Chapter I
Original French
A l'occasion de la mort de Jean Calas.
Histoire abrégée de la mort de Jean Calas.
LE meurtre de Calas, commis dans Toulouse avec le glaive de la Justice, le 9me Mars 1762, est un des plus singuliers événements qui méritent l'attention de notre âge & de la postérité. On oublie bientôt cette foule de morts qui a péri dans des batailles sans nombre, non-seulement parce que c'est la fatalité inévitable de la guerre, mais parce que ceux qui meurent par le sort des armes, pouvaient aussi donner la mort à leurs ennemis, & n'ont point péri sans se défendre. Là où le danger & l'avantage sont égaux, l'étonnement cesse, & la pitié même s'affaiblit: mais si un Pere de famille innocent est livré aux mains de l'erreur, ou de la passion, ou du fanatisme; si l'accusé n'a de défense que sa vertu, si les arbitres de sa vie n'ont à risquer en l'égorgeant que de se tromper, s'ils peuvent tuer impunément par un arrêt; alors le cri public s'éleve, chacun craint pour soi-même; on voit que personne n'est en sûreté de sa vie devant un Tribunal érigé pour veiller sur la vie des Citoyens, & toutes les voix se réunissent pour demander vengeance.
Il s'agissait, dans cette étrange affaire, de Religion, de suicide, de parricide: il s'agissait de savoir si un pere & une mere avaient étranglé leur fils pour plaire à Dieu, si un frere avait étranglé son frere, si un ami avait étranglé son ami, & si les Juges avaient à se reprocher d'avoir fait mourir sur la roue un pere innocent, ou d'avoir épargné une mere, un frere, un ami coupables.
Jean Calas, âgé de soixante & huit ans, exerçait la profession de Négociant à Toulouse depuis plus de quarante années, & était reconnu de tous ceux qui ont vécu avec lui pour un bon pere. Il était Protestant, ainsi que sa femme & tous ses enfants, excepté un qui avait abjuré l'hérésie, & à qui le pere faisait une petite pension. Il paraissait si éloigné de cet absurde fanatisme qui rompt tous les liens de la Société, qu'il approuva la conversion de son fils Louis Calas, & qu'il avait depuis trente ans chez lui une servante zélée Catholique, laquelle avait élevé tous ses enfants.
Un des fils de Jean Calas, nommé Marc-Antoine, était un homme de Lettres: il passait pour un esprit inquiet, sombre & violent. Ce jeune homme ne pouvant réussir ni à entrer dans le négoce, auquel il n'était pas propre, ni à être reçu Avocat, parce qu'il fallait des certificats de Catholicité, qu'il ne put obtenir, résolut de finir sa vie, & fit pressentir ce dessein à un de ses amis: il se confirma dans sa résolution par la lecture de tout ce qu'on a jamais écrit sur le suicide.
Enfin, un jour, ayant perdu son argent au jeu, il choisit ce jour là même pour exécuter son dessein. Un ami de sa famille, & le sien, nommé Lavaisse, jeune-homme de dix-neuf ans, connu par la candeur & la douceur de ses mœurs, fils d'un Avocat célebre de Toulouse, était arrivé1 de Bordeaux la veille; il soupa par hasard chez les Calas. Le pere, la mere, Marc-Antoine leur fils ainé, Pierre leur second fils, mangerent ensemble. Après le souper on se retira dans un petit sallon; Marc-Antoine disparut: enfin, lorsque le jeune Lavaisse voulut partir, Pierre Calas & lui étant descendus, trouverent en-bas, auprès du magasin, Marc-Antoine, en chemise, pendu à une porte, & son habit plié sur le comptoir; sa chemise n'était pas seulement dérangée; ses cheveux étaient bien peignés: il n'avait sur son corps aucune playe, aucune meurtrissure.2
On passe ici tous les détails dont les Avocats ont rendu compte: on ne décrira point la douleur & le désespoir du pere & de la mere: leurs cris furent entendus des voisins. Lavaisse & Pierre Calas, hors d'eux-mêmes, coururent chercher des Chirurgiens & la Justice.
Pendant qu'ils s'acquittaient de ce devoir, pendant que le pere & la mere étaient dans les sanglots & dans les larmes, le Peuple de Toulouse s'attroupait autour de la maison. Ce Peuple est superstitieux & emporté; il regarde comme des monstres ses freres qui ne sont pas de la même Religion que lui. C'est à Toulouse qu'on remercia Dieu solemnellement de la mort de Henri trois, & qu'on fit serment d'égorger le premier qui parlerait de reconnaître le grand, le bon Henri quatre. Cette Ville solemnise encore tous les ans, par une Procession & par des feux de joye, le jour où elle massacra quatre mille Citoyens hérétiques, il y a deux siecles. En vain six Arrêts du Conseil ont défendu cette odieuse fête, les Toulousains l'ont toujours célébrée comme les jeux floraux.
Quelque fanatique de la populace s'écria que Jean Calas avait pendu son propre fils Marc-Antoine. Ce cri répété fut unanime en un moment. D'autres ajouterent que le mort devait le lendemain faire abjuration; que sa famille & le jeune Lavaisse l'avaient étranglé, par haine contre la Religion Catholique: le moment d'après on n'en douta plus; toute la Ville fut persuadée que c'est un point de Religion chez les Protestants, qu'un pere & une mere doivent assassiner leur fils, dès qu'il veut se convertir.
Les esprits une fois émus ne s'arrêtent point. On imagina que les Protestants du Languedoc s'étaient assemblés la veille; qu'ils avaient choisi à la pluralité des voix un bourreau de la secte; que le choix était tombé sur le jeune Lavaisse; que ce jeune homme, en vingt-quatre heures, avait reçu la nouvelle de son élection, & était arrivé de Bordeaux pour aider Jean Calas, sa femme & leur fils Pierre, à étrangler un ami, un fils, un frere.
Le Sr. David, Capitoul de Toulouse, excité par ces rumeurs, & voulant se faire valoir par une prompte exécution, fit une procédure contre les Regles & les Ordonnances. La famille Calas, la servante Catholique, Lavaisse furent mis aux fers.
On publia un monitoire non moins vicieux que la procédure. On alla plus loin. Marc-Antoine Calas était mort Calviniste; & s'il avait attenté sur lui-même, il devait être traîné sur la claye: on l'inhuma avec la plus grande pompe dans l'Eglise St. Etienne, malgré le Curé qui protestait contre cette profanation.
