Читать книгу The Essential Works of Robert G. Ingersoll - Robert Green Ingersoll - Страница 177

Table of Contents

TOULOUSE was a favored town. It was rich in relics. The people were as ignorant as wooden images, but they had in their possession the dried bodies of seven apostles—the bones of many of the infants slain by Herod—part of a dress of the Virgin Mary, and lots of skulls and skeletons of the infallible idiots known as saints.

In this city the people celebrated every year with great joy two holy events: The expulsion of the Huguenots, and the blessed massacre of St. Bartholomew. The citizens of Toulouse had been educated and civilized by the church.

A few Protestants, mild because in the minority, lived among these jackals and tigers.

One of these Protestants was Jean Calas—a small dealer in dry goods. For forty years he had been in this business, and his character was without a stain. He was honest, kind and agreeable. He had a wife and six children—four sons and two daughters. One of the sons became a Catholic. The eldest son, Marc Antoine, disliked his father's business and studied law. He could not be allowed to practice unless he became a Catholic. He tried to get his license by concealing that he was a Protestant. He was discovered—grew morose. Finally he became discouraged and committed suicide, by hanging himself one evening in his father's store.

The bigots of Toulouse started the story that his parents had killed him to prevent his becoming a Catholic.

On this frightful charge the father, mother, one son, a servant, and one guest at their house, were arrested.

The dead son was considered a martyr, the church taking possession of the body.

This happened in 1761.

There was what was called a trial. There was no evidence, not the slightest, except hearsay. All the facts were in favor of the accused.

The united strength of the defendants could not have done the deed.

Jean Calas was doomed to torture and to death upon the wheel. This was on the 9th of March, 1762, and the sentence was to be carried out the next day.

On the morning of the 10th the father was taken to the torture room. The executioner and his assistants were sworn on the cross to administer the torture according to the judgment of the court.

They bound him by the wrists to an iron ring in the stone wall four feet from the ground, and his feet to another ring in the floor. Then they shortened the ropes and chains until every joint in his arms and legs was dislocated. Then he was questioned. He declared that he was innocent. Then the ropes were again shortened until life fluttered in the torn body; but he remained firm.

This was called "the question ordinaire."

Again the magistrates exhorted the victim to confess, and again he refused, saying that there was nothing to confess.

Then came "the question extraordinaire."

Into the mouth of the victim was placed a horn holding three pints of water. In this way thirty pints of water were forced into the body of the sufferer. The pain was beyond description, and yet Jean Calas remained firm.

He was then carried to the scaffold in a tumbril.

He was bound to a wooden cross that lay on the scaffold. The executioner then took a bar of iron, broke each leg and each arm in two places, striking eleven blows in all. He was then left to die if he could. He lived for two hours, declaring his innocence to the last. He was slow to die, and so the executioner strangled him. Then his poor lacerated, bleeding and broken body was chained to a stake and burned.

All this was a spectacle—a festival for the savages of Toulouse. What would they have done if their hearts had not been softened by the glad tidings of great joy—peace on earth and good will to men?

But this was not all. The property of the family was confiscated; the son was released on condition that he become a Catholic; the servant if she would enter a convent. The two daughters were consigned to a convent, and the heart-broken widow was allowed to wander where she would.

Voltaire heard of this case. In a moment his soul was on fire. He took one of the sons under his roof. He wrote a history of the case. He corresponded with kings and queens, with chancellors and lawyers. If money was needed, he advanced it. For years he filled Europe with the echoes of the groans of Jean Calas. He succeeded. The horrible judgment was annulled—the poor victim declared innocent and thousands of dollars raised to support the mother and family.

This was the work of Voltaire.

THE SIRVEN FAMILY.

Sirven, a Protestant, lived in Languedoc with his wife and three daughters. The housekeeper of the bishop wanted to make one of the daughters a Catholic.

The law allowed the bishop to take the child of Protestants from their parents for the sake of its soul. This little girl was so taken and placed in a convent. She ran away and came back to her parents. Her poor little body was covered with the marks of the convent whip.

"Suffer little children to come unto me."

The child was out of her mind—suddenly she disappeared, and a few days after her little body was found in a well, three miles from home.

The cry was raised that her folks had murdered her to keep her from becoming a Catholic.

This happened only a little way from the Christian City of Toulouse while Jean Calas was in prison. The Sirvens knew that a trial would end in conviction. They fled. In their absence they were convicted, their property confiscated, the parents sentenced to die by the hangman, the daughters to be under the gallows during the execution of their mother, and then to be exiled.

The family fled in the midst of winter; the married daughter gave birth to a child in the snows of the Alps; the mother died, and, at last reaching Switzerland, the father found himself without means of support.

They went to Voltaire. He espoused their cause. He took care of them, gave them the means to live, and labored to annul the sentence that had been pronounced against them for nine long and weary years. He appealed to kings for money, to Catharine II. of Russia, and to hundreds of others. He was successful. He said of this case: The Sirvens were tried and condemned in two hours in January, 1762, and now in January, 1772, after ten years of effort, they have been restored to their rights.

