This letter we see by the date was written either shortly before or about the time of Servetus’s arrival in Geneva, whither Geroult, who was a native of the city, had betaken himself for safety on the arrest of Servetus and Arnoullet. Bertet, fearing that Arnoullet might suffer in the estimation of Calvin, seems to have thought that the best means of exculpating his friend of complicity with the writer of the heretical book was now to show the letter he had lately received from Vienne to Calvin; and he, we must conclude, laid it forthwith before the Court, with no purpose assuredly of aiding the prisoner in his defence. Arnoullet’s letter in exculpation of himself goes far, as we see, to compromise Geroult; and he being at this time in Geneva, his liberty, perhaps even his life, was brought into danger.[81] The letter to Bertet being shown to the prisoner, he averred that he could not take it upon him to say whether it was from Arnoullet or not, he never having seen any of the publisher’s handwriting; he said, however, that it certainly was at Arnoullet’s establishment that the ‘Christianismi Restitutio’ was printed, and that Arnoullet had been arrested and imprisoned at the same time as himself. Arnoullet’s disclaimer of having known anything of the burden of Servetus’s book must certainly be untrue. Unless all else we know in connection with the business be false, he must have had shrewd suspicions of its nature, and the suppression of his name as publisher, and of Vienne as the place of publication, shows that he was not without misgivings of possible unpleasant consequences following the appearance of the work were it known that he had had anything to do with it. Arnoullet’s letter gave Calvin a hint which he did not fail to improve upon; for he too wrote to Frankfort informing his friends, the Protestant ministers there, of the bale of Servetus’s books that had been sent to their city--by Frelon, as I believe, not by Robert Etienne, the bookseller of Geneva, as has been said,[82]--recommending its seizure and the destruction of its contents. Calvin begins his letter thus:--