nor of being admitted to the bar as a lawyer, as not being able to obtain the requifite certificates of his being a catholic, refolved to lay violent hands upon himself, and gave fome intimation. of his defign to one of his friends: in order to confirm himself in the refolution he had formed, he carefully collected every thing that had been written upon the fubject of fuicide, all which he read with great attention; at length, one day having loft all his money at play, he chose that as a most proper opportunity for putting his design in execution. One Lavaiffe, a young man of nineteen years of age, the fon of a lawyer in great repute at Toulouse, and , who was esteemed by every one who knew

him, happened to come from Bourdeaux the evening before * ; when he went by chance to fup with the Calas family at their houfe, being an acquaintance of that family's, and of Mark. Anthony Calas in particular. Old Calas, his wife, Mark Anthony their eldest son, and Peter their second son, supped all together that evening; after fupper was over, they retired into another room, when Mark Anthony fuddenly disappeared. After fome time, young Lavaiffe took his

12 October, 1761,

Leave, and Peter Calas accompanied him down stairs; when they came to the warehoufe they faw Mark Anthony hanging in his fhirt behind the door, and his coat and waistcoat folded up and laid upon the counter; his fhirt was not in the leaft rumpled, nor his hair, which he had dreffed that day, in any wife difordered; there was no wound upon his body, nor any other mark of violence

We shall not here enter into all the minute circumstances with which the lawyers have filled their briefs; nor fhall we attempt to defcribe the grief and distraction of the unhappy parents; their cries were heard by the whole neighbourhood. Lavaiffe and Peter Calas, almoft befide themfelves, ran, the one to fetch a furgeon, and the other an officer of justice. While they were thus employed, and old Calas and his wife in all the agonies of grief, the people of the town gathered in crouds about the houfe: The Touloufians area fuperftitious and

After the body was carried to the town-house indeed, there was found a little fcratch upon the end of the nose, and a small black and blue spot upon the breast; but these were probably occaLioned by fome carelessness in removing the corpfe. head

B 3

head-strong people, and look upon every one, even their own relations, who are not of the fame religion of themselves, as monsters and objects of deteftation. It was at Toulouse that a folemn thanksgiving was ordered for the death of Henry III. and that the inhabitants took an cath to murder the first perfon who should propofe to acknowledge that great and good prince Henry IV. for their fovereign; and this fame city ftill continues to folemnize, by an annual proceffion, illuminations, and bonfires, the day in which about two hundred years ago, it ordered the maffacre of four thoufand of its citizens for being heretics. In vain has the coun cil iffued fix arrets, prohibiting the keeping this deteftable anniversary, the Touloufians still continuing to celebrate it as a high feftival.

Some one among the mob, a greater enthusiast than the reft, cried out, that John Calas himfelf had hanged his fon; this cry became in an inftant unanimous: fome perfons taking occafion to observe, that the deceafed was to have made his abjuration as the next day, and that his own family and young Lavaiffe had murdered him, out of the hatred they bore to the catholic religion, no fooner was this opinion broached, than it was fully believed by

every one; and the whole town was perfuaded, that it is one of the articles of the proteftant religion, for a father or mother to murder their own son, if he attempts to fhew any inclination to change his fath.

When the minds of the populace are once put into a ferment, they are not easily appeared; it was now imagined, that all the proteftants of Languedoc had assembled together the preceding night, and had chofen by a plurality of voices, one of their fect for an executioner; that the choice had fallen upon Lavaiffe; that this young man had, in lefs than four and twenty hours, received the news of his election, and had come from Bourdeaux to affift John Calas, his wife, and their son Peter, to murder a fon, a brother, and a friend.

The fieur David, capitoul of Toulouse, inftigated by those rumours, and being defirous to make himself be taken notice of, by the ready execution of his office, took a ftep contrary to all the established rules and ordinances, by ordering the Calas family, together with their catholic maid fervant and Lavaifle, to be put in irons.

After this a monitary was published, which was as erroneous as the former step. Nay, matters were carried ftill farther; Mark Anthony Calas had certainly died a Calvinist, and as fuch, if he had laid violent hands upon himfelf, his body ought to have been dragged upon a hurdle; whereas it was interred with the greateft funeral pomp in the church of St. Stephen, notwithstanding the curate entered his protest against this profanation of holy ground.

There are in Languedoc four orders of peni tentiaries, the white, the blue, the grey, and the black, who wear a long capuchin or hood, having a mask of cloth falling down over the face, in which are two holes for the fight. These orders wanted the duke of Fitz-James to become one of their body, but he refused them. On the prefent occafion the white penitentiaires performed a folemn fervice for Mark Anthony Calas as for a martyr; nor was the feftival of a real martyr ever celebrated with greater pomp by. any church but then this. pomp was truly terrible. Beneath a magnificent canopy was placed a skeleton, which was made to move by springs; this skeleton was to reprefent Mark Anthony Calas, holding in one band a branch of palm, and, in the other, the

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