A Treatise on Tolerance (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading): and Other Writings

By - Voltaire and John R. Iverson

On March 10, 1762, Jean Calas, a Protestant merchant, was publicly executed in Toulouse, France. This punishment had been prescribed by the regional parliament, with hopes that Calas would confess to murdering his adult son in order to prevent his conversion to Catholicism. Steadfastly declaring his innocence, the elderly Huguenot expired after hours of suffering, his limbs broken one by one before the executioner strangled him and burned his corpse. These were the events that inspired VoltairesTreatise on Tolerance.  Even today the Treatise on Tolerance stands as one of the most important milestones in the acceptance of religious tolerance in the Western world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Sep 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781411429147

- Voltaire

Imprisoned in the Bastille at the age of twenty-three for a criminal libel against the Regent of France, François-Marie Arouet was freed in 1718 with a new name, Voltaire, and the completed manuscript of his first play, Oedipe, which became a huge hit on the Paris stage in the same year. For the rest of his long and dangerously eventful life, this cadaverous genius shone with uninterrupted brilliance as one of the most famous men in the world. Revered, and occasionally reviled, in the royal courts of Europe, his literary outpourings and fearless campaigning against the medieval injustices of church and state in the midst of the ‘Enlightenment’ did much to trigger the French Revolution and to formulate the present notions of democracy. But above all, Voltaire was an observer of the human condition, and his masterpiece Candide stands out as an astonishing testament to his unequalled insight into the way we were and probably always will be.

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE - A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE DEATH OF JEAN CALAS

CHAPTER TWO - CONSEQUENCES OF THE EXECUTION OF JEAN CALAS

CHAPTER THREE - A SKETCH OF THE REFORMATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

CHAPTER FOUR - WHETHER TOLERATION IS DANGEROUS, AND AMONG WHAT NATIONS IT IS PRACTICED

CHAPTER FIVE - IN WHAT CASES TOLERATION MAY BE ADMITTED

CHAPTER SIX - IF NON-TOLERATION IS AGREEABLE TO THE LAW OF NATURE AND OF SOCIETY

CHAPTER SEVEN - IF NON-TOLERATION WAS KNOWN AMONG THE GREEKS

CHAPTER EIGHT - WHETHER THE ROMANS ENCOURAGED TOLERATION

CHAPTER NINE - MARTYRS

CHAPTER TEN - THE DANGER OF FALSE LEGENDS AND PERSECUTION

CHAPTER ELEVEN - ILL CONSEQUENCES OF NON- TOLERATION

CHAPTER TWELVE - IF NON-TOLERATION WAS PART OF THE DIVINE LAW AMONG THE JEWS, ...

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - THE GREAT TOLERATION EXERCISED AMONG THE JEWS

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - IF NON-TOLERATION WAS TAUGHT BY CHRIST

CHAPTER FIFTEEN - TESTIMONIES AGAINST PERSECUTION

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - A CONVERSATION BETWEEN A DYING MAN AND ONE IN GOOD HEALTH

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - A LETTER FROM A BENEFICED PRIEST TO FATHER LETELLIER, THE ...

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - THE ONLY CASES IN WHICH NON-TOLERATION MAKES PART OF THE ...

CHAPTER NINETEEN - ACCOUNT OF A CONTROVERSIAL DISPUTE WHICH HAPPENED IN CHINA

CHAPTER TWENTY - WHETHER IT IS OF SERVICE TO INDULGE THE PEOPLE IN SUPERSTITION

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - VIRTUE IS BETTER THAN LEARNING

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - OF UNIVERSAL TOLERATION

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - AN ADDRESS TO THE DEITY

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - POSTSCRIPT

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - SEQUEL AND CONCLUSION

NEWLY ADDED ARTICLE, IN WHICH AN ACCOUNT IS GIVEN OF THE LATEST DECREE IN FAVOR ...

EDITOR’S NOTE

ADVERTISEMENT OF THE PUBLISHER

THE MEMORIAL OF DONAT CALAS, IN BEHALF OF HIS FATHER, HIS MOTHER, AND HIS BROTHER

THE DECLARATION OF PIERRE CALAS

ENDNOTES

SUGGESTED READING

001002003

Introduction, Appendix, and Suggested Reading © 2009 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

Originally published in 1763

This 2009 edition published by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

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Frontispiece: Le Déjeuné de Ferney, July 4, 1775 by Francois Denis Nee and

