nise the great and good Henry IV. This city still celebrates every year, by a procession and fireworks, the day on which it massacred four thousand heretical citizens two hundred years ago. Six decrees of the Council have been passed in vain for the suppression of this odious festival; the people of Toulouse celebrate it still like a floral festival.[1]
Some fanatic in the crowd cried out that Jean Calas had hanged his son Marc Antoine. The cry was soon repeated on all sides; some adding that the deceased was to have abjured Protestantism on the following day, and that the family and young Lavaisse had strangled him out of hatred of the Catholic religion. In a moment all doubt had disappeared. The whole town was persuaded that it is a point of religion with the Protestants for a father and mother to kill their children when they wish to change their faith.
The agitation could not end here. It was imagined that the Protestants of Languedoc had held a meeting the night before; that they had, by a majority of votes, chosen an executioner for the sect; that the choice had fallen on young Lavaisse; and that, in the space of twenty-four hours, the young man had received the news of his appoint-
- ↑ The condition of Toulouse will be best understood from a description of these processions which Voltaire gives elsewhere. In front walked the shoemakers, bearing the authentic head of a prince of Peloponnesus, who had been Bishop of Toulouse during the lifetime of Christ. After them came the slaters, carrying the bones of the fourteen thousand children slain by Herod; the old-clothes dealers, with a piece of the dress of the Virgin Mary; and the tailors, with the relics of St. Peter and St. Paul.—J. M.
