GALAS
149
CALATRAVA
Calas Case, The. — Jean ('alas was a French Cal-
vinist, b. 19 March, 1698, at La Caparede near
Castres, in the department of Tarn; executed 10
March, 1762, at Toulouse. At the time of the events
which made his name famous, he was a prominent
merchant of Toulouse, where he hat! resided for some
forty years. In 1731 he married Anne-Rose Gabibel,
and had six children: four sons, Marc-Antoine, Louis,
Pierre, and Donat, and two daughters, Rose and
Anne. One of the sons. Louis, was converted to
Catholicity about 1760. His brother. Marc-Antoine,
also manifested an inclination to alter his faith, but,
possibly owing to opposition on the part of the family,
never took the final step. On 13 October, 1761. a
number of people, attracted by the excitement, gath-
ered around the house of Jean (alas. Marc-Antoine
had been found hanged in his father's warehouse.
The news spread rapidly: the capitouls, or highest
civil magistrates, hurried to the scene. One of the
multitude cried out that Antoine had been murdered
by his father to prevent him from abjuring Protes-
tantism. The crowd immediately took up the idea,
and the members of the family were arrested. The
dead son was looked upon as a martyr by the Catholic
population, and his obsequies were celebrated with
great ceremony. In the interrogatory the accused
involved themselves in contradictions, and, on 9
March, 1762, the Parliament of Toulouse, by a vote
of 8 to 5, pronounced sentence against Jean Calas.
He was condemned to the torture, ordinary and ex-
traordinary, was then to be broken upon the wheel,
and finally burnt. The sentence was executed the
following day. Calas suffered with admirable cour-
age and. until his last breath, never ceased to protest
his innocence. The property of the family was con-
fiscated. Madame Calas was liberated; but her two
daughters, who were absent from home at the time of
their brother's death, were forced into a convent of
the Visitation. Pierre and Donat escaped to Geneva.
Voltaire, then living at Ferney, made the acquaint-
ance of the family ami employed his all-powerful in-
fluence to have tiie dead father's innocence officially
proclaimed, at the same time using the tatter's con-
demnation as a welcome source of new attacks upon
the hated Catholic Church. In letters and pamphlets
he defended the cause of Calas, and interested his
many powerful friends in the case, which now began
to attract world-wide attention. On 9 March, 1765,
a Parisian tribunal unanimously pronounced Calas
innocent. The Parliament of Toulouse was ordered
to revoke the death sentence, but never obeyed the
injunction. The remnant of the property was re-
stored to the family, which, by a subscription and by
gifts of money from King Louis XV, was enabled to
Eve in moderate circumstances. The Calas Case was
not without its effect on contemporary art and litera-
ture. Over a hundred publications relating to it are
in existence. It forms the subject of plays by F.-L.
Laya (produced for the first time in Paris in 1790),
Lemierre d'Argy (Paris, 1790), Marie-Joseph Chenier
(Paris, 179H. and Victor Du Cange (Paris. 1819).
Madame Calas and her daughters were living in Paris,
when several of these were presented on the stage.
Some historians, carried away perhaps by too great a
desire to bring the innocence of Jean Calas to the fore,
assort that Marc-Antoine committed suicide. But there
are weighty reasons to doubt the father's innocence
(Barthelemv i. Voltaire cannot be considered an im-
partial historian of the case, owing to his preconceived
desire to present a strong indictment against the
Catholic Church, rather than to state the facts in their
true light. The responsibility of the condemnation in
no way rested with the ecclesiastical authorities, and
the penalty was inflicted not for a mere religious
offence, but for murder alleged to have been com-
mitted for a religious motive.
OoQUaBBL, Jean Colas d m famille (Paris, 18691; Barthe- lcmy. Erreurs et mensonges historiques (Paris, 1886), 2d series,
1-73; Kreiten, Voltaire (lss-H, 413 sqq.; Tallentyre, Life
,,/ I'.iftiiiV.' iLiui.l.m, 1S931, II, CI) 09 passim; Maynard, Vol-
taire (Paris, 1868), II. 429-42.
N. A. Weber.
Calasio, Mario ni, Friar Minor and lexicographer, b. at Calasio in the Kingdom of Naples about 1550; d. at Rome, 1 February, 1620. Having entered the Franciscan Order, he devoted himself to the study of Hebrew with such success that the pope called him to Rome, where he taught Hebrew in the Franciscan convents of Ara Coeli and San Pietro in Montorio. Calasio enjoyed the special favour of Paul V who made him his confessor and bestowed upon him all the titles and privileges generally accorded to doctors of theology. When he was dying he caused the Passion to be read to him and expired while chanting the Psalms of David in Hebrew. Calasio's reputation as a scholar in the Semitic languages rests mainly upon his "Concordantioe Sacrorum Bibliorum Hebrai- corum" which was published at Rome in 1622, two years after his death. Another, though inferior, edi- tion of the same work appeared at London in 1747. Besides this work Calasio wrote a " Dictionarium Hebraicum " and " Canones Generates lingua? sanctae".
Apoi.linaire in Via., Diet, de la Bible (Paris, 1899), II, 54-55.
Stephen M. Donovan.
Calatayud, Pedro de, Jesuit missionary, b. in Navarre, 1 Aug., 1689; d. in Bologna, 27 Feb., 1773. He joined the Society of Jesus, 21 Oct., 1710. In the Academy of Madrid there is an account of one of his missions in Bilbao which is described as " por- tentosa". He had the title of Master in Theology, and has left a number of pious and theological works. Among them are: "The Flame of Holy Love for the Sacred Heart"; "Various Sentences from the Scrip- tures for the Use of Missionaries"; "Practice of a Sweet and Reasonable Christian Life"; "Regrets of a Contrite Heart"; "Practical Doctrines for Explanation on the Missions", a book which seems to have been particularly famous; "Doctrinal Com- pendium", which was an extended edition of Pina- monti's work; "Practical Catechism"; "Spiritual Exercises for Priests and Ordinandi" — one proposi- tion of which (doctrine IV, p. Ill), about restitution by a negligent priest, was made a subject of criticism; "Practical and Doctrinal Methods for Religious". He published a great number of pamphlets and brochures. He was living at the time of the sup- pression of the Society of Jesus and was expelled from Spain. He died shortly afterwards.
Bor.RO. Menologio, II, 503; Sommervogel, Bib. des ecr. de la c. de J.
T. J. Campbell.
Calatrava, Military Order of, founded in Castile, in the twelfth century, as a military branch of the great Cistercian family.
In the Cistercian Order, then only recently formed (1098), there had been a large number of knights or sons of knights. In Calatrava. on the contrary, those who had been monks became knights. Monastic life has been railed a warfare", and it would be a mis- take to suppose that those rough medieval warriors sought in the cloister only a comfortable asylum after a troublous career. In both lives there was an heroic struggle to sustain, whether against one's passions or against the Moslems, and the austerities of an ascetic life could not have been more dreadful to them than the privations of camp life and the wounds of battle. These impetuous natures, who did nothing by halves, wen eager to take Heaven, as they took earthly strongholds, by storm (Matt., xi. 12). However, the ( rrderof Calatrava owes its origin not to any deliber- ately prepared plan, but to fortuitous circumstances, the recital of which would seem to lie mere romance if the teller, Rodrigo of Toledo, did not add that he himself had known in his youth the hero of the story. It runs as follows: —
