And, anyway, it would have been impossible for him to accept. The Inquisitor General of Lyons had already taken a hand in the affair and Servetus was in jail. This inquisitor (curious readers will find a description of him in the works of Rabelais who refers to him as Doribus, a pun upon his name, which was Ory) had got wind of the Spaniard’s blasphemies through a letter which a private citizen of Geneva, with the connivance of Calvin, had sent to his cousin in Lyons. Soon the case against him was further strengthened by several samples of Servetus’ handwriting, also surreptitiously supplied by Calvin. It really looked as if Calvin did not care who hanged the poor fellow as long as he got hung, but the inquisitors were negligent in their sacred duties and Servetus was able to escape. First he seems to have tried to reach the Spanish frontier. But the long journey through southern France would have been very dangerous to a man who was so well known and so he decided to follow the rather round-about route via Geneva, Milan, Naples and the Mediterranean Sea. Late one Saturday afternoon in August of the year 1553 he reached Geneva. He tried to find a boat to cross to the other side of the lake, but boats were not supposed to sail so shortly before the Sabbath day and he was told to wait until Monday. The next day was Sunday. As it was a misdemeanor for both natives and strangers to stay away from divine service, Servetus went to church. He was recognized and arrested. By what right he was put into jail was never explained. Servetus was a Spanish subject and was not accused of any crime against the laws of Geneva. But he was a liberal in the matter of doctrine, a blasphemous and profane person who dared to have opinions of his own upon the subject of the Trinity. It was absurd that such a person should invoke the protection of the law. A common criminal might do so. A heretic, never! And without further ado he was locked up in a filthy and damp hole, his money and his personal belongings were confiscated and two days later he was taken to court and was asked to answer a questionnaire containing thirty-eight different points. The trial lasted two months and twelve days. In the end he was found guilty of “heresies against the foundations of the Christian religion.” The answers which he had given during the discussions of his opinions had exasperated his judges. The usual punishment for cases of his sort, especially if the accused were a foreigner, was perpetual banishment from the territory of the city of Geneva. In the case of Servetus an exception was made. He was condemned to be burned alive. In the meantime the French tribunal had re-opened the case of the fugitive and the officials of the Inquisition had come to the same conclusion as their Protestant colleagues. They too had condemned Servetus to death and had dispatched their sheriff to Geneva with the request that the culprit be surrendered to him and be brought back to France.