k at men who held good
lives but at the corrupt who shamed their calling. The horrors of the
Inquisition were being revived by zealous Jesuits who were losing
authority through the increasing strength of another party of the
Catholic Church, then known as Jansenists.

The Jansenists followed the doctrines of Calvin in their belief in
predestination and the necessity for conversion, but they differed
widely from the Protestants on many points, holding that a man's soul
was not saved directly he was converted although conversion might be
instantaneous. They were firmly convinced that each human soul should
have personal relation with its Maker, but held that this was only
possible through the Roman Church. Their chief cause of quarrel with
the Jesuits was the accusation brought against the priests of that
order that they granted absolution for sins much too readily and
without being certain of the sinners' real repentance.

Voltaire's blood boiled when he heard that three young Protestants had
been killed because they took {164} up arms at the sound of the tocsin,
thinking it was the signal for rebellion. He received under his
protection at Geneva the widow and children of the Protestant Calas,
who had been broken on the wheel in 1762 because he was falsely
declared to have killed his son in order to prevent his turning
Catholic. A youth, named La Barre, was sentenced, at the instance of a
bishop, to have his tongue and right hand cut off because he was
suspected of having tampered with a crucifix. He was condemned to
death afterwards on the most flimsy evidence.

Voltaire was all aflame at the ignorance of such fanatics. There was
laughter in the writings of the unbelievers of the time, but it was
laughter inspired by the miserable belief that jesting was the only
means of enduring that which might come. "Witty things do not go well
with massacres," Voltaire commented. There was force in him to
destroy, and he set about destruction.

The clergy had refused in 1750 to bear their share of taxation, though
one-fifth of France was in their hands. Superstition inevitably tends
to make bad citizens, the philosopher observed, and set forth the evils
to society that resulted from the idle lives which were supported by
the labour of more industrious subjects. But in his praiseworthy
attack upon the spirit of the Catholicism of his day which stooped to
basest cruelty, Voltaire appealed always to intelligence rather