Jean Calas - Broken on the Wheel

 

 On the night of October 13th 1891 in Toulouse, cries rung out into the street when it was discovered that Marc-Antoine Calas was found dead in his father Jean Calas's textile shop. Marc was Jean's eldest son and a keen gambler. Due to these terrible debts he had acrued the initial opinion was that he had killed himself. 

 His family mourned his tragic death and were adamant that he had been viscously murdered-perhaps, they suggested, by a ruffian with a sword who had snuck soundlessly into the boutique and struck Marc. 

The medical examiners when investigating the body, however said there was only a red mark on the neck visible. They refuted the family's insistence that it was an opportunist murder and concluded that Marc had been hung whilst alive by himself or by others. 

 The last part of their official explanation, that there may have been others involved in the hanging caused shock-waves throughout France. Voltaire became obsessed with this great injustice and used all his power and influence to try and eradicate what was to him a seeping stain over his country. 

 Marc Calas was a Protestant (Huguenot) living in a Catholic country, because of this suspicion arose that his father had in fact murdered him after hearing about his son's latest thoughts about converting to Catholicism. 

His father and four other suspects were arrested. 

Thirty-six hours later, Calas and the others, imprisoned in a dungeon, changed their story. Now they said Marc-Antoine had killed himself—and had been found hanging. The father said he had insisted upon the tale of murder for fear of the truth’s consequences. In France, the body of anyone committing suicide could be stripped naked and dragged through the streets. 

 Hearsay was accepted as evidence back in 18th century France and despite it's flimsy form it went onto an appellate court, which then voted to convict and condemn him. They wanted him interrogated under torture. Calas steadfastly protested his innocence all the way up to having most of his bones broken on the wheel, being strangled and then fatally burned. 

 The philosopher Voltaire did a press campaign and he convinced many that the judiciary had allowed prejudice against the Huguenots, causing interference in the verdict. 

After a three-year-long legal crusade Calas's conviction was overturned.

 For Voltaire, the Calas case was but the beginning of his life’s last chapter. In his twilight years he became an eighteenth century version of the Innocence Project, taking on, and prevailing in, one case after another. He became a champion of the people. In time, his influence extended beyond Europe to America, where he was revered by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who shared Voltaire’s zeal for separating church and state.

 The case itself was paramount in the argument against capital punishment and torture. One writer described this case as “the beginning of the abolition movement.” With its formal finding of a wrongful execution, the case became a key argument against the death penalty—that sometimes, we misfire. The British philosopher Jeremy Bentham made that argument as far back as 1775, citing “the melancholy affair of Calas.” The interrogation and execution of the Toulouse shopkeeper also helped in the opposition to torture.