Home › Jean Calas

Jean Calas

The Calas affair is a court case which took place in the middle of the ^eighteenth century to Toulouse , made famous by the intervention of Voltaire.

The case is indicative of treatment, at the time a suspect and accused, without the support of a lawyer (replaced by appointed lampoons lampoons), where a hierarchy of evidence (adminicule and monitory ), the confidentiality of investigations and proceedings inquisitorial process the suspect propitiation.

Summary

1 The case

2 Chronology detailed ^{The case}

Calas family lived at 16, rue des Filatiers (now No. 50) at Toulouse. On 13 October 1761 , the eldest son, Mark Antony, was found hanged in the family shop, to a door. Murder or suicide? Still, the Galas (the father and younger brother John in particular) are accused of murder while they claim to have separated Marc-Antoine for the latter does not undergo the treatment meted out to then committed suicide.

But Calas, a Protestant denomination, except one son, Louis, who converted to Catholicism, continue to practice their faith, and that is enough for the sheriff 's David Beaudrigue convinced by rumors alleging the neighborhood will Marcus Antoine really choose the Catholic religion, requires further investigation and make Jean Calas to submit the question.

The constriction is imposed to Jean Calas after the verdict of the trial by the Parliament of Toulouse. The latter condemned to death on 10 March 1762 , unless the ruling is justified. Calas was condemned to the torture of the wheel. He underwent the question, a long session of torture, but admit nothing. He protested his innocence. Roue Place Saint-Georges, Jean Calas was strangled and then burned two hours later.

Exiled, another son of Jean Calas, Pierre, went to the city Calvinist in Geneva , where he met Voltaire. The philosopher believes first and draws the charge based initially on an incendiary letter Jean Calas. But, convinced of his innocence by Peter, he formed thereafter a pressure group with friends and uses his corrosive irony that justice is done.

In order to obtain a retrial, Voltaire published in 1763 , the book Treatise on Tolerance on the occasion of the death of Jean Calas while the family gets an interview at Versailles with Louis XV. The sheriff is to say the municipal officer of Toulouse, which had largely contributed to mount the false accusations against Calas, was deposed. In 1765 , Voltaire manages to review the case and obtain a ruling declaring Calas innocent and rehabilitates his memory.

The trial of Calas was inserted into the causes celebres. It has provided Marie-Joseph Chnier , to Jean-Louis Laya and Auguste-Jacques Lemierre d'Argy topic of popular dramas. Athanase Coquerel published in 1858 Jean Calas and his family.

Detailed chronology ^Gallery

"The unfortunate Calas family. " Engraving of Jean-Baptiste Delafosse according Carmontelle (1765). "Legend: The Mother, two daughters, Jeanne viguieri, good servant, the Son and his friend, the young Lavaysse. "

The farewell of Calas, Engraving Daniel Chodowiecki

Click on a thumbnail to enlarge

References

Source: Magister site.

Bibliography / filmography

The Calas affair , episode of The camera explores the time , 1963, (visible on the site of the INA).
Note the existence of a TV movie of Francis Reusser , Voltaire and the Calas affair , which tells the Calas case and the intervention of Voltaire. The role of the famous philosopher is played by Claude Rich. The movie is released April 4, 2007 on Television Suisse Romande (TSR), who co-produced, and January 23, 2009 on Arte. It should also be released at the cinema.
On business in general and in particular the importance of the intervention model of Voltaire in the Calas case and that of Chevalier de la Barre , cf. L. Boltanski et al. ed., Business, scandals and great causes, From Socrates to Pinochet, Paris, Stock, 2007.
Calas innocent: the evidence of science, Michel Porret, History 323 (Sept. 2007) 69-73.