This was the work of Voltaire. Why should the worshipers of God hate the lovers of men?

THE ESPENASSE CASE.

Espenasse was a Protestant, of good estate. In 1740 he received into his house a Protestant clergyman, to whom he gave supper and lodging.

In a country where priests repeated the parable of the "Good Samaritan," this was a crime.

For this crime Espenasse was tried, convicted and sentenced to the galleys for life.

When he had been imprisoned for twenty-three years his case came to the knowledge of Voltaire, and he was, through the efforts of Voltaire, released and restored to his family.

This was the work of Voltaire. There is not time to tell of the case of General Lally, of the English General Byng, of the niece of Corneille, of the Jesuit Adam, of the writers, dramatists, actors, widows and orphans for whose benefit he gave his influence, his money and his time. But I will tell another case:

In 1765, at the town of Abbeville, an old wooden cross on a bridge had been mutilated—whittled with a knife—a terrible crime. Sticks, when crossing each other, were far more sacred than flesh and blood. Two young men were suspected—the Chevalier de la Barre and D'Etallonde. D'Etallonde fled to Prussia and enlisted as a common soldier.

La Barre remained and stood his trial.

He was convicted without the slightest evidence, and he and D'Etallonde were both sentenced:

First, to endure the torture, ordinary and extraordinary.

Second, to have their tongues torn out by the roots with pincers of iron.

Third, to have their right hands cut off at the door of the church.

Fourth, to be bound to stakes by chains of iron and burned to death by a slow fire.

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

Remembering this, the judges mitigated the sentence by providing that their heads should be cut off before their bodies were given to the flames.

The case was appealed to Paris; heard by a court composed of twenty-five judges, learned in the law, and the judgment was confirmed.

The sentence was carried out on the first day of July, 1766.

When Voltaire heard of this judicial infamy he made up his mind to abandon France. He wished to leave forever a country where such cruelties were possible.

He wrote a pamphlet, giving the history of the case.

He ascertained the whereabouts of D'Etallonde, wrote in his behalf to the King of Prussia; got him released from the army; took him to his own house; kept him for a year and a half; saw that he was instructed in drawing, mathematics, engineering, and had at last the happiness of seeing him a captain of engineers in the army of Frederick the Great.

Such a man was Voltaire. He was the champion of the oppressed and the helpless. He was the Cæsar to whom the victims of church and state appealed. He stood for the intellect and heart of his time.

And yet for a hundred and fifty years those who love their enemies have exhausted the vocabulary of hate, the ingenuity of malice and mendacity, in their efforts to save their stupid creeds from the genius of Voltaire.

From a great height he surveyed the world. His horizon was large. He had some vices—these he shared in common with priests—his virtues were his own.

He was in favor of universal education—of the development of the brain. The church despised him. He wished to put the knowledge of the whole world within the reach of all. Every priest was his enemy. He wished to drive from the gate of Eden the cherubim of superstition, so that the children of Adam might return and eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The church opposed this because it had the fruit of the tree of ignorance for sale.

He was one of the foremost friends of the Encyclopedia—of Diderot, and did all in his power to give information to all. So far as principles were concerned, he was the greatest lawyer of his time. I do not mean that he knew the terms and decisions, but that he clearly perceived not only what the law should be, but its application and administration. He understood the philosophy of evidence, the difference between suspicion and proof, between belief and knowledge, and he did more to reform the laws of the kingdom and the abuses at courts than all the lawyers and statesmen of his time.

At school, he read and studied the works of Cicero—the lord of language—probably the greatest orator that has uttered speech, and the words of the Roman remained in his brain. He became, in spite of the spirit of caste, a believer in the equality of men. He said:

"Men are born equal."

"Let us respect virtue and merit."

"Let us have it in the heart that men are equal." He was an abolitionist—the enemy of slavery in all its forms. He did not think that the color of one man gave him the right to steal from another man on account of that man's color. He was the friend of serf and peasant, and did what he could to protect animals, wives and children from the fury of those who loved their neighbors as themselves.

It was Voltaire who sowed the seeds of liberty in the heart and brain of Franklin, of Jefferson and Thomas Paine.

Pufendorf had taken the ground that slavery was, in part, founded on contract.

Voltaire said: "Show me the contract, and if it is signed by the party to be the slave, I may believe."

He thought it absurd that God should drown the fathers, and then come and die for the children. This is as good as the remark of Diderot: "If Christ had the power to defend himself from the Jews and refused to use it, he was guilty of suicide."

He had sense enough to know that the flame of the fagot does not enlighten the mind. He hated the cruel and pitied the victims of church and state. He was the friend of the unfortunate—the helper of the striving. He laughed at the pomp of kings—the pretensions of priests. He was a believer in the natural and abhorred with all his heart the miraculous and absurd.

Voltaire was not a saint. He was educated by the Jesuits. He was never troubled about the salvation of his soul. All the theological disputes excited his laughter, the creeds his pity, and the conduct of bigots his contempt. He was much better than a saint.