In the course of the correspondence hitherto, Calvin had stood on the vantage ground, as critic of his correspondent’s views; but matters were now reversed, for Villeneuve became the critic of the Reformer. He by and by returned the copy of the ‘Institutions,’ copiously annotated on the margins, not only in no terms of assent, but generally with the unhappy freedom of expression in which he habitually indulged, and so little complimentary to the author himself, as it seems, that Calvin, in writing to a friend and in language not over-savoury, says:--‘There is hardly a page that is not defiled by his vomit.’ The liberties taken with the ‘Institutions,’ we may well imagine, were looked on as a crowning personal insult by Calvin; and, reading the nature of the man as we do, they may have been that, super-added to the letters, which put such rancour into his soul as made him think of the life of his critic, turned by him into his calumniator, as no more than a fair forfeit for the offence done. It was at this time precisely, as it appears, that Calvin wrote that terribly compromising letter to Farel, so long contested by his apologists, but now admitted on all hands--as indeed how could it be longer denied, seeing that it is still in existence?--in which he says: ‘Servetus wrote to me lately, and beside his letter sent me a great volume full of his ravings, telling me with audacious arrogance that I should there find things stupendous and unheard of until now. He offers to come hither if I approve; but I will not pledge my faith to him; for did he come, if I have any authority here, I should never suffer him to go away alive.’[57]