Louis-Joseph Masquelier (after a drawing by Vivant-Denon) / Chateaux

de Versailles et de Trianon; Versailles, France / Réunion des Musées

Nationaux / Art Resource, New York

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INTRODUCTION

ON MARCH 10, 1762, JEAN CALAS, A PROTESTANT MERCHANT, WAS publicly tortured and executed in Toulouse, France. This punishment had been prescribed by the regional parliament, with hopes that Calas would confess to murdering his adult son, Marc Antoine, in order to prevent his conversion to Catholicism. Steadfastly declaring his innocence, the elderly Huguenot expired after hours of suffering, his limbs broken one by one before the executioner strangled him and burned his corpse. These were the events that inspired Voltaire’s Treatise on Tolerance, written, as the full title indicates, on the occasion of the death of Jean Calas. With its impassioned account of the execution, the text constructs a powerful argument against intolerance and played a crucial role in Voltaire’s efforts to rehabilitate the memory of Jean Calas. As proof of the effectiveness of this campaign, the work concludes with a newly added article describing the public joy that greeted the proclamation of Calas’ innocence in 1765. Even today the Treatise on Tolerance stands as one of the most important milestones in the acceptance of religious tolerance in the Western world.

In 1763, when the Treatise appeared, Voltaire was sixty-nine years old, residing in Ferney near the Swiss border. Here, writing prolifi cally, he solidified his reputation as leader of the Enlightenment and produced his greatest works, championing the free exercise of critical reason. In 1759, Candide brilliantly satirized the philosophy of optimism and its passive acceptance of suffering. Candide’s conclusion that we must cultivate our garden was a declaration that we as human beings should focus on improving our world rather than wasting time in metaphysical speculation. In 1764, Voltaire gave this message an even sharper edge, broadening his attack in the Philosophical Dictionary. In this work, he exploited the apparent randomness of alphabetical order to mount a general assault on superstition, bigotry, and prejudice. In the interval between these two works, Voltaire further distinguished himself by tackling the defense of the Calas family. The result was the third masterwork from this fertile period, the Treatise on Tolerance. At the time of his death in 1778, Voltaire was recognized internationally as one of the greatest writers of the century and as the generous advocate of the Calas affair.

As a young man, Voltaire had pursued more conventional kinds of success, writing in traditional literary genres. Born in 1694 to a wealthy Parisian family, his given name was François Marie Arouet. He received his education at Louis le Grand, the most prestigious Jesuit school in France. In this setting, he studied the classics and engaged in literary endeavors, attracting attention for his poetry at the age of fifteen. In 1718, his staging of the Oedipus story—the first of some forty theatrical works—earned him accolades as the next great French tragedian. He also adopted the name he would use henceforward: Voltaire. Soon thereafter, he published the Henriade, an epic poem celebrating the rise to power of Henry IV, the first Bourbon monarch. By 1745, Voltaire’s fame as a writer, strengthened by connections at the court, earned him membership in the French Academy, the title of Royal Historiographer, and an honorary position as Gentleman of the Royal Chamber.

At the same time, Voltaire displayed a knack for getting in trouble. At age twenty-two, he had his first encounter with institutional repression when he was exiled from Paris on suspicion of composing satirical poetry. He also engaged in many high-profile literary quarrels, and his lively attacks on his enemies gained him a reputation for pugnacity and hypersensitivity. Most importantly, Voltaire took great interest in radical ideas and rapidly emerged as a leader of the Enlightenment in France. After a period of exile in England where many of these ideas originated, he published a volume of religious, political, and literary essays, the Letters Concerning the English Nation (1734), and an introduction to Newtonian physics that helped revolutionize scientific thinking in France (1738). In his theatrical works, he overturned conventions, introducing elements of the English stage to French audiences. Bold when possible, prudent when necessary, Voltaire navigated a complex system of censorship, sometimes publishing his works anonymously, sometimes withholding them from all but his closest acquaintances.

Permeating much of Voltaire’s creative output was an abhorrence for religious fanaticism and the bloodshed it could produce. One of the ten cantos in the Henriade was devoted to a stirring account of the Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572, in which Catholic priests incited their followers to slaughter the Protestants of France. In Voltaire’s tragedies, too, religious prejudice surfaced frequently. His first success, Oedipe, contained the statement (referring ostensibly to the pagan characters in the play), Priests are not really what the ignorant masses believe them to be. In Zaïre (1732) and Alzire (1736), he dramatized the cruelty of narrow Catholic parochialism. In the Poem on Natural Law (1756), he denounced polarizing sectarianism and celebrated the example of Frederick the Great, who put an end to religious strife in Prussia. Rather than an argument in favor of freedom of religion, Voltaire’s position in these works was primarily negative, a desire to prevent fanaticism from creating unwarranted suffering and political turmoil.

