[1] Probably adopting a name which is known to have existed among his mother’s ancestors. But it is curious that “Voltaire” is an anagram of his name—Arouet l (e) j (eune)—if u be read as v and j as i.
[2] The condition of Toulouse will be best understood from a description of these processions which Voltaire gives elsewhere. In front walked the shoemakers, bearing the authentic head of a prince of Peloponnesus, who had been Bishop of Toulouse during the lifetime of Christ. After them came the slaters, carrying the bones of the fourteen thousand children slain by Herod; the old-clothes dealers, with a piece of the dress of the Virgin Mary; and the tailors, with the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul.—J. M.
[3] I know only two instances in history of fathers being charged with killing their children on account of religion. The first is the case of the father of St. Barbara, or Ste. Barbe. He had had two windows made in his bath-room. Barbara, in his absence, had a third made, to honour the Holy Trinity. She made the sign of the cross on the marble columns with the tip of her finger, and it was deeply engraved on the stone. Her son came angrily upon her, sword in hand; but she escaped through a mountain, which opened to receive her. The father went round the mountain and caught her. She was stripped and flogged, but God clothed her in a white cloud. In the end her father cut off her head. So says the Flower of the Saints.
The second case is that of Prince Hermenegild. He rebelled against his father, the king, gave him battle (in 584), and was beaten and killed by an officer. As his father was an Arian, he was regarded as a martyr.
[4] Voltaire nobly conceals his work. It was he who, from his exile near Geneva, sent for young Calas, made searching inquiries in Toulouse, and instructed the Parisian lawyers to appeal. He enlisted the interest of English and French visitors at Geneva, and there was “a rivalry in generosity between the two nations.” After a long struggle with the Toulouse authorities the sentence was reversed at Paris amid general enthusiasm. The King very generously pensioned the widow and the other victims.—J. M.
[5] Thanks to Voltaire and to the progress of Rationalism at Paris, she was received with the greatest enthusiasm and generosity.—J. M.
[6] In ancient Rome the devoti were those who devoted themselves to the good of the Republic.
[7] The Catholic Church did not discover the infallibility of the Pope until 1870, since which date his lips have remained, officially, closed.—J. M.
[8] A thrust at the Jesuits.—J. M.
[9] The Catholic League for the suppression of Protestantism in France, in the second half of the sixteenth century, led to much war and bloodshed.—J. M.