Il y a dans le Languedoc quatre Confrairies de Pénitents, la blanche, la bleue, la grise, & la noire. Les Confreres portent un long capuce avec un masque de drap percé de deux trous pour laisser la vue libre: ils ont voulu engager M. le Duc de Fitz-James, Commandant de la Province, à entrer dans leur Corps, & il les a refusés. Les Confreres blancs firent à Marc-Antoine Calas un Service solemnel comme à un Martyr. Jamais aucune Eglise ne célébra la fête d'un Martyr véritable avec plus de pompe; mais cette pompe fut terrible. On avait élevé au-dessus d'un magnifique catafalque, un squélette qu'on faisait mouvoir, & qui représentait Marc-Antoine Calas, tenant d'une main une palme, & de l'autre la plume dont il devait signer l'abjuration de l'hérésie, & qui écrivait en effet l'arrêt de mort de son pere.
Alors il ne manqua plus au malheureux qui avait attenté sur soi-même, que la canonisation; tout le Peuple le regardait comme un Saint: quelques-uns l'invoquaient; d'autres allaient prier sur sa tombe, d'autres lui demandaient des miracles, d'autres racontaient ceux qu'il avait faits. Un Moine lui arracha quelques dents pour avoir des reliques durables. Une dévote, un peu sourde, dit qu'elle avait entendu le son des cloches. Un Prêtre apoplectique fut guéri après avoir pris de l'émétique. On dressa des verbaux de ces prodiges. Celui qui écrit cette relation, possede une attestation qu'un jeune homme de Toulouse est devenu fou pour avoir prié plusieurs nuits sur le tombeau du nouveau Saint, & pour n'avoir pu obtenir un miracle qu'il implorait.
Quelques Magistrats étaient de la Confrairie des Pénitents blancs. Dès ce moment la mort de Jean Calas parut infaillible.
Ce qui sur-tout prépara son supplice, ce fut l'approche de cette fête singuliere que les Toulousains célebrent tous les ans en mémoire d'un massacre de quatre mille Huguenots; l'année 1762 était l'année séculaire. On dressait dans la Ville l'appareil de cette solemnité; cela même allumait encore l'imagination échauffée du Peuple: on disait publiquement que l'échafaud sur lequel on rouerait les Calas, serait le plus grand ornement de la fête; on disait que la Providence amenait elle-même ces victimes pour être sacrifiées à notre sainte Religion. Vingt personnes ont entendu ces discours, & de plus violents encore. Et c'est de nos jours! & c'est dans un temps où la Philosophie a fait tant de progrès! & c'est lorsque cent Académies écrivent pour inspirer la douceur des mœurs! Il semble que le fanatisme, indigné depuis peu des succès de la raison, se débatte sous elle avec plus de rage.
Treize Juges s'assemblerent tous les jours pour terminer le Procès. On n'avait, on ne pouvait avoir aucune preuve contre la famille; mais la Religion trompée tenait lieu de preuve. Six Juges persisterent longtemps à condamner Jean Calas, son fils, & Lavaisse à la roue, & la femme de Jean Calas au bucher. Sept autres, plus modérés, voulaient au moins qu'on examinât. Les débats furent réitérés & longs. Un des Juges, convaincu de l'innocence des accusés, & de l'impossibilité du crime, parla vivement en leur faveur; il opposa le zele de l'humanité au zele de la sévérité; il devint l'Avocat public des Calas dans toutes les maisons de Toulouse, où les cris continuels de la Religion abusée demandaient le sang de ces infortunés. Un autre Juge, connu par sa violence, parlait dans la Ville avec autant d'emportement contre les Calas, que le premier montrait d'empressement à les défendre. Enfin l'éclat fut si grand, qu'ils furent obligés de se récuser l'un & l'autre; ils se retirerent à la campagne.
Mais, par un malheur étrange, le Juge favorable aux Calas eut la délicatesse de persister dans sa récusation, & l'autre revint donner sa voix contre ceux qu'il ne devait point juger: ce fut cette voix qui forma la condamnation à la roue; car il y eut huit voix contre cinq, un des six Juges opposés ayant à la fin, après bien des contestations, passé au parti le plus sévere.
Il semble que quand il s'agit d'un parricide, & de livrer un Pere de famille au plus affreux supplice, le jugement devrait être unanime, parce que les preuves d'un crime si inoui3 devraient être d'une évidence sensible à tout le monde: le moindre doute, dans un cas pareil, doit suffire pour faire trembler un Juge qui va signer un Arrêt de mort. La faiblesse de notre raison & l'insuffisance de nos Loix se font sentir tous les jours; mais dans quelle occasion en découvre-t-on mieux la misere que quand la prépondérance d'une seule voix fait rouer un Citoyen? Il fallait dans Athenes cinquante voix au-delà de la moitié pour oser prononcer un jugement de mort. Qu'en résulte-t-il? ce que nous savons très-inutilement, que les Grecs étaient plus sages & plus humains que nous.
Il paraissait impossible que Jean Calas, vieillard de soixante-huit ans, qui avait depuis long-temps les jambes enflées & faibles, eût seul étranglé & pendu un fils âgé de vingt-huit ans, qui était d'une force au-dessus de l'ordinaire; il fallait absolument qu'il eût été assisté dans cette exécution par sa femme, par son fils Pierre Calas, par Lavaisse, & par la servante. Ils ne s'étaient pas quittés un seul moment le soir de cette fatale aventure. Mais cette supposition était encore aussi absurde que l'autre: car comment une servante zélée Catholique aurait-elle pu souffrir que des Huguenots assassinassent un jeune-homme élevé par elle, pour le punir d'aimer la Religion de cette servante? Comment Lavaisse serait-il venu exprès de Bordeaux pour étrangler son ami, dont il ignorait la conversion prétendue? Comment une mere tendre aurait-elle mis les mains sur son fils? Comment tous ensemble auraient-ils pu étrangler un jeune-homme aussi robuste qu'eux tous, sans un combat long & violent, sans des cris affreux qui auraient appellé tout le voisinage, sans des coups réitérés, sans des meurtrissures, sans des habits déchirés?
Il était évident que si le parricide avait pu être commis, tous les accusés étaient également coupables, parce qu'ils ne s'étaient pas quittés d'un moment; il était évident qu'ils ne l'étaient pas; il était évident que le pere seul ne pouvait l'être; & cependant l'arrêt condamna ce pere seul à expirer sur la roue.
Le motif de l'arrêt était aussi inconcevable que tout le reste. Les Juges qui étaient décidés pour le supplice de Jean Calas, persuaderent aux autres que ce vieillard faible ne pourrait résister aux tourments, & qu'il avouerait sous les coups des bourreaux son crime & celui de ses complices. Ils furent confondus, quand ce vieillard, en mourant sur la roue, prit Dieu à témoin de son innocence, & le conjura de pardonner à ses Juges.