Religious strife was of particular pertinence in France, where divisive struggles had been a constant for two centuries. As chapter 3 of the Treatise explains, the Religious Wars of the sixteenth century had lacerated the country for nearly forty years, ending only in 1598 with Henry IV’s Edict of Nantes, which granted Protestants permission to practice their faith in certain locations. Nevertheless, periodic flare-ups continued to plague the country, and when, in 1685, Louis XIV felt his authority to be sufficiently strong, he revoked the Edict of Nantes. While many Protestants fled to Holland or England, those who remained in France were subject to repressive measures that limited professional opportunities, nullified marriages, and removed children from families. These conditions sparked a revolt in south-central France from 1702 to 1705, known as the War of the Camisards. Even within the Catholic Church, rival factions caused political turbulence. During Voltaire’s lifetime, a century of controversy between the Jansenists and the Jesuits was resolved only in 1762 when the Jesuits were expelled from France. (Chapters 16 and 17 of the Treatise evoke the persecution of the Jansenists, while the Newly Added Article reports the demise of the Jesuits.)

Despite this history of disorder and violence, advocates of intolerance continued to influence the policies of the French monarchy. The arguments they evoked were of two types. On the religious front, they asserted that it would offend God if heresies were not abolished. Also, they affirmed that it was the duty of orthodox Catholics to rescue heretics from error; select passages from the New Testament justified compulsory conversions. (On this score, see chapters 14 and 15 of the Treatise.) In the political realm, supporters of persecution deemed that religious unity was vital to the health of the nation. The dictum, One king, one law, one faith, encapsulated this idea; religious and political authority supposedly worked together to ensure order. Religious dissidents were suspect because of their split allegiances. Catholic authorities were particularly disturbed by mass Huguenot gatherings in remote locations in southern France, which seemed rife with potential for insurrection.

Civil tolerance nevertheless made significant headway in France prior to the Calas affair. During the 1750s, Protestant theologians used the seventeenth-century arguments of Pierre Bayle and John Locke to counter the logic of intolerance. They asserted that faith was largely a matter of conviction, governed directly by God. Deviation from orthodoxy was thus perceived as excusable since it was divinely inspired; at least, they pointed out, many points of dogma lacked clarity. They also objected that violent persecution could hardly be condoned by truly Christian ethics; in any case, such conduct produced hypocrites rather than sincere converts. They protested, finally, that followers of Protestantism rebelled only when they were subjected to coercion. If allowed to pursue their faith, they would be loyal French citizens, grateful to a compassionate monarch. In practical terms, as well, the idea of civil tolerance gained traction, as regional authorities recognized that it was unfeasible to enforce all the anti-Protestant measures. For the most part, they were content to punish only the most audacious challenges to rules prohibiting public assembly.

Still, local circumstances sometimes raised tensions and resulted in harsh punishments. Such was the case in Toulouse late in 1761. In September, the three Grenier brothers unsuccessfully attempted to liberate François Rochette, a Huguenot pastor who had been arrested for public preaching. Quickly, rumors of a Protestant uprising began to circulate in the region. When the body of Marc Antoine Calas was discovered on the evening of October 13, 1761, wild theories immediately sprang up, including accusations that Protestants were bound to kill relatives who might be planning to abjure their beliefs. Informed by mass hysteria, the subsequent investigation was fatally flawed. Anti-Protestant sentiment was exacerbated, too, by the spectacle of the hanging of Rochette and the beheading of the Grenier brothers (who, as noblemen, were entitled to a more dignified mode of execution) on February 19, 1762. On March 8, Jean Calas was condemned to be executed after being broken on the wheel; the sentence was applied the following day.

Word of these events reached Voltaire within two weeks. Initially, he accepted the official version of the story, writing in a letter on March 22, 1762, You have perhaps heard about a good Huguenot whom the Toulouse Parliament put to the wheel for having strangled his son. But this Reformed saint believed he was doing a good deed, given that his son wanted to become Catholic, so he was preventing an apostasy. He sacrificed his son to God and believed himself quite superior to Abraham, since Abraham did nothing but obey, while our Calvinist hanged his son of his own accord, on the bidding of his conscience. Clearly, Voltaire had no affection for Protestants; he readily believed their faith might lead them to commit infanticide. There was, however, something about the case that drove him to seek further information. Three days later, he remained convinced that the incident was a horrific example of religious fanaticism, but he was no longer sure whether the victim was the son (murdered by his father) or the father (unjustly convicted by the Catholic parliament). During the following weeks, influenced by interviews with the youngest son, Donat Calas, a refugee in Geneva, he came to the conclusion that a gross injustice had been committed; Jean Calas must be exonerated.

