by the criminal court of Thoulouse. One voted
him innocent, but after long debates the majority was for the torture
and wheel, and probably condemned the father by way of experiment,
whether he was guilty or not, hoping he would, in the agony, confess the
crime, and accuse the other prisoners, whose fate therefore, they
suspended.

Poor Calas, however, an old man of 68, was condemned to this dreadful
punishment alone. He suffered the torture with great constancy, and was
led to execution in a frame of mind which excited the admiration of all
that saw him, and particularly of the two Dominicans (father Bourges and
father Coldagues) who attended him in his last moments, and declared
that they thought him not only innocent of the crime laid to his charge,
but an exemplary instance of true christian patience, fortitude, and
charity. When he saw the executioner prepared to give him the last
stroke, he made a fresh declaration to father Bourges, but while the
words were still in his mouth, the capitoul, the author of this
catastrophe, and who came upon the scaffold merely to gratify his desire
of being a witness of his punishment and death, ran up to him, and
bawled out, "Wretch, there are the fagots which are to reduce your body
to ashes! speak the truth." M. Calas made no reply, but turned his head
a little aside, and that moment the executioner did his office.

The popular outcry against this family was so violent in Languedoc, that
every body expected to see the children of Calas broke upon the wheel,
and the mother burnt alive.

Young Donat Calas was advised to fly into Switzerland: he went, and
found a gentleman who, at first, could only pity and relieve him,
without daring to judge of the rigour exercised against the father,
mother, and brothers. Soon after, one of the brothers, who was only
banished, likewise threw himself into the arms of the same person, who,
for more than a month, took every possible precaution to be assured of
the innocence of the family. Once convinced, he thought himself obliged,
in conscience, to employ his friends, his purse, his pen, and his
credit, to repair the fatal mistake of the seven judges of Thoulouse,
and to have the proceedings revised by the king's council. This revision
lasted three years, and it is well known what honour Messrs. de Grosne
and Bacquancourt acquired by investigating this memorable cause. Fifty
masters of the Court of Requests unanimously declared the whole famil