In presence of the individual he had come to look on as his personal enemy as well as the enemy of God, Calvin appears to have forgotten all his earlier aspirations after toleration. He was not now thinking of himself as editor of ‘Seneca on Clemency,’ when to the text of his author enjoining self-control or moderation of mind--_animi temperantia_--having the power to take vengeance, he adds: ‘It belongs to the nature of the merciful man that he not only uses opportunities of vengeance with moderation, but does not avail himself of even the most tempting occasions to take revenge;’[69]--a noble sentence, but written in days long past, when he saw persecution for conscience sake inaugurated by Francis I. Neither had he himself as author of the earlier editions of the ‘Institutions’ in his mind, where he is as emphatic in denouncing the ‘Right of the Sword’ in dealing with heresy as he was now, having become the spiritual dictator of Geneva, ready to call it at all times into requisition. Calvin’s natural temperament, in fact, disposed him to severity in furtherance of his purposes and his will. We have seen him in his letter to Farel of February 1546, threatening Servetus with death, did opportunity serve; and writing to a French lady--Madame de Cany--about or a little before the time that now engages us, in referring to some one who had behaved ungratefully both to his correspondent and himself, he says: ‘I assure you, madam, that had he not taken himself off so speedily, I should have held it my duty, in so far as it lay with me, to have had him burned alive.’[70] But everything seemed to conspire against Servetus at the moment of his reaching Geneva; for almost immediately after his arrival there, and whilst his presence was still unknown to Calvin, the Reformer received a letter from a correspondent, Paul Gaddi of Cremona by name, that must have greatly strengthened his fears of Servetus’s objectionable influence in the world, and, on theological grounds, confirmed him in his purpose of pushing matters to extremities and silencing the dangerous heretic for ever, did he but find the opportunity. Gaddi, as it seems, had lately reached Zürich from the north of Italy. At Ferrara, he informs his correspondent that he had had many long and interesting conversations with the Duchess, who showed the very best and most friendly dispositions towards the Reformed Faith. But she was sorely in want of a competent person, ‘a faithful Minister of the word of God,’ as a guide against those by whom she was surrounded. Gaddi, therefore, at the desire of the Duchess requests Calvin to send her some one who would give her true instruction, and free her from the teaching ‘of the miserable Monk she has at her elbow, who seeks not after what Christ requires, but after the things that be profitable to himself.’