Father Bourges said to him: “My dear brother, you have but a moment to live. By that God whom you invoke, in whom you hope, and who died for you, I conjure you to glorify the truth.” “I have said it,” answered Calas; “I die innocent. Jesus Christ, innocence himself, was willing to die a more cruel death.”
“Unhappy man,” cried one of his judges, “see the faggot that shall reduce thy body to ashes; confess the truth.” The old man gave him no answer; he turned away his head, and received the final blow.
“The Fathers Bourges and Caldaguès,” writes Count de Gébelin, in his twenty-third Toulousaine, “were honourable persons. These two monks have conferred the highest praises upon his memory. Although Calas died a Protestant, they have fearlessly said—Thus died our martyrs of old.”
The widow and children of Calas demanded the repeal of this iniquitous sentence. Voltaire supported their cause with his powerful voice. The most celebrated advocates, Elie de Beaumont, Mariette, Loyseau de Mauléon, interfered; and on the 9th of March, 1765, three years exactly, day for day, after the fatal execution, a decree of the council reversed the judgment of the Parliament of Toulouse, with the unanimity of fifty votes. The sentence that restored the family of Calas, tore its bloody axe from the hands of fanaticism, and branded its forehead with an ignominy that will never be effaced.
XV.
The end of this period is the counterpart of the last years which preceded it. A century before, from 1660 to 1685, each day witnessed new acts of tyranny, and laid a heavier yoke upon the neck of the Reformed people. From 1760 to 1787, on the contrary, each day lightened their burden. Four generations of persecutors and of victims had perished in the interval.
The sanguinary executions that we have just related, far from injuring the Reformed churches, turned to their advantage. Respectable people blushed to resemble, in the most distant degree, the judges and priests of Toulouse. They became tolerant as much upon a point of honour, as through a sentiment of justice. The Prince de Beauveau, who succeeded the Marshal de Thomond in the government of Languedoc, was loyal, generous, and also religious. He had several interviews with the patriarch of the desert, Paul Rabaut, and granted to the Protestants all he could under the existing régime of the laws of intolerance.
Fifteen months after the death of Rochette and Calas, in June, 1763, a national synod was held in Languedoc. All the provinces, with the exception of those of the north, were represented at it. The pastors and elders, emboldened by public opinion, addressed a new petition to the king, and held firmer language in speaking to their co-religionists. “All the members of the synod,” they said, “have renewed with a holy alacrity, as well in their own name, as in that of their provinces, the solemn promise to maintain with all their power ... that union so just and so advantageous, by persevering in the profession of the same faith, in the celebration of the same worship, the practice of the same morality, the exercise of the same discipline, and in rendering each other the mutual help and services which show that, like the first Christians, they are only of one heart and one soul.”
Local or personal vexations annoyed the churches, but without intimidating them, or disturbing their tranquillity. In Poitou and elsewhere, the faithful had prepared houses of prayer, which were demolished by order of the public authorities, and some soldiers were even billeted upon a few families. The same was also done in Béarn, which was a puerile parody of the dragonnades.