Ils furent obligés de rendre un second arrêt contradictoire avec le premier, d'élargir la mere, son fils Pierre, le jeune Lavaisse & la servante: mais un des Conseillers leur ayant fait sentir que cet arrêt démentait l'autre, qu'ils se condamnaient eux-mêmes, que tous les accusés ayant toujours été ensemble dans le temps qu'on supposait le parricide, l'élargissement de tous les survivants prouvait invinciblement l'innocence du pere de famille exécuté; ils prirent alors le parti de bannir Pierre Calas son fils. Ce bannissement semblait aussi inconséquent, aussi absurde que tout le reste: car Pierre Calas était coupable ou innocent du parricide; s'il était coupable, il fallait le rouer comme son pere; s'il était innocent, il ne fallait pas le bannir. Mais les Juges effrayés du supplice du pere, & de la piété attendrissante avec laquelle il était mort, imaginerent sauver leur honneur en laissant croire qu'ils faisaient grace au fils; comme si ce n'eût pas été une prévarication nouvelle de faire grace: & ils crurent que le bannissement de ce jeune homme, pauvre & sans appui, étant sans conséquence, n'était pas une grande injustice, après celle qu'ils avaient eu le malheur de commettre.
On commença par menacer Pierre Calas dans son cachot, de le traiter comme son pere s'il n'abjurait pas sa Religion. C'est ce que ce jeune homme4 atteste par serment.
Pierre Calas, en sortant de la Ville, rencontra un Abbé convertisseur, qui le fit rentrer dans Toulouse; on l'enferma dans un Couvent de Dominicains, & là on le contraignit à remplir toutes les fonctions de la Catholicité; c'était en partie ce qu'on voulait, c'était le prix du sang de son pere; & la Religion qu'on avait cru venger, semblait satisfaite.
On enleva les filles à la mere; elles furent enfermées dans un Couvent. Cette femme presque arrosée du sang de son mari, ayant tenu son fils ainé mort entre ses bras, voyant l'autre banni, privée de ses filles, dépouillée de tout son bien, était seule dans le monde, sans pain, sans espérance, & mourante de l'excès de son malheur. Quelques personnes ayant examiné mûrement toutes les circonstances de cette aventure horrible, en furent si frappées, qu'elles firent presser la Dame Calas, retirée dans une solitude, d'oser venir demander justice aux pieds du Trône. Elle ne pouvait pas alors se soutenir, elle s'éteignait; & d'ailleurs étant née Anglaise, transplantée dans une Province de France dès son jeune âge, le nom seul de la Ville de Paris l'effrayait. Elle s'imaginait que la Capitale du Royaume devait être encore plus barbare que celle de Toulouse. Enfin le devoir de venger la mémoire de son mari l'emporta sur sa faiblesse. Elle arriva à Paris prête d'expirer. Elle fut étonnée d'y trouver de l'accueil, des secours & des larmes.
La raison l'emporte à Paris sur le fanatisme, quelque grand qu'il puisse être; au-lieu qu'en Province ce fanatisme l'emporte presque toujours sur la raison.
Mr. De Beaumont, célebre Avocat du Parlement de Paris, prit d'abord sa défense, & dressa une consultation, qui fut signée de quinze Avocats. Mr. Loiseau, non moins éloquent, composa un Mémoire en faveur de la famille. Mr. Mariette, Avocat au Conseil, dressa une Requête juridique, qui portait la conviction dans tous les esprits.
Ces trois généreux défenseurs des Loix & de l'innocence abandonnerent à la veuve le profit des éditions de leurs Plaidoyers.5 Paris & l'Europe entiere s'émurent de pitié, & demanderent justice avec cette femme infortunée. L'arrêt fut prononcé par tout le Public long-temps avant qu'il pût être signé par le Conseil.
La pitié pénétra jusqu'au Ministere, malgré le torrent continuel des affaires, qui souvent exclut la pitié, & malgré l'habitude de voir des malheureux, qui peut endurcir le cœur encore davantage. On rendit les filles à la mere: on les vit toutes trois couvertes d'un crêpe & baignées de larmes, en faire répandre à leurs Juges.
Cependant cette famille eut encore quelques ennemis, car il s'agissait de Religion. Plusieurs personnes, qu'on appelle en France dévotes,6 dirent hautement qu'il valait bien mieux laisser rouer un vieux Calviniste innocent, que d'exposer huit Conseillers de Languedoc à convenir qu'ils s'étaient trompés; on se servit même de cette expression: «Il y a plus de Magistrats que de Calas;» & on inférait de là que la famille Calas devait être immolée à l'honneur de la Magistrature. On ne songeait pas que l'honneur des Juges consiste comme celui des autres hommes à réparer leurs fautes. On ne croit pas en France que le Pape, assisté de ses Cardinaux, soit infaillible: on pourrait croire de même que huit Juges de Toulouse ne le sont pas. Tout le reste des gens sensés & désintéressés disaient que l'Arrêt de Toulouse serait cassé dans toute l'Europe, quand même des considérations particulieres empêcheraient qu'il fût cassé dans le Conseil.
Tel était l'état de cette étonnante aventure, lorsqu'elle a fait naître à des personnes impartiales, mais sensibles, le dessein de présenter au Public quelques réflexions sur la tolérance, sur l'indulgence, sur la commisération, que l'Abbé Houteville appelle Dogme monstrueux, dans sa déclamation ampoulée & erronée sur des faits, & que la raison appelle l'appanage de la nature.
Ou les Juges de Toulouse, entraînés par le fanatisme de la populace, ont fait rouer un pere de famille innocent, ce qui est sans exemple; ou ce pere de famille & sa femme ont étranglé leur fils ainé, aidés dans ce parricide par un autre fils & par un ami, ce qui n'est pas dans la nature. Dans l'un ou dans l'autre cas l'abus de la Religion la plus sainte a produit un grand crime. Il est donc de l'intérêt du Genre-humain d'examiner si la Religion doit être charitable ou barbare.
1 12 Octobre 1761.
2 On ne lui trouva, après le transport du cadavre à l'Hôtel-de-Ville, qu'une petite égratignure au bout du nez, & une petite tache sur la poitrine, causées par quelque inadvertence dans le transport du corps.
