15 APOLOGY

They rejected the slander of magic, which is more easily used for infamy than proven. * They decided instead to act by another way and to accomplish their goal under the pretext of that many-layered cloak of Religion.

Meanwhile, Vanini himself, unaware of what was being done, left Lutetia Paris and sought Tolosa Toulouse. Nowhere else are the laws armed more severely against heresies. While public faith is owed to the Calvinists by the Edict of Nantes, by which we are mutually bound to conduct business and manage affairs together, the Sectarians Protestants never believed themselves safe in Toulouse. Thus, Toulouse is the only city in France immune to the heretical stain, as no citizen is admitted whose faith is suspected by the Apostolic See, according to the judgment of Gramondus. † Since they were the first in blind zeal ‡ to practice the Inquisition with Dominic, the Father of the Inquisition, they also want to be the last in their stupidity. Thus, with the characters, the place, the time, and the instruments prepared for a tragic act, nothing was missing except to satisfy their cruel minds with his sad death. Zeilerus ⸸ narrates, following Rosset, that he was about to be caught while in the household of the Count of Cremail, where he had been the tutor of a certain related Count. He relies on the same authority that Bertrand, a Commissioner of the Parliament, examined him. But these are lighter matters.

* Apuleius in his Apology.
† Gramondus, book 3, History of France.
‡ Philipp van Limborch, History of the Inquisition, chapters 10 and 16.
⸸ Zeilerus, Tragic Histories, 26.