‘Now the proponent having _prima facie_ made good his allegations and satisfied you that the prisoner has been guilty of writing heresy and dogmatising in the manner alleged, he begs you humbly to recognise the prisoner Michael Servetus as a criminal deserving of prosecution by your attorney-general; and that he, the proponent, be now declared free of all charge, damage, and interest in the business. Not that he shuns or declines to follow up a cause of the kind, which every child of God ought indeed to pursue to the death, but in compliance with the usages of your city, and because it is not for him to undertake duties that belong to another.’ Having taken this petition into consideration, and determined that there was _prima facie_ evidence of criminality on the part of the prisoner, the Council proceeded in the afternoon of the same day to the old Episcopal Palace, now turned into the Court in which criminal causes were tried, and commenced proceedings according to the forms in such cases used and provided. CHAPTER IV. THE TRIAL IN ITS FIRST PHASE. Formally installed in the Court of Criminal Judicature, Nicolas de la Fontaine and Michael Servetus were ordered to be brought before them by the Judges; and the prosecutor declaring that he persisted in his allegations, and the prisoner being put on his oath to speak the truth under penalties to the extent of 60 sols, the Trial commenced. To the question as to his name and condition, the prisoner replied that his name was Michael Serveto, of Villanova, in the kingdom of Aragon, in Spain, and that by profession he was a physician. The articles of impeachment already produced were then restated seriatim, and to each he was required to answer categorically. This he did, and generally in the terms he had used in his preliminary examination, but accusing Calvin, and Calvin alone, more imperatively than before, of having provoked his arrest and prosecution at Vienne, adding that had Calvin had his way, he--the prisoner--would assuredly have been burned alive. To all that had reference to the Doctrine of the Trinity, the Nature of Christ, the relations between God and created things, he spoke as he had already done. He again and pointedly denied that he had ever said the soul was mortal; but admitted having written that he thinks man commits no mortal sin before the age of twenty years, adding that ‘under the Law God had so ordered it.’ The Baptism of Infants he acknowledged to be in his eyes a diabolical invention, and calculated to corrupt the whole of Christianity; declaring however, as formerly, that if it were shown he erred in this opinion he was ready to retract and amend.