3 Je ne connais que deux exemples de Peres accusés dans l'Histoire d'avoir assassiné leurs fils pour la Religion: le premier est du pere de sainte Barbara, que nous nommons Ste. Barbe. Il avait commandé deux fenêtres dans sa salle de bains: Barbe, en son absence, en fit une troisieme en l'honneur de la sainte Trinité; elle fit du bout du doigt le signe de la croix sur des colonnes de marbre, & ce signe se grava profondément dans les colonnes. Son pere en colere courut après elle l'épée à la main, mais elle s'enfuit à travers une montagne, qui s'ouvrit pour elle. Le pere fit le tour de la montagne, & ratrappa sa fille; on la fouetta toute nue, mais Dieu la couvrit d'un nuage blanc; enfin son pere lui trancha la tête. Voilà ce que rapporte la Fleur des Saints.
Le second exemple est du Prince Hermenegilde. Il se révolta contre le Roi son pere, lui donna bataille en 584, fut vaincu & tué par un Officier: on en a fait un martyr, parce que son pere était Arien.
4 Un Jacobin vint dans mon cachot, & me menaça du même genre de mort, si je n'abjurais pas: c'est ce que j'atteste devant Dieu, 23 Juillet 1762.
Pierre Calas.
5 On les a contrefaits dans plusieurs Villes, & la Dame Calas a perdu le fruit de cette générosité.
6 Dévot vient du mot Latin devotus. Les Devoti de l'ancienne Rome étaient ceux qui se devouaient pour le salut de la République; c'étaient les Curtius, les Décius.
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted Musean translation directly from French, reviewed against it. Includes all 25 chapters, Voltaire’s notes and the added Article with six edition references. Article transcription: French Wikisource, Garnier 1879, revision 15479820. Translation and Article: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.
On the occasion of the death of Jean Calas.
A brief history of the death of Jean Calas.
The murder of Calas, committed in Toulouse with the sword of justice on March 9, 1762, is one of the most extraordinary events to deserve the attention of our age and of posterity. We soon forget the multitude who have died in countless battles, not only because this is the inevitable fate of war, but because those who die by force of arms could also have killed their enemies, and did not perish without defending themselves. Where danger and advantage are equal, astonishment ceases, and even pity grows weak. But if an innocent father is delivered into the hands of error, passion, or fanaticism; if the accused has no defense but his virtue; if those who decide his life risk nothing in slaughtering him except being mistaken; if they can kill with impunity by a judicial sentence—then a public outcry rises, everyone fears for himself. We see that no one's life is safe before a tribunal established to protect the lives of citizens, and every voice joins in demanding vengeance.
This strange affair concerned religion, suicide, the murder of a son by his parents. The question was whether a father and mother had strangled their son to please God, whether a brother had strangled his brother, whether a friend had strangled his friend, and whether the judges had to reproach themselves for having an innocent father broken on the wheel, or for sparing a guilty mother, brother, and friend.
Jean Calas, sixty-eight years old, had worked as a merchant in Toulouse for more than forty years, and everyone who had lived with him knew him as a good father. He was a Protestant, as were his wife and all his children except one, who had renounced heresy and whom his father supported with a small allowance. He seemed so far removed from that absurd fanaticism which breaks every bond of society that he approved the conversion of his son Louis Calas, and for thirty years had employed a devout Catholic servant who had brought up all his children.
One of Jean Calas's sons, named Marc-Antoine, was a man of letters, reputed to have a restless, gloomy, and violent temperament. Unable either to succeed in commerce, for which he had no aptitude, or to gain admission to the bar, because this required certificates of Catholic faith which he could not obtain, the young man resolved to end his life and gave one of his friends an intimation of his plan. He strengthened his resolve by reading everything ever written about suicide.
At last, one day, having lost his money gambling, he chose that very day to carry out his plan. A friend of his and of his family named Lavaisse, a young man of nineteen known for his candor and gentle character, the son of a celebrated Toulouse lawyer, had arrived1 from Bordeaux the day before; he happened to have supper with the Calas family. The father, the mother, Marc-Antoine, their eldest son, and Pierre, their second son, ate together. After supper they withdrew to a small sitting room; Marc-Antoine disappeared. At last, when young Lavaisse wished to leave, he and Pierre Calas went downstairs and found Marc-Antoine below, near the shop, hanging from a door in his shirt, with his coat folded on the counter. His shirt was not even disarranged; his hair was neatly combed. There was not a wound or bruise on his body.2
We pass over all the details the lawyers have recounted; we will not describe the grief and despair of the father and mother. Their cries were heard by the neighbors. Beside themselves, Lavaisse and Pierre Calas ran to find surgeons and officers of justice.
While they were carrying out this duty, while the father and mother were sobbing and weeping, the people of Toulouse gathered around the house. These people are superstitious and hotheaded; they regard their brothers who do not share their religion as monsters. It was in Toulouse that solemn thanks were offered to God for the death of Henry III, and an oath was sworn to slaughter the first person who spoke of acknowledging the great and good Henry IV. Every year this city still celebrates, with a procession and bonfires, the day on which it massacred four thousand heretical citizens two centuries ago. Six decrees of the Council have forbidden this hateful festival in vain: the people of Toulouse have always celebrated it, just as they celebrate the Floral Games.
Some fanatic in the mob cried out that Jean Calas had hanged his own son Marc-Antoine. The cry was repeated, and in a moment everyone had taken it up. Others added that the dead man had been due to renounce his faith the next day, and that his family and young Lavaisse had strangled him out of hatred for the Catholic religion. A moment later there was no longer any doubt. The whole city was convinced that it was an article of Protestant faith that a father and mother must murder their son as soon as he wished to convert.
Once minds are inflamed, they stop at nothing. People imagined that the Protestants of Languedoc had assembled the day before; that by majority vote they had chosen an executioner for the sect; that the choice had fallen on young Lavaisse; and that within twenty-four hours this young man had received word of his election and arrived from Bordeaux to help Jean Calas, his wife, and their son Pierre strangle a friend, a son, a brother.
Mr. David, a capitoul, or municipal magistrate, of Toulouse, stirred up by these rumors and eager to distinguish himself through swift action, conducted proceedings in violation of the rules and ordinances. The Calas family, the Catholic servant, and Lavaisse were put in irons.
An ecclesiastical summons calling for testimony was published, as defective as the proceedings themselves. They went further. Marc-Antoine Calas had died a Calvinist, and if he had taken his own life, his body should have been dragged on a hurdle. Instead, he was buried with the greatest pomp in the Church of Saint-Étienne, despite the parish priest, who protested against this profanation.
