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Updated: June 8, 2025
It is part of that general Catholic revival which has been working for some years, and which like a fog is spreading over the face of opinion.... The memory of Calas had been vindicated by Voltaire and the Encyclopedists. That was quite enough for the Catholics.... It is the characteristic of Catholicism that it supersedes reason, and prejudges all matters by the application of fixed principles.
From the borders of the Lake of Geneva, from his solitude at Genthod, Charles Bonnet, far from favorable generally to Voltaire, writes to Haller, "Voltaire has done a work on tolerance which is said to be good; he will not publish it until after the affair of the unfortunate Calas has been decided by the king's council.
If Voltaire could not write like Fénelon, at least he could never talk like Tartufe; he responded to no tale of wrong with words about his mission, with strings of antitheses, but always with royal anger and the spring of alert and puissant endeavour. In an hour of oppression one would rather have been the friend of the saviour of the Calas and of Sirven, than of the vindicator of theism.
In this letter, which appeared in the issue of the 19th, I began by establishing a comparison between Zola and Voltaire, whose action with regard to the memory of Jean Calas I briefly epitomised.
Churchmen would have insisted that Wolmar was really a Christian dressed up as an atheist, and philosophers would hardly have accepted Julie as a type of the too believing people who broke Calas on the wheel, and cut off La Barre's head.
In the midst of the free publication of obscene books, there had also appeared, before the execution of Calas, the Marquis de Mirabeau's "Ami des Hommes," Rousseau's "Émile," the "Contrat Social," with other works, denying religion of all kinds, and pointing to the general downfall, which was now fast approaching. When the Calas family took refuge in Geneva, Voltaire soon heard of their story.
We have to realise that official religion was then a strange union of Byzantine decrepitude, with the energetic ferocity of the Holy Office. Within five years of this indirect plea of D'Alembert for tolerance and humanity, Calas was murdered by the orthodoxy of Toulouse.
An illogical act on Voltaire's part, we may remark, by the way; for Voltaire would have defended Jesus as he defended Calas; and even for those who deny superhuman incarnations, what does the crucifix represent? The assassinated sage. In this nineteenth century, the religious idea is undergoing a crisis.
The public mind became inflamed. A fanatical judge, called David, took up the case, and ordered Calas and his whole family to be sent to prison. Calas was tried by the court of Toulouse. They tortured the whole family to compel them to confess the murder; but they did not confess.
It is no use that M. Coquerel flatters himself that he has set the matter at rest. He flatters himself in vain; he ought to know his Catholic countrymen better: We have little doubt that as long as the Catholic religion shall last their little manuals of falsified history will continue to repeat that Jean Calas murdered his son because he had become a convert to the Catholic faith.
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