Two years ago Mr. Justice Maugham wrote a little hook
on the judicial murder, in 1702, of Jean Calas, the aged Pro- testant of Toulouse, which Voltaire denounced with such eloquence and force as to secure from the Privy Council the posthumous rehabilitation of the victim's character. Now we have M. Marc Chassaigne striving in 7'he Calas ("use, trans- lated by Mr. Raglan Somerset and introdueed by Mr. Belloc (Hutchinson, 185.), to show that the Toulouse judges were decent men trying to deal fairly with an unpopular Protestant who, they thought, had strangled his eldest son because he was about to become a Roman Catholic. M. Chassaigne is an un- convincing advocate because he is too obviously biassed, and because he indulges in endless digressions. It may be observed that M. Chassaigne's quotations from Voltaire's letter to D'Alembert are chosen so as to give :in erroneous impression. As soon as Colas' widow assured him that her husband was innocent, Voltaire took up the ease in earnest and made Europe ring with the scandal of Toulouse. Mr. Benne suggests that Voltaire invented .a " Colas myth " WhiCil M. Chassaigne has "knocked on the head," but the French Privy Council in 1765 agreed with Voltaire.
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