CHAPTER XXV.
SEQUEL AND CONCLUSION.
On the 7th of March, 1763, a council of state being held at Versailles, at which all the great ministers assisted and the chancellor sat as president, M. de Crosne, one of the masters of requests, made a report of the affair of the Calas family with all the impartiality of a judge, and the precision of one perfectly well acquainted with the case, and with the plain truth and inspired eloquence of an orator and a statesman, which is alone suitable to such an assembly. The gallery was filled with a prodigious number of persons of all ranks, who impatiently waited the decision of the council. In a short time a deputation was sent to the king to acquaint him that the council had come to a unanimous resolution: that the parliament of Toulouse should transmit to them the whole account of its proceedings, together with the reasons on which it had framed the sentence condemning John Calas to be broken on the wheel; when his majesty was pleased to concur in the decree of the council.
Justice and humanity then still continue to reside amongst mankind! and principally in the council of a king beloved, and deserving so to be; who, with his ministers, his chancellor and all the members of his council, have not disdained to employ their time in weighing all the circumstances relating to the sufferings of a private family with as much attention as if it had been the most interesting affair of war or peace; whilst the judges have shown themselves inspired by a love of equity and a tender regard to the interests of their fellow-subjects. All praise be given therefore to that Merciful Being, the only giver of integrity and every other virtue.
And here we take occasion to declare that we never had the least acquaintance with the unfortunate man who was condemned on the most frivolous evidence by the court of justice of Toulouse, in direct contradiction to the ordinances of our king and the laws of all nations, nor with his son, Mark Antony, the extraordinary manner of whose death led the judges into the error they committed; nor with the mother, whose sufferings call aloud for compassion, nor yet with her innocent daughter, who, together with her, travelled upwards of six hundred miles to lay their virtue and distresses at the foot of the throne.
The God in whose presence we declare this knows that we have been actuated solely by the love of justice, mercy, and truth, in delivering our thoughts in the manner we have done on toleration, in regard to John Calas, who fell a victim to non-toleration and persecution.
We had not the least intent to offend the eight judges of Toulouse in saying that they were mistaken, as the council of state itself supposes them to have been; on the contrary, we have opened a way for them to vindicate themselves to all Europe by acknowledging that equivocal circumstances, and the clamor of a headstrong and enraged populace, had biassed their judgment; and by asking pardon of the widow and repairing as much as in them lies the ruin they have brought upon an innocent family, by adding to the number of those who succor them in their affliction. They have put the father to death unjustly; let them then be as fathers to his children, provided those children are willing to accept of this poor token of repentance from them. It would be infinitely to the honor of the judges to make such an offer, and to that of the injured family to refuse it.
But it principally behooves the Sieur David, capitol of Toulouse, to set the example of remorse and penitence, who was the first to raise this persecution against innocence, and who insulted the hapless father of a family when expiring on the scaffold. This was indeed an unparalleled act of cruelty; but as God is willing to show mercy and forgiveness it is the duty of mortals to pardon in like manner those who make atonement for their offences.
I have received a letter from a friend in Languedoc, dated the 20th of February, 1763, of which the following is an extract:
“Your treatise on toleration appears to be full of humanity and truth; but I am afraid it will rather hurt than serve the Calas family. It may gall the eight judges who were for the sentence, and they may apply to the parliament to have your book burnt; besides, the bigots, of whom you are sensible there is always a considerable number, will oppose the voice of reason with the clamors of prejudice,” etc.
My answer was as follows:
“The eight judges of Toulouse may, if they please, have my book burnt. It will cost them very little trouble, since the “Provincial Letters,” which had infinitely superior merit to anything of mine, were condemned to the same fate. Every one, you know, is at liberty to burn in his own house such books as he does not like.
“My treatise cannot possibly do either hurt or good to the Calas family, with whom I have not the least acquaintance. The king’s council is no less resolute than impartial; it judges according to law and equity of those things which fall properly under its cognizance; but it will not interfere with a common pamphlet, written upon a subject altogether foreign from the affair under consideration.
“If a hundred volumes in folio should be written in condemnation or vindication of the judges of Toulouse, or of toleration, neither the council nor any other court of justice would look upon these as law matters.
“I readily agree with you that there are numbers of enthusiasts who will set up the cry against me, but at the same time I do insist that I shall have as many sensible readers who will make use of their reason.