There are four confraternities of penitents in Languedoc: the white, the blue, the gray, and the black. The brothers wear a long hood with a cloth mask pierced by two eyeholes. They tried to enlist the Duke of Fitz-James, commander of the province, in their order, but he refused. The White Penitents held a solemn service for Marc-Antoine Calas as a martyr. No church ever celebrated the feast of a true martyr with greater pomp; but this pomp was terrible. Above a magnificent catafalque they had raised a moving skeleton representing Marc-Antoine Calas, holding in one hand a palm branch and in the other the pen with which he was to sign his renunciation of heresy—and which was, in fact, writing his father's death sentence.
The unfortunate man who had taken his own life now lacked only canonization. All the people regarded him as a saint: some invoked him; others went to pray at his tomb; others asked him for miracles; others told of those he had performed. A monk pulled out some of his teeth to obtain lasting relics. A devout woman, somewhat deaf, said she had heard the sound of bells. A priest suffering from apoplexy recovered after taking an emetic. Official records of these wonders were drawn up. The author of this account possesses an attestation that a young man of Toulouse went mad after praying for several nights at the new saint's tomb and failing to obtain the miracle he implored.
Some of the magistrates belonged to the confraternity of White Penitents. From that moment, Jean Calas's death seemed certain.
What above all prepared the way for his execution was the approach of that singular festival which the people of Toulouse celebrate every year in memory of a massacre of four thousand Huguenots; 1762 marked the bicentenary. The city was preparing the decorations for this solemnity, and the preparations themselves further kindled the people's fevered imagination. It was said publicly that the scaffold on which the Calas family would be broken on the wheel would be the festival's finest ornament; that Providence itself was bringing these victims to be sacrificed to our holy religion. Twenty people heard such remarks, and still more violent ones. And this is in our own day! At a time when philosophy has made such progress! When a hundred academies are writing to inspire gentleness in human conduct! It seems that fanaticism, lately outraged by reason's successes, struggles beneath it with all the greater fury.
Thirteen judges met every day to bring the trial to a conclusion. There was, and could be, no evidence against the family; but religion led astray took the place of evidence. Six judges long persisted in condemning Jean Calas, his son, and Lavaisse to the wheel, and Jean Calas's wife to the stake. Seven others, more moderate, wanted at least an inquiry. The debates were long and repeatedly renewed. One of the judges, convinced of the defendants' innocence and the impossibility of the crime, spoke vigorously on their behalf. He opposed zeal for humanity to zeal for severity; in every house in Toulouse, where the incessant cries of deluded religion demanded the blood of these unfortunate people, he became the Calas family's public advocate. Another judge, known for his violence, spoke against the Calas family throughout the city with as much fury as the first showed eagerness to defend them. At last the uproar became so great that both were obliged to withdraw from the case; they retired to the country.
But, by a strange misfortune, the judge favorable to the Calas family had the scruple to maintain his withdrawal, while the other returned to cast his vote against people he had no right to judge. It was this vote that secured the sentence of the wheel: there were eight votes against five, one of the six opposing judges having at last, after much dispute, gone over to the harsher side.
It seems that when a father is accused of murdering his child, and the question is whether to deliver a family man to the most dreadful torture, the judgment ought to be unanimous, because the evidence of so unheard-of a crime3 ought to be plainly clear to everyone. In such a case, the slightest doubt should suffice to make a judge tremble before signing a death sentence. The weakness of our reason and the inadequacy of our laws make themselves felt every day; but when is their wretchedness more apparent than when the weight of a single vote sends a citizen to the wheel? In Athens, fifty votes beyond half were required before anyone dared pronounce a death sentence. What follows from this? What we know, to very little purpose: that the Greeks were wiser and more humane than we are.
It seemed impossible that Jean Calas, an old man of sixty-eight whose legs had long been swollen and weak, could by himself have strangled and hanged a son of twenty-eight, a man of uncommon strength. He must necessarily have been assisted in the deed by his wife, his son Pierre Calas, Lavaisse, and the servant. They had not left one another for a single moment on the evening of that fatal event. But this supposition was as absurd as the other. How could a devout Catholic servant have allowed Huguenots to murder a young man she had raised, to punish him for loving her own religion? How could Lavaisse have come expressly from Bordeaux to strangle his friend, whose supposed conversion he knew nothing about? How could a loving mother have laid hands on her son? How could all of them together have strangled a young man as strong as all of them, without a long and violent struggle, without terrible cries that would have summoned the entire neighborhood, without repeated blows, without bruises, without torn clothing?
It was clear that if the murder of the son could have been committed, all the accused were equally guilty, since they had not left one another for a moment. It was clear that they were not guilty; it was clear that the father alone could not be guilty; and yet the judgment condemned this father alone to die on the wheel.
The grounds for the judgment were as inconceivable as everything else. The judges who had resolved on Jean Calas's execution persuaded the others that this feeble old man could not withstand the torture, and that under the executioners' blows he would confess his crime and that of his accomplices. They were confounded when the old man, dying on the wheel, called God to witness his innocence and implored him to forgive his judges.
They were obliged to issue a second judgment contradicting the first, releasing the mother, her son Pierre, young Lavaisse, and the servant. But one of the councilors pointed out that this judgment gave the lie to the other; that they were condemning themselves; that, since all the accused had always been together at the time of the supposed murder, the release of all the survivors proved beyond dispute the innocence of the father they had executed. They then decided to banish his son Pierre Calas. This banishment seemed as inconsistent and absurd as everything else: Pierre Calas was either guilty or innocent of the murder. If guilty, he should have been broken on the wheel like his father; if innocent, he should not have been banished. But the judges, appalled by the father's execution and the moving piety with which he had died, imagined they could save their honor by letting people believe they were showing mercy to the son—as though showing mercy in such a case would not have been another breach of duty. They thought that banishing this young man, poor and without protectors, was of no consequence, and no great injustice after the one they had had the misfortune to commit.
They began by threatening Pierre Calas in his dungeon with the same treatment as his father if he did not renounce his religion. This is what the young man4 attests under oath.
As Pierre Calas was leaving the city, he met an abbé intent on conversion, who made him return to Toulouse. He was shut up in a Dominican convent and forced to perform every Catholic observance. This was part of what they wanted; it was the price of his father's blood, and the religion they had thought to avenge seemed satisfied.
The daughters were taken from their mother and shut up in a convent. This woman, almost spattered with her husband's blood, who had held her eldest son dead in her arms, who saw the other banished, who had been deprived of her daughters and stripped of all her possessions, was alone in the world, without bread, without hope, dying under the weight of her suffering. Some people, after carefully examining every circumstance of this horrible affair, were so deeply struck that they urged Madame Calas, who had withdrawn into seclusion, to dare to come and ask for justice at the foot of the throne. She could scarcely stand then; her life was ebbing away. Besides, born an Englishwoman and brought to a French province at an early age, she was frightened by the very name of Paris. She imagined that the kingdom's capital must be even more barbarous than Toulouse. At last the duty of vindicating her husband's memory prevailed over her weakness. She arrived in Paris at the point of death. She was astonished to find welcome, help, and tears.