In fact, Voltaire was not the first defender of the Calas family. In Toulouse, several prominent Protestants had written accounts of the case, signaling errors in the proceedings and presenting evidence of the family’s innocence. But Voltaire’s intervention altered the course of the affair definitively, granting it a national and international audience. As an experienced polemicist and political agitator, he understood a two-pronged approach was called for to obtain a reex amination of the judgment. On the one hand, Voltaire knew that a reassessment would take place only if powerful members of the court ordered the Toulouse Parliament to hand over the documents from the case. He therefore worked behind the scenes, calling on his most influential friends in Versailles for support. On the other hand, he believed that it was essential to rouse public opinion; the second component of his campaign was a series of publications dramatizing the plight of the Calas family. In combination, these two modes of attack would lead to a revised decision, pronounced in the enlightened French capital, far from provincial prejudice.

Thus, starting in June 1762, Voltaire devoted tremendous energy to publicizing the Calas affair. It was a task that would absorb three full years. He pleaded the cause in hundreds of personal letters, enlisted the help of local friends in Geneva, convinced Madame Calas to appeal to the King, and recruited a Parisian lawyer for her. In addition, Voltaire penned a series of short testimonials, adopting the voice of various members of the Calas family and published during the summer of 1762. (See the appendix for two examples, the Memorial of Donat Calas and the Declaration of Pierre Calas.) Given the dramatic nature of the incident and Voltaire’s ability to promote his works (even those published anonymously), these testimonials soon found an international audience, translated into English, German, and Dutch.

In these Calas family texts, Voltaire limited his discussion to doubts about the guilt of Jean Calas and avoided raising broader questions that might be perceived as a challenge to the policies of the monarchy. His goal at this point was largely practical—simply to set the revision process in motion—and he did not want to suggest that the Calas affair might undermine governmental authority. Only at the end of 1763, when preliminary steps for an official revision of the judgment had been taken, did Voltaire release the Treatise on Tolerance, a work he mentioned in his correspondence as early as October 1762. In this text, drafted specifically for an enlightened audience composed of members of the ruling class, Voltaire argued for a more liberal policy on the part of the French state. Indeed, beyond humanitarian concerns, national interest is the strongest claim the philosophe makes for religious tolerance. Fanaticism and persecution are, in a word, bad for France; tolerance is good. Initially, copies were sent primarily to sympathetic members of the court, including the duc de Choiseul, the powerful secretary of state, and Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV’s favorite. It was not until late spring 1764 that the text circulated more widely. Fully two years had passed since the death of Jean Calas.

Given its intended readership, the Treatise on Tolerance could not be a dry work of philosophical abstraction. Rather, the remarkably compact text reflects Voltaire’s desire to create a seductive work that would move its readers to enact civil tolerance. Beginning and ending with the Calas affair and its outcome, there is an overarching narrative of progress. From the horror of suicide and fanaticism in the opening chapter to the joyous celebrations of the closing, an important page of history has been turned. Justice has replaced fanaticism; prejudice has yielded to reason; persecution has been vanquished by compassion. The text does contain moments of erudition, as Voltaire explores ancient history and argues that no previous civilization was intolerant in the manner of modern Europe. But the author also introduces variety and levity into his text. Dozens of footnotes bombard the reader with arcane facts, improbable details from Christian martyr stories, and discussion of the untrustworthiness of historical writing. The chapters are brief, offering the reader multiple stopping points. After a consideration of the Greek, Roman, Hebrew, and Christian traditions, Voltaire shifts gears in chapter 15 with a long list of quotations from a range of respectable works, all supporting tolerance. Chapter 16 is a miniature theatrical scene, chapter 17 a satirical plan to eliminate all of France’s heretics, and chapter 19 a brief philosophical tale. The text seemingly culminates in the prayer of chapter 23, a direct address to the divinity. But Voltaire quickly brings the reader back to the reality of the eighteenth century. Despite his eloquent plea for universal understanding, he must continue to respond to advocates of intolerance; all human beings, particularly government authorities, must remain vigilant so that religion does not become a tool for the persecution of others.

To incite that vigilance, the Treatise engages us as readers in dialog and guides us toward the goal of tolerance. Most directly, in chapters 4 and 5, Voltaire calls to members of the government—those who have the most power to dictate state policy. But, more generally, every individual is summoned to reflect on the evidence and draw conclusions. At the end of chapter 4, for