It must have been immediately after the conclusion of the suit against him that Servetus left Paris; for we have news of him in the course of the same year (1538) as a practitioner of medicine in the town of Charlieu, distant about twelve French miles from the city of Lyons. He may have been led to this retreat through knowledge gained in the course of his former residence in Lyons; but he did not continue long there--certainly for not more than a year and a half, or so. Could we trust the report of one who speaks of him as ‘a most arrogant and insolent person,’ he must have embroiled himself with some of the more influential people of Charlieu, who, as said, made his position so uncomfortable that he was forced to quit and go farther afield.[50] But Villeneuve had earned for himself an ill name by his dispute with the University and Medical Faculty of Paris; and coming from the quarter it does, we give no credit to the tale, led as we are by what we know to find a much better reason for the remove than any fresh personal dispute, though there does seem to have been something of the kind complicating matters, as well as certain ‘love passages,’ which, as they came to nothing, may have rendered longer residence in the place unpleasant.
The residence of Villeneuve in Charlieu, however, is not without interest, as giving us a further insight into the character and predominant pious nature of the man. In the course of the year 1539, which he passed at Charlieu, Michael Servetus attained the thirtieth year of his age, the year according to his religious tenets in which only baptism could be rightly received. ‘He who would follow the example of Christ,’ says he in his latest work, ‘ought now to betake him to this Laver of Regeneration--_Lavacrum Regenerationis_;’ and from the particular account he gives of the manner in which they who think with him on the subject of baptism perform the rite, we can scarcely doubt of his having found occasion to have himself privately baptized by some Anabaptist acquaintance he had made. Servetus was unquestionably a man of so pious a nature, so sincere a believer in the divinity of Christ, according to his way of interpreting it, and so firmly persuaded that the closest possible imitation of him was necessary to salvation, that we may feel assured he found means to have a rite he held so indispensable properly performed at the proper moment. It must have been in the consciousness of having himself done what he thought right in this particular, that we find him by and by urgently exhorting Calvin, with whom he had entered into correspondence, and probably knew to be of his own age, to have himself baptized anew. ‘Christ,’ he says, ‘as an infant, was circumcised, but not baptized; and this is a great mystery; in his thirtieth year, however, he received baptism; thereby setting us the example, and teaching us that before this age no one is a fit recipient of the rite that gives the kingdom of heaven to man. It were fit and proper in you, therefore, would you show true faith in Christ, to submit yourself to baptism, and so receive the gift of the Holy Spirit promised through this means.’ (Epist. xv. ad Jo. Calvinum, Christ. Restit., p. 615.)