In Paris, reason prevails over fanaticism, however great it may be; in the provinces, by contrast, fanaticism almost always prevails over reason.
Mr. de Beaumont, a celebrated lawyer at the Parlement of Paris, immediately took up her defense and drew up a legal opinion signed by fifteen lawyers. Mr. Loiseau, no less eloquent, composed a brief on behalf of the family. Mr. Mariette, a lawyer at the Council, drafted a formal petition that brought conviction to every mind.
These three generous defenders of the laws and of innocence gave the widow the proceeds from the publication of their pleadings.5 Paris and all Europe were moved to pity, and joined this unfortunate woman in demanding justice. The whole public had pronounced its judgment long before the Council could sign it.
Compassion reached even the ministry, despite the ceaseless torrent of business that often leaves no room for pity, and despite the habit of seeing suffering people, which can harden the heart still further. The daughters were restored to their mother. All three, dressed in mourning crape and bathed in tears, were seen to draw tears from their judges.
Yet this family still had a few enemies, for religion was involved. Several people called devout6 in France declared openly that it was far better to let an innocent old Calvinist be broken on the wheel than to expose eight councilors of Languedoc to admitting they had been mistaken. They even used this expression: “There are more magistrates than Calases”; and from this they inferred that the Calas family must be sacrificed to the honor of the judiciary. It did not occur to them that the honor of judges, like that of other men, consists in repairing their mistakes. In France we do not believe that the pope, assisted by his cardinals, is infallible; we might believe the same of eight judges in Toulouse. All the other reasonable and disinterested people said that the Toulouse judgment would be overturned throughout Europe, even if particular considerations prevented its being overturned in the Council.
Such was the state of this astonishing affair when it prompted some impartial but compassionate people to offer the public a few reflections on tolerance, on forbearance, on compassion—which the Abbé Houteville, in his swollen declamation riddled with factual errors, calls a monstrous doctrine, and which reason calls the birthright of human nature.
Either the judges of Toulouse, swept away by the fanaticism of the mob, had an innocent father broken on the wheel, which is without precedent; or this father and his wife strangled their eldest son, assisted in this murder by another son and a friend, which is contrary to nature. In either case, the abuse of the holiest religion has produced a great crime. It is therefore in the interest of the human race to examine whether religion should be charitable or barbarous.
1 October 12, 1761.
2 After the body was taken to the town hall, all that was found was a small scratch on the tip of his nose and a small mark on his chest, caused by some carelessness in moving the body.
3 I know only two examples in history of fathers accused of murdering their sons for religion. The first is the father of Saint Barbara, whom we call Saint Barbe. He had ordered two windows for his bathing room; in his absence, Barbe added a third in honor of the Holy Trinity. With the tip of her finger she made the sign of the cross on marble columns, and the sign became deeply engraved in them. Her angry father ran after her, sword in hand, but she fled through a mountain that opened for her. Her father went around the mountain and caught his daughter. She was whipped naked, but God covered her with a white cloud; at last her father cut off her head. This is what the Fleur des Saints relates.
The second example is Prince Hermenegild. He rebelled against the king his father, fought him in 584, was defeated, and was killed by an officer. He has been made a martyr because his father was an Arian.
4 “A Dominican came into my dungeon and threatened me with the same kind of death if I did not renounce my faith. This I attest before God, July 23, 1762.”
Pierre Calas.
5 Counterfeit editions were printed in several cities, and Madame Calas lost the benefit of this generosity.
6 Devout comes from the Latin word devotus. The Devoti of ancient Rome were men who devoted themselves to the salvation of the republic: men such as Curtius and the Decii.
Plain English translation
Independent, complete machine-assisted Plain English translation directly from French, reviewed against it. All 25 chapters, author’s notes and added Article with six edition references are retained. Article transcription: French Wikisource, Garnier 1879, revision 15479820. Translation and Article: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.
On the death of Jean Calas.
A brief account of the death of Jean Calas.
The murder of Calas, committed in Toulouse by the sword of justice on March 9, 1762, is one of the most extraordinary events deserving the attention of our time and of future generations. We soon forget the crowds of dead who have perished in countless battles. This is not only because death is the unavoidable fate of war, but because those who die by force of arms could also have killed their enemies, and did not die without defending themselves. Where the danger and the advantage are equal, we stop being shocked, and even our pity grows weaker. But suppose an innocent father is handed over to error, passion, or fanaticism. Suppose the accused has nothing to defend him but his good character, and those who decide his fate risk nothing by killing him except being wrong. Suppose they can kill with impunity by issuing a judgment. Then the public cries out. Everyone fears for themselves. We see that no one's life is safe before a court established to protect the lives of citizens, and everyone joins in demanding retribution.
This strange case involved religion, suicide, and the killing of a family member. The question was whether a father and mother had strangled their son to please God, whether a brother had strangled his brother, whether a friend had strangled his friend, and whether the judges had to blame themselves for having an innocent father broken on the wheel or for sparing a guilty mother, brother, and friend.
Jean Calas, aged sixty-eight, had worked as a merchant in Toulouse for more than forty years. Everyone who had lived with him knew him as a good father. He was a Protestant, as were his wife and all his children except one, who had renounced heresy and received a small allowance from his father. Calas seemed so far from the absurd fanaticism that breaks every bond of society that he approved of the conversion of his son Louis Calas. He had also kept a devoted Catholic servant in his house for thirty years, and she had brought up all his children.
One of Jean Calas's sons, named Marc-Antoine, was a man of letters. He was thought to have a restless, gloomy, and violent temperament. This young man could not succeed in business, for which he had no aptitude. Nor could he qualify as a lawyer, because he needed certificates proving he was Catholic, which he could not obtain. He decided to end his life and gave one of his friends some hint of his plan. He strengthened his resolve by reading everything ever written about suicide.
At last, one day, after losing his money gambling, he chose that very day to carry out his plan. A friend of his and of his family, named Lavaisse, had arrived1 from Bordeaux the day before. He was nineteen, the son of a well-known Toulouse lawyer, and was known for his honesty and gentle manners. He happened to have supper with the Calas family. The father, the mother, their eldest son Marc-Antoine, and their second son Pierre ate together. After supper they went into a small sitting room. Marc-Antoine disappeared. Finally, when young Lavaisse was ready to leave, he and Pierre Calas went downstairs. There, near the shop, they found Marc-Antoine hanging from a door in his shirt, with his clothes folded on the counter. His shirt was not even disarranged. His hair was neatly combed. There was no wound or bruise on his body.2
I pass over all the details the lawyers have reported. I will not describe the parents' grief and despair. Their cries were heard by the neighbors. Lavaisse and Pierre Calas, beside themselves, ran to get surgeons and the legal authorities.
