occurred before the final catastrophe. The
fearful prejudice entertained by the judges left
no doubt whatever on their minds. As they
had insisted from the beginning that Marc
Antoine had been strangled by his relations, they
were obliged to hold, without further proof
that he had become a convert to Catholicism.
Suicide had nothing to do with Marc Antoine's
death; therefore it was a case of martyrdom. As
a logical sequence, and as a lesson to mankind,
his memory must be honoured by a funeral of
the utmost magnificence. Here we see that
martyrdom is no novelty as a rallying cry in
religious warfare. David and his associates
resolved to bury the defunct in consecrated
ground, and the curé of St. Etienne, the Calas's
parish, agreed to perform the ceremony.

Every circumstance of the funeral pomp was
calculated to excite the public mind and prepare
it for the coming jubilee. A Sunday was selected,
in order that the whole population might join
the procession. Forty priests marched to the
Hotel de Ville, to precede the body: which had
been preserved in lime. The whole Fraternity
of the White Penitents, acting on a rumour that
Marc Antoine had intended to join that religious
association, followed the corpse with tapers
and banners. A few days afterwards, the same
Fraternity celebrated in their chapel a solemn
service for Marc Antoine's soul. The church
was hung with white, and on the top of a splendid
catafalque they placed a skeleton hired from
a surgeon for the occasion. The skeleton held
in one hand the palm of martyrdom, and in
the other a streamer inscribed, ABJURATION or
HERESY. On the catafalque was the name of
Marc Antoine Calas. At this service all the
religious fraternities of the town were present,
and the Grey Friars soon afterwards performed
a similar ceremony.

How was it possible to doubt that Marc
Antoine belonged to the Catholic Church?
How was it possible to doubt the father's
guilt? A less impressionable population than
that of Toulouse might have been persuaded
of the facts, perhaps. The pretended martyr's
own brother, Louis the Convert, sanctioned
the ceremony by his presence. True, he could
not bear the sight of the hideous skeleton;
he was taken ill and was carried out. He
even dared to ask what right they had to claim
his elder brother as one of their body. "Did
you not tell us yourself," they rejoined, "that
the deceased fully intended to join the White
Penitents? " Shortly, Marc Antoine was more
than a martyr; he was on his way to become a
saint. Miracles were wrought over his grave.

The father's examination in the torture
chamber resulted in nothing but clear and
consistent assertions of innocence. It was a
fearful trial for the unhappy man; a moment's
weakness, an inability to bear increase of pain,
an ambiguous expression, would have involved
in his own condemnation four persons very deal
to him; namely, his wife, his son Pierre, the
servant Jeanne, and his friend's son, Lavaysse
The interrogation was long, and when it was
concluded, he had not strength left to sign it; but his
uoral firmness stamped it with the seal of truth.
On perusing it, we can perceive that the judges,
hitherto so prepossessed against him, begin to
be tormented with a secret anxiety.

In the eyes of the multitude, Jean Calas's
sentence was only an incident in the holy war which
religion was waging against impiety.
Consequently, on the day of the execution, the tenth
of March, one thousand seven hundred and
sixty-two, the excitement at Toulouse was very
great. Not a single Protestant family dared
to stir out of doors; the houses where Huguenots
dwelt, were recognised by their closed shutters.
One solitary member of the reformed religion
astonished the town by his fearlessness;
Dr. Sol walked about the streets and visited his
patients as if nothing unusual were taking place.

As the fatal procession proceeded to its
destination, the windows were filled with thousands
of faces, and the roofs were covered with
spectators. Tradition tells that on the way,
the poor old man passed before his own house,
where he had spent so many peaceful and happy
years. He asked permission to kneel down in
the cart, and bestow a blessing on his dwelling.
Then, began a reaction in the minds of the crowd.
This simple and touching act unsealed the eyes
of many. "I am innocent," he continued to
repeat, without anger and without despair. At
the foot of the scaffold, Father Bourges, who
attended him, said, "My dear brother, you have
only a moment to live; by the God whom you
invoke, and who died to save you, I conjure you
to let the truth shine forth in all its glory!"

"What, father!" Galas replied, "do you,
too, believe that it is possible to kill one's own
son?"

When his bones crunched under the first
blow of the executioner's iron bar, a fearful
cry escaped him; the other blows he bore
without a murmur, as well as without a word of
angry passion or vengeance. "My God!" he
said, "forgive my judges; they have been
deceived by false witnesses!" When they
exhorted him to name his accomplices, he
answered, "Alas! Where there is no crime, how can
there be accomplices?" David, in a terrible
state of agitation, rushed on the scaffold and
shouted to his victim, "Wretch! behold the
pile of wood ready lighted to reduce your body
to ashes. Speak the truth!" Calas, now
unable to speak, cast a last look to Heaven and
turned his head on one side. His two hours on
the wheel had been completed; the executioner
took pity on him, and strangled him. Riquet de
Bourepos, the public prosecutor, hastened to
meet Father Bourges, inquiring, "Well, Father!
Well! Has our man confessed?"

"Not a word. He died protesting his
innocence."

"He died like one of our own martyrs,"
added a Dominican monk who was present at
the execution. Riquet de Bourepos turned pale
and held his tongue.

The subsequent sufferings of the surviving
family would occupy many pages to relate. In