What was the calas affair?

Voltaire, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

Voltaire answers

The murder of Jean Calas by the sword of justice, on the 9th of March, 1762, is the affair.1 He was sixty-eight years old, a Protestant merchant of Toulouse, forty years in the trade, known as a tender parent, a man who had never quarrelled with anyone.2 His own household included a Catholic maidservant he had kept for thirty years, and a son who had converted — whom he supported with an annuity and whose conversion he had approved.3

None of this saved him. His son Marc-Antoine was found dead, and the city of Toulouse, then holding a jubilee in memory of a massacre two centuries old, decided the father had strangled the boy to prevent his converting to Rome.4 The evidence was circumstantial to the point of being nothing at all.5 The capitoul David consulted the executioner on the manner of death; it was the executioner's opinion, not the lawyers', that drove the sentence forward.6

Six judges voted for the wheel; a single one voted to set him free.7 The sentence: the Question, ordinary and extraordinary — that is, torture — until he named his accomplices; then to be broken alive on the wheel; to remain there two hours; then burned.8 Under torture he said only: Where there is no crime, how can there be accomplices? He went to the scaffold with the same answer, and those who watched him pass wept — even the ordinary people, no longer gripped by the fanaticism that had condemned him.910

The family was ruined. The widow and daughters were restored to one another eventually, their judges weeping as they did it — which did not prevent certain devout persons from saying openly that it was better to let an innocent Calvinist die than to compel eight Councillors of Languedoc to admit they were wrong.11 The phrase one heard was: there are more magistrates than Calas. The Council of State ultimately took the case.12

The Court of Requests, a sovereign court, reviewed the identical evidence that had sent Calas to his death.13 The verdict was reversed. The rehabilitation came too late for the man on the wheel, which is the ordinary condition of justice when fanaticism has had its way first. What the affair demonstrates is the proposition at the centre of the Traité: either the judges of Toulouse broke an innocent man on the wheel, which is unprecedented, or a father and mother strangled their son with the assistance of a friend, which is unnatural.14

In either case, the abuse of religion produced a great crime — and that is precisely why the question of whether religion ought to be charitable or barbaric is not an academic one.

Sources

  1. The murder of John Calas, committed in Toulouse with the sword of justice, the 9th of March, 1762, is an event which, on account of its singularity, calls for the attention of the present age, and that of posterity.
    Works Vol IV, Romances III and A Treatise on Toleration
  2. This feeble old man, aged sixty-eight, who had never quarrelled with anyone, who had never laid a hand on any of his children, was condemned to die in the most horrible fashion.
    Chapter x), p. 141
  3. He had for above thirty years kept in his house a maid-servant, who was a zealous Catholic, and who had brought up all his children.
    Works Vol IV, Romances III and A Treatise on Toleration
  4. The object of inquiry was, whether a father and a mother had murdered their own son with a view to please God.
    Works Vol IV, Romances III and A Treatise on Toleration
  5. The whole case against them rested on the flimsiest circumstantial evidence, to the everlasting shame of human reason.
    Chapter x), p. 141
  6. The honourable Monsieur David, a capitoul or senior magistrate of Toulouse, consulted the executioner as to how Marc-Antoine Calas had come to be hanged; so it was the opinion of the executioner which led to the death sentence, while the views of the lawyers were entirely neglected.
    Chapter x), p. 141
  7. This opinion was supported by six judges: three others were in favour only of torture, while another two were of the opinion that an investigation should be carried out... A single judge determined that Jean Calas should be set free.
    Chapter x), p. 141
  8. he should be subjected to the Question, both ordinary and extraordinary, until he confess his accomplices, that he should then be broken alive on the wheel, where he should remain for two hours, and that finally he should be burnt at the stake.
    Chapter x), p. 141
  9. Questioned about his accomplices while he was being tortured, he replied as follows: 'Where there is no crime, how can there be accomplices?'
    Chapter x), p. 141
  10. Those who saw him pass by were touched by the spectacle: even the ordinary people, no longer gripped by religious fanaticism, shed tears over his fate.
    Chapter x), p. 141
  11. The daughters were restored to their mother. As they sat, clothed in crape and bathed in tears, their judges were seen to weep.
    Toleration and Other Essays
  12. One even heard such phrases as 'There are more magistrates than Calas'; and it was inferred that the Calas family ought to be sacrificed to the honour of the magistrates.
    Toleration and Other Essays
  13. The Court of Requests is a sovereign court composed of Masters of the Requests... The court sat to deliberate upon the identical evidence as had served to send Jean Calas to his death and his son Pierre into exile.
    Chapter x), p. 131
  14. Either the judges of Toulouse, swept away by the fanaticism of the people, have broken on the wheel an innocent man, which is unprecedented; or the father and his wife strangled their elder son, with the assistance of another son and a friend, which is unnatural. In either case the abuse of religion has led to a great crime.
    Toleration and Other Essays