Voltaire's Struggle for Religious Tolerance

Voltaire is well known for his fighting against religious fanaticism. He has an international reputation for defending those who were persecuted for their religious views. The writer and human rights activist Vladimir Korolenko noted, "Voltaire <…>did a great job – acted as a defender of the falsely accused. I'm even not talking about how many gloomy prejudices he has destroyed, but his stubborn defence of this seemingly lost case is a magnificent deed. He understood that a person must first of all be a humane person. Justice is indispensable.". This statement on the Calas case (see below) is especially important because Korolenko himself opposed