a destiny inevitably connected with a life of warfare, but because those who thus fall might alfo have given death to their enemies, and did not lofe their lives till after having first stood in their own defence. Where the danger and the advantage are equal, our wonder ceafes, and even pity itfelf is in fome measure leflened; but where the father of an innocent family is delivered up to the fword of error, prejudice, or enthufiafm, where the accufed perfon has no other defence but his confcious virtue; where the arbiters of his deftiny have nothing to hazard in putting him to death, but the having been mistaken, and where they may murder with impunity under the fanction of a judicial procefs; then every one is ready to cry out, every one brings the cafe home to himfelf, and fees with fear and trembling, that no perfon's life is in fafety in a court erected to watch over the lives of the fubject; the public unite in demanding vengeance. In this ftrange affair, we find religion, felf-murder and parricide blended. The object of enquiry was, whether a father and a mother had murdered their own fon with a view to please God, and whether a brother had murdered his brother, or a friend his friend; or whether the judges judges had to reproach themselves with having publickly executed an innocent father, or with having acquitted a guilty mother, brother, and friend. John Calas, a perfon of fixty-eight years of age, had followed the profeffion of a merchant at Toulouse for upwards of forty years, and had always borne the character of a tender parent in his family and neighbourhood: he was himself by religion a proteftant, as was alfo his wife, and all his children, one fon only excepted, who had abjured heresy, and to whom the father allowed a small annuity; indeed, the good man appeared fo far from being infected with that abfurd zeal, which deftroys the bands of fociety, that he even approved of the converfion. of his fon Lewis Calas: he had for above thirty years kept in his house a maid fervant, who was a zealous catholic, and who had brought up. all his children. Another of his fons, whofe name was Mark Anthony, was a man of letters, but, at the fame time, of a restlefs, gloomy, and impetuous difpofition. This young man finding, that he had no profpect of getting into business as a merchant, for which indeed he was very unfit, B 2 nor S.Male del I. Hall sculp The Widow Calas petitioning the K. of France, against the Decree of the Judges of Toulouse. |