The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1913-11-21
WHY WAS voLTAIRE WHAT He
WAS?

order to more easily escape TO other
countries, to avoid arrest and impris-
onment.
AS it was, he was twice sent 10 the
Bastile, and some OF his most noted
productions were written within its
gloomy walls.
His books and his lucky specula-
lions made him enormously rich, and
his biographer is generous enough to
say that nothing gave him greater
celebrity than his efforts in behalf OF
oppressed Protestants. Fugitives
from Geneva and other towns always
found an asylum beneath his roof. He
went so far as to build church,
which he dedicated to God. but which
the ecclesiastical authorities refused
to recognize or to consecrate.
yoltaire died, as he had lived, hon
oring God.
He honored him in the light that
was given him. He saw this light, as
he thought, in its most glorious form.
1t was to beat down the walls of SUI
perstition, which then hung as pail
upon the earth, and for the privilege
to worship God according to the die
tates of ones own conscience.
Voltaires last words were these:
Il die worshipping God, loving my
friends, not hating my enemies, but
detesting superstition.
Why so vehemently detesting SUI
perstition?
Victor Hugo tells us.
At the time of voltaire's birth, ac-
cording to this celebrated man. the
social structure of France was this:
AT the base, the people.
"Above the people, religion repre-
scented by the clergy.
"By the side of religion, justice rep
resented by the magictracy."
And, at that period of human So
ciety, what was the people? 1t was,
according to Victor Hugo, ignorance.
What was religion? 1t was, accord
ing to the same authority, intoler-
ance. What was justice? He tells
US. mockery.
In this arraignment or indictment,
Victor Hugo asks if he were going too
far, or saying too much?
He contents himself by making two
citations and asks his readers to be
themselves the judges.
These are the two cases he cites:
'At Toulouse. October Is, 1761,
there was found in the lower story of
house a young man hanged. The
crowd gathered. the clergy fulminat-
ed. the magistracy investigated. 1t
was suicide-they made 1t an assas'
sination. In what interest? In the
interest of religion. And who was
accused? The father. He was HUI
guenot, and he wished to hinder his
son from becoming a Catholic. There
was here moral monstrosity and q
material impossibility-no matter!
This father had killed his son-this
old man had hanged this young man.
Justice travelled, and this was the
result. In the month of March, 1862,
man with white hair, Jean Calais,
was conducted to public place,
stripped naked, stretched upon a
wheel, the members bound upon it,
the head hanging. Three men are
there upon the scaffold, a magistrate,
named David, charged to superintend
the punishment, a priest to hold the
crucifix, and the executioner with a
bar of iron in his hand. The patient,
stupefied with terror, regards not the
priest, and looks at the executioner.
The executioner lifts the bar of iron
and breaks one of his arms. The
victim groans and swoons. The mag
istrate comes forward: they make the
condemned inhale salts: he returns
to life. Then another stroke of the
bar-ancther groan. CALAIS loses con-
lHCN kCfAfC nlnA dA0 NAAC
executioner begins again; and, as
each limb before being broken re-
ceiyes two blows. that makes eight
punishments. After the eighth pun
iShment the priest offers him the cru
cifix to kiss: Calas turns away his
head, and the executioner gives him
the coup de grace; that is to say,
brushes in his chest with the thick
end of the iron bar So died Jean
CALAIS.
That lasted two hours. After his
death the evidence of the suicide
came to light. But an assassination
had been committed. By whom? By
the judges"
Another fact. After the old man,
the young man. Three years later. III
1895, at Abbeville. the day after
night of storm and high wind. there