pen with which he was to fign his abjuration. of herefy; or rather, as the fequel proved, the death-warrant of his father.

And now nothing more remained to be done for this wretch who had been his own murderer but the office of canonization; the people, already to a man, looked upon him as a faint, some invoked him, fome went to pray at his tomb, fome befought him to work miracles, while others gravely recounted those he had already. performed; a monk pulled out one or two of his teeth, in order to have fome lafting relics; an old woman, more pious than the rest, but unhappily troubled with a deafness, declared, that she had heard the found of bells very plain at his interment; and a priest was cured of an apoplectic fit, after taking a ftout emetic: verbal proceffes were drawn up of thefe ftupendious. miracles; and the author of this account has in his poffeffion an affidavit, to prove, that a young man of Toulouse, had his brain turned, on having. prayed feveral nights fucceffively at the tomb. of the new faint, without having been able to obtain the miracle he requested of him.

Among the order of the white penitentiaries there were fome magiftrates of juftice; the death of John Calas feemed then inevitable.

But what more particularly haftned his fate, was the approach of that fingular festival, which, as I have already observed, the Touloufians celebrate every year, in commemoration of the maffacre of four thousand Hugonots; the year 1762, happenened to be the annum feculare of this execrable deed. The inhabitants were bufied in making preparations for the folemnity; this circumftance added fresh fuel to the heated imagination of the populace: every one cried out, that a feaffold for executing the Calas family upon, would be one of the greatest ornaments of the ceremony; and that heaven itself feemed to have brought them thither as victims, to be facrificed to our holy religion. Twenty perfons were ear witneffes to these fpeeches, and to others ftill more outrageous. And this, in the prefent age! this at a time when philosophy has made fo great a progrefs! and while the pens of an hundred academies are employed in inculcating humanity and gentleness of manners! It fhould feem, that enthufiafm, enraged at the late

fuccefs of reason, fought under her standard with redoubled fury.

Thirteen judges met every day, to try this caufe: they had not, they could not, have any proof against this unhappy family; but mistaken zeal held the place of proofs. Six of the judges continued a long time obftinate, being refolved to fentence John Calas, his fon, and Lavaiffe, to be broke upon the wheel, and his wife to be burnt at the ftake; the other feven judges, rather more moderate, were at leaft for having the accufed examined; the debates were frequent and long. One of the judges, convinced in his mind of the innocence of the parties, and of the impoffibility of the crime laid to their charge, spoke warmly in their favour; he opposed the zeal of humanity to that of cruelty, and openly pleaded the cause of the Calas family in all the houses of Toulouse where mifguided religion demanded with inceffant cries the blood of thefe unfortunate wretches.. Another judge, well known for his violence and severity, went about the town, raving with as much fury against the accufed, as his brother had been earnest in defending them. In fhort, the conteft became fo warm, that both

were obliged to enter protests against each other's proceedings, and retire into the country.

But by a strange fatality, the judge who had been on the favourable fide, had the delicacy to perfift in his exceptions, and the other returned back to give his vote against those on whom he could no longer fit as judge; and it was his fingle vote which carried the fentence of being broke upon the wheel against them, there being eight voices against five, one of the fix merciful judges being at laft, after much conteftation, brought over to the rigorous fide.

In my opinion, in cafes of parricide, and. where the mafter of a family is to be devoted to the most dreadful. punishment, the fentence ought to be unanimous; inasmuch, as the proofs of fo unparalleled of a crime, ought to be

* I know of but two inftances in history of fathers having murdered their children on the score of religion; the firft is the father of St. Barbara, as she is called; it seems he had ordered two windows to be made in his bathing-room. St. Barbara. in his abfence, took it into her head to make a third in honour of the holy trinity: she also with the end

of

proved, in fuch a manner, as to fatisfy all the world; and the leaft fhadow of a doubt in a cafe of this nature, should be fufficient to make the judge tremble, who is about to pass sentence of death. The weakness of our reason, and the infufficiency of our laws, become every day more obvious; but furely, there cannot be a

of her finger made the fign of the crofs upon the marble pillars; which remained deeply impreffed. thereon: her father, in a violent fury to have his room thus marked, runs after her with his fword in his hand with an intention to kill her; The flies towards a mountain, which very com plaifantly opens upon her approach to give her a paflage, Her father finds himself obliged to go round about, and at length gets hold of his fugitive daughter, whom he ftrips and prepares to scourge; but God envelopes her with a white cloud; how ever, after all, her father caused her head to be ftruck off: This is the ftory, as we find it related. in the book called, The Flower of Saints.

The second inftance is of prince Hermenegildus who raised a rebellion against the king his father, and gave him battle in the year 584, but was himfelf defeated and flain by one of his father's generals however, he has been placed among the martyrs, because his father was an Arian.

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