“I hear that the Parliament of Toulouse and some other courts of justice have a method of proceeding peculiar to themselves. They admit fourths, thirds, and sixths of a proof; so that with six hearsays on one side, three on the other, and four-fourths of a presumption, they frame three complete proofs; and in consequence of this curious demonstration will condemn you a man to be broken upon the wheel without mercy. Now, the least acquaintance with the art of logic or reasoning would point out a different method of proceeding to them. What we call a half proof can never amount to more than a suspicion; but there is no such thing in reality as a half proof; for a thing must either be proved or not proved; there is no medium.
“A million of suspicions put together can no more frame a regular proof than a million of ciphers can compose an arithmetical number.
“There are fourths of tones or sounds in music, and these are to be expressed; but there are no fourths in truths, nor in reasoning.
“Two witnesses agreeing in the same deposition, are esteemed to make a proof; but this is not enough; these two witnesses should be clear of all passion and prejudice, and, above all, their testimony should be in every part consonant with reason.
“Suppose four persons of the most respectable appearance were to come and swear in a court of justice that they saw an infirm old man take a vigorous young fellow by the collar and toss him out of a window, to the distance of six or seven feet; certainly such deponents ought to be sent to a madhouse.
“But the eight judges of Toulouse condemned John Calas upon a much more improbable accusation; for there was no one appeared to swear that he had actually seen this feeble old man of seventy seize a stout young fellow of twenty-eight, and hang him up. Indeed, certain enthusiastic wretches said that they had been told by other enthusiasts like themselves that they had been told by some of their own sect that they had heard that John Calas had by a supernatural strength overcome his son and hanged him. And thus was the most absurd of all sentences passed upon the most absurd of all evidence.
“In fine, there is no remedy against such kind of proceedings but that those who purchase their seats in a court of justice should, for the future, be obliged to study a little better.”
This treatise on toleration is a petition which humanity with all submission presents to power and prudence. I have sowed a grain that may perhaps produce a rich harvest. We may hope everything from time, from the goodness of the heart of our gracious monarch, the wisdom of his ministers, and the spirit of sound reason, which begins to diffuse its salutary influence over all minds.
Nature addresses herself thus to mankind: “I have formed you all weak and ignorant, to vegetate a few moments on that earth which you are afterwards to fatten with your carcasses. Let your weakness then teach you to succor each other, and as you are ignorant, bear with and endeavor mutually to instruct each other. Even if ye were all of the same way of thinking, which certainly will never come to pass, and there should be one single person only found amongst you who differed from you in belief, you ought to forgive him, for it is I who make him think in the manner he does. I have given you hands to cultivate the earth, and a faint glimmering of reason to conduct yourselves by, and I have planted in your hearts a spirit of compassion, that you may assist each other under the burden of life. Do not smother that spark, nor suffer it to be corrupted, for know it is of divine origin; neither substitute the wretched debates of the schools in the place of the voice of nature.
“It is I alone who unite you all, in despite of yourselves, by your mutual wants, even in the midst of those bloody wars that you undertake for the slightest causes, and that afford a continual scene of error, chances, and misfortunes. It is I alone who, in a nation, prevent the fatal effects of the inextinguishable differences that subsist between the sword and the law, between those two professions and the clergy, and between even the citizen and the husbandman. Though ignorant of the limits of their own prerogatives, they are in spite of themselves obliged to listen to my voice, which speaks to their hearts. It is I alone who maintain equity in the courts of judicature, where otherwise everything would be determined by error and caprice, in the midst of a confused heap of laws, framed too often at a venture and to supply an immediate call, differing from each other in every province and town, and almost always contradictory in the same place. I alone can inspire the love and knowledge of justice, while the laws inspire only chicanery and subterfuge. He who listens to me seldom forms a wrong judgment, while he who seeks only to reconcile contradictory opinions loses himself in the fruitless labor.
“There is an immense edifice whose foundation I laid with my own hands. It was at once solid and simple; all mankind might have entered into it with safety, but they, in seeking to ornament, overloaded it with useless and fantastic decorations. The building is continually falling to decay, and they gather up the stones to throw at one another; while I am incessantly calling out to them, ‘Hold, madmen! clear away the ruins with which you are surrounded, and which you yourselves have made; come and live with me in uninterrupted tranquillity within my mansion, that is not to be shaken.’”