Calas, JEAN, a Frenchman, remembered as the unhappy victim of fanaticism and injustice, was born in Languedoc in 1698. He lived as a tradesman of good character in Toulouse. In 1761, one evening after supper, the eldest son of the Calas family, Marc Antoine, a youth addicted to gambling, and subject to fits of deep melancholy, was found hanged in the warehouse. There was not a shadow of a reason for doubting that the young man committed suicide; but popular rumour accused the father, or other members of the Calas family, of murdering the eldest son, 'because he had contemplated conversion to Catholicism.' It was also asserted that a young man named Lavaysse, who was in the house on the fatal evening, had been despatched 'by the Protestants of Guyenne to perpetrate the murder.' The clergy exerted all their influence to confirm the populace in their delusion. In consequence of the popular excitement the family of Calas was brought to trial for the murder, and several deluded and (perhaps) some bribed witnesses appeared against them. A Catholic servant-maid and the young man Lavaysse were also implicated in the accusation. Calas brought forward many most convincing arguments in his defence, but they were of no avail, and the parliament of Toulouse sentenced the wretched man—by a majority of 8 votes against 5—to torture and death on the wheel! The old man was accordingly put to death on the wheel in 1762. His property was confiscated. His youngest son was banished for life from France, but was captured by the monks, and compelled to abjure Protestantism. The daughters were sent to a convent. The young man Lavaysse was acquitted, and the widow of Calas escaped into Switzerland, where she was so fortunate as to excite the benevolent interest of Voltaire, who brought the whole affair before the public, and, in his book Sur la Tolérance, proved that Calas had fallen a victim to religious hatred and popular fanaticism. A revision of the trial followed, and, after full investigation, the parliament at Paris in 1765 declared Calas and all his family innocent.
Louis XV. gave the sum of 30,000 livres to the bereaved family, but neither the parliament of Toulouse nor the fanatical monks were ever brought to account. See Coquerel, Calas et sa Famille (2d ed. 1870); Dryander, Der Prozess Calas (1887).