While they were doing this, and while the father and mother were sobbing and weeping, the people of Toulouse gathered around the house. These people are superstitious and hotheaded. They regard their fellow human beings who do not share their religion as monsters. It was in Toulouse that people solemnly thanked God for the death of Henry III and swore to cut the throat of the first person who spoke of recognizing the great and good Henry IV as king. Every year this city still marks, with a procession and bonfires, the day when it massacred four thousand heretical citizens two centuries ago. Six decrees of the Council have forbidden this hateful festival in vain. The people of Toulouse have always celebrated it, just as they celebrate the Floral Games.
Some fanatic in the crowd shouted that Jean Calas had hanged his own son Marc-Antoine. The shout was repeated, and in a moment everyone was saying it. Others added that the dead man had been due to renounce his faith the next day, and that his family and young Lavaisse had strangled him out of hatred for the Catholic religion. A moment later no one doubted it. The whole city was convinced that Protestants believe a father and mother have a religious duty to murder their son as soon as he wants to convert.
Once people's minds are inflamed, they do not stop. People imagined that the Protestants of Languedoc had met the day before and chosen, by majority vote, an executioner from their sect. The choice had fallen on young Lavaisse. Within twenty-four hours, this young man had received news of his election and arrived from Bordeaux to help Jean Calas, his wife, and their son Pierre strangle a friend, a son, a brother.
Mr. David, a capitoul, or city magistrate, of Toulouse, was stirred up by these rumors. Wanting to make a name for himself by acting quickly, he conducted proceedings in violation of the rules and ordinances. The Calas family, the Catholic servant, and Lavaisse were put in chains.
A church summons calling for testimony was published, as defective as the proceedings themselves. Things went further. Marc-Antoine Calas had died a Calvinist, and if he had killed himself, his body should have been dragged on a hurdle. Instead, he was buried with the greatest pomp in the church of Saint-Étienne, despite the parish priest, who protested against this desecration.
There are four brotherhoods of penitents in Languedoc: the white, the blue, the gray, and the black. The members wear a long hood with a cloth mask pierced with two holes to let them see. They tried to persuade the Duke of Fitz-James, commander of the province, to join their order, but he refused. The white penitents held a solemn service for Marc-Antoine Calas as a martyr. No church ever celebrated the feast of a real martyr with greater pomp. But this pomp was terrifying. Above a magnificent funeral platform they had set up a skeleton that could be made to move. It represented Marc-Antoine Calas, holding a palm branch in one hand and, in the other, the pen with which he was supposed to sign his renunciation of heresy. In fact, it was writing his father's death sentence.
Now the unfortunate man who had killed himself lacked only canonization. All the people regarded him as a saint. Some called on him in prayer; others went to pray at his grave. Some asked him for miracles; others told stories of miracles he had performed. A monk pulled out some of his teeth to obtain lasting relics. A devout woman, who was somewhat deaf, said she had heard the bells ringing. A priest suffering from apoplexy recovered after taking an emetic. Official records were drawn up of these wonders. The writer of this account has a written statement that a young man in Toulouse went mad after praying for several nights at the new saint's tomb and failing to obtain the miracle he begged for.
Some of the magistrates belonged to the white penitents. From that moment, Jean Calas's death seemed certain.
What did most to prepare the way for his execution was the approaching date of that strange festival the people of Toulouse celebrate every year in memory of the massacre of four thousand Huguenots. The year 1762 was the two-hundredth anniversary. The city was making preparations for the ceremony, and this further inflamed the people's already heated imaginations. People said publicly that the scaffold on which the Calas family would be broken on the wheel would be the festival's finest ornament. They said Providence itself was bringing these victims to be sacrificed to our holy religion. Twenty people heard these remarks, and still more violent ones. And this is happening in our own day! At a time when philosophy has made so much progress! When a hundred academies are writing to encourage gentler behavior! It seems that fanaticism, recently outraged by the successes of reason, is struggling beneath it with greater fury.
Thirteen judges met every day to conclude the trial. There was no evidence against the family, nor could there be any. But misguided religion took the place of evidence. Six judges long insisted on condemning Jean Calas, his son, and Lavaisse to the wheel, and Jean Calas's wife to the stake. The other seven, more moderate, wanted at least to investigate. Their debates were repeated and lengthy. One judge, convinced that the accused were innocent and the crime impossible, spoke forcefully in their favor. He opposed the zeal for severity with a zeal for humanity. In every house in Toulouse he became the public defender of the Calas family, while the constant cries of misled religion demanded these unfortunate people's blood. Another judge, known for his violent temper, spoke against the Calas family throughout the city with as much fury as the first showed eagerness to defend them. At last the scandal became so great that both were obliged to withdraw from the case. They retired to the country.
But through a strange misfortune, the judge favorable to the Calas family was scrupulous enough to maintain his withdrawal, while the other returned to vote against people he should not have been judging. His vote secured the sentence of death on the wheel. There were eight votes against five, since one of the six opposing judges had finally joined the harsher side after much argument.
When the charge is the killing of a family member, and a father is to be handed over to the most terrible torture, it seems the verdict should be unanimous. The evidence for such an unheard-of crime3 should be plainly obvious to everyone. In a case like this, the slightest doubt should be enough to make a judge tremble before signing a death sentence. Every day we feel the weakness of our reason and the inadequacy of our laws. But when do their failings become clearer than when a single deciding vote sends a citizen to be broken on the wheel? In Athens, fifty votes beyond half the total were needed before anyone dared pronounce a death sentence. What follows from this? Something we know, to no practical purpose: the Greeks were wiser and more humane than we are.
It seemed impossible that Jean Calas, an old man of sixty-eight whose legs had long been swollen and weak, could single-handedly have strangled and hanged a son of twenty-eight who was unusually strong. His wife, his son Pierre Calas, Lavaisse, and the servant must all have helped him carry it out. They had not left one another for a single moment that fatal evening. But this supposition was just as absurd as the other. How could a devoted Catholic servant have allowed Huguenots to murder a young man she had brought up, to punish him for loving her own religion? How could Lavaisse have come all the way from Bordeaux to strangle his friend, knowing nothing about his supposed conversion? How could a loving mother have laid hands on her son? How could they all have strangled a young man as strong as all of them together without a long and violent struggle, without terrible cries that would have brought the whole neighborhood, without repeated blows, bruises, or torn clothes?
