or those they might delegate, to make what search they pleased.
The Grand Vicar and the Vibailly, accompanied by the Secretary of the
Cardinal Governor of Dauphiny, then proceeded with Villeneuve to his
apartments, which adjoined and were among the dependencies of the
archiepiscopal palace, and made a particular examination of his papers;
but they found nothing more compromising than a couple of copies of his
apology or pamphlet against the Parisian Doctors, of which they took
possession.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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