VOLTAIRE AND THE " AFFAIRE DREYFUS."
[TO TUE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Six,—The following extracts from Voltaire letters on the affaire Colas may interest your readers. Substitute Dreyfus for Calas, and they might have been written to-day:- (1) To MADAME CALAS.—" Soyez consolee que l'Europe entiere rehabilite la memoire de votre marl vous etes un grand e'en:pie au monde."
(2) To M. DAMILAVILLE.—" Remarquez, mon cher frere, qu'il n'y a pas un soul pretre qui sit aide les Calas."
The third extract might not be pleasant reading for Generals Mercier and Gonse
(3) To TEE COMTE D'ARGENTAL.—" Vous savez que ce David, auteur de tout cet affreux desastre, etait un tres-malhonnete homme : le fripon a fait rouer l'innocent : le voill bien. reconnu ; it a ete destitue de sa place. J'espere qu'il payers cherement le sang de Calas."
The whole of Voltaire's correspondence on the Calas case (in Vol. XXX. of the collected works) is worth looking up, as an example of how a community (in that case it was probably not the whole French nation) may temporarily lose its head.
—I am, Sir, &c., R. E. BA.RTLETT.
Chelmsford, September 19th.
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