It was obvious that if this family murder could have been committed, all the accused were equally guilty, because they had not left one another for a moment. It was obvious that they were not guilty. It was obvious that the father alone could not be guilty. Yet the judgment condemned this father alone to die on the wheel.
The reasoning behind the judgment was as incomprehensible as everything else. The judges determined to have Jean Calas executed persuaded the others that this weak old man could not withstand torture. Under the executioners' blows, he would confess his crime and that of his accomplices. They were confounded when, dying on the wheel, the old man called on God to witness his innocence and begged him to forgive his judges.
They were obliged to issue a second judgment contradicting the first, releasing the mother, her son Pierre, young Lavaisse, and the servant. But one of the court's judges pointed out that this judgment contradicted the other and condemned the judges themselves. All the accused had always been together at the time of the supposed murder. Releasing all the survivors therefore proved beyond dispute that the father they had executed was innocent. They then decided to banish his son Pierre Calas. This banishment seemed as inconsistent and absurd as everything else. Pierre Calas was either guilty or innocent of the murder. If guilty, he should have been broken on the wheel like his father. If innocent, he should not have been banished. But the judges were frightened by the father's execution and the moving piety with which he had died. They imagined they could save their honor by letting people believe they were showing mercy to the son—as though showing such mercy would not itself have been another abuse of office. They thought that banishing this young man, poor and without support, would have no consequences and was no great injustice after the one they had had the misfortune to commit.
They began by threatening Pierre Calas in his dungeon with the same treatment as his father unless he renounced his religion. This is what the young man4 states under oath.
As Pierre Calas was leaving the city, he met an abbé who sought converts and brought him back to Toulouse. He was shut up in a Dominican convent and forced to perform all the duties of a Catholic. This was part of what they wanted. It was the price of his father's blood, and the religion they thought they had avenged seemed satisfied.
The daughters were taken from their mother and shut up in a convent. This woman, almost drenched in her husband's blood, had held her eldest son dead in her arms. Now her other son was banished, her daughters were taken away, and she was stripped of all her property. She was alone in the world, without bread or hope, dying from the weight of her misery. Some people carefully examined every circumstance of this horrible affair. They were so appalled that they urged Madame Calas, who had withdrawn into seclusion, to dare to come and ask for justice at the foot of the throne. At that point she could scarcely support herself; her life was fading. Besides, she was English by birth and had been brought to a French province as a young child. The very name of Paris frightened her. She imagined that the kingdom's capital must be even more barbarous than Toulouse. At last the duty of vindicating her husband's memory overcame her weakness. She arrived in Paris close to death. She was astonished to find a welcome, help, and tears.
In Paris, reason gets the better of fanaticism, however great it may be. In the provinces, by contrast, fanaticism almost always gets the better of reason.
Mr. de Beaumont, a celebrated lawyer of the Parlement of Paris, immediately took up her defense and drew up a legal opinion signed by fifteen lawyers. Mr. Loiseau, no less eloquent, wrote a statement of the case in the family's favor. Mr. Mariette, a lawyer at the Council, drew up a legal petition that convinced everyone who read it.
These three generous defenders of the law and of innocence gave the widow the proceeds from publishing their arguments.5 Paris and all Europe were moved to pity and joined this unfortunate woman in demanding justice. The entire public had pronounced its judgment long before the Council could sign it.
Pity reached even the ministry, despite the constant flood of business that often leaves no room for it, and despite the habit of seeing unfortunate people, which can harden the heart still more. The daughters were returned to their mother. All three were seen wearing black crape and bathed in tears, bringing tears to the eyes of their judges.
Yet this family still had some enemies, because religion was involved. Several people who in France are called devout6 said openly that it was much better to let an innocent old Calvinist be broken on the wheel than to expose eight judges of Languedoc to admitting they had been wrong. People even used this expression: “There are more magistrates than members of the Calas family.” From this they concluded that the Calas family must be sacrificed to the honor of the judiciary. They did not consider that judges' honor, like everyone else's, consists in repairing their mistakes. In France we do not believe that the pope, assisted by his cardinals, is infallible. We might likewise believe that eight judges in Toulouse are not infallible. All other sensible and disinterested people said that the Toulouse judgment would be overturned throughout Europe, even if particular considerations prevented its being overturned in the Council.
This was the state of this astonishing affair when it led some impartial but compassionate people to offer the public a few thoughts on tolerance, forbearance, and compassion. The Abbé Houteville calls compassion a monstrous doctrine in his inflated and factually mistaken tirade. Reason calls it a quality belonging to human nature.
Either the judges of Toulouse, carried away by the crowd's fanaticism, had an innocent father broken on the wheel—something without precedent—or this father and his wife strangled their eldest son, helped in this family murder by another son and a friend—something contrary to nature. In either case, the abuse of the holiest religion has produced a great crime. It is therefore in humanity's interest to examine whether religion should be charitable or barbarous.
1 October 12, 1761.
2 After the body was taken to the town hall, all that was found on it was a small scratch on the tip of the nose and a small mark on the chest, caused by some carelessness while moving it.
3 I know of only two examples in history of fathers accused of murdering their sons for religion. The first is the father of Saint Barbara, whom we call Saint Barbe. He had ordered two windows for his bathroom. In his absence, Barbe had a third made in honor of the Holy Trinity. With the tip of her finger she made the sign of the cross on marble columns, and the sign was deeply engraved in them. Her angry father ran after her, sword in hand, but she escaped through a mountain that opened up for her. Her father went around the mountain and caught his daughter. She was whipped naked, but God covered her with a white cloud. Finally her father cut off her head. This is what the Fleur des Saints reports.
The second example is Prince Hermenegild. He rebelled against his father the king, fought him in 584, was defeated, and was killed by an officer. He has been made a martyr because his father was an Arian.
4 “A Dominican came into my dungeon and threatened me with the same kind of death if I did not renounce my religion. I state this before God, July 23, 1762.”
Pierre Calas.
5 Unauthorized editions were printed in several cities, and Madame Calas lost the benefit of this generosity.
6 Devout comes from the Latin word devotus. The Devoti of ancient Rome were those who devoted themselves to saving the republic. They were men like Curtius and the Decii.
About this section
Chapter I is part of Treatise on Tolerance by Voltaire. This page sets the French original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 1 of 26 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
Open the work page for the full contents, every edition, and the download links, or go back to Explore to browse other complete works in the European tradition. The reader keeps your place when you are signed in and lets you compare the original with each translation, one edition at a time.