The Study Of The Calas Affair

Marc Antoine, the eldest son of the Toulouse businessman Jean Calas, hanged on the door at Toulouse. The very simple criminal affair became extremely complicated because of the religion, the intervention of the Republic of Letters made it famous in history. The affair did not damage to the French society fundamentally in result, the defects of the kingship judicial did not die until the perishment of the old regime. Calas Affair fully reflected many characteristics of mid 18th century French society. Based on the Calas Affair, this paper aims to have a clear understanding of French society in the middle of the 18th century.The secret trial principle and inquisitorial proceedings were amplied at that time in France. The parlement had great exclusive rights in investigation. The kingship judicial model played a crucial role in Calas Affair. In the preliminary trial, the parlement executed Calas in the absence of conclusive evidence according to the principle of presumption of guilt. The public execution of Calas was to manifest the authority of justice, but the traditional way had beendeclining. Calas Affair also lit the criticism to the judicial torture of the Republic of Letters, judicial reform gradually upsurged.Calas Affair was a typical religious persecution case. The judge investigated blindly according to the direction of religious murder. Fanaticism became the dominant mood of the charge. By the dominant position in investigation, the judge guided the public opinion consciously, Toulouse was in religious fanaticism. However, with the development of the enlightenment, non Christian religion deepened in the hearts of the people, this was the power to inhibition on religious fanaticism. But man’s thoughts changed relatively slowly, particularly the convinced, strong mind may appear repeatedly in a period of time. The soaring prices and economic depression in Toulouse as a result from the Seven Years’ war, developed the discontent emotion. In the turbulent social environment, the fanaticism of the two hundred anniversary of the anti-protestant celebration, the panic of the Rochette Affair, the traditional hatred to the Huguenot had been woven together. Threats, confusions, uncertainty factors were highly concentrated in a short time. The excited, depressed, panic, alert environments, led to the eventual recovery of the fanaticism in Toulouse and lasted to the investigation of Calas Affair.The Calas Affair caused heated debates from all walks of life. The Parlement and the Republic of Letters were spare no effort to strive for the support of public opinion udder the circumstance. In the preliminary, the charge publishing briefs, pamphlets, even using the power of the church, through the selectivity of the facts and sources to influence the public’s position and judgment, played an important role in inciting religious fanatics. In the review, Voltaire and the Republic of Letters defended for Calas through various kinds of mechanism of the public opinion, such as salons, letters, brochures, books, permeating enlightenment principle to society. Under the leading of Republic of Letters, the public opinion became against religious fanaticism. This suggested that public opinion, with its judge qualification on social and political affairs, had appeared as a kind of power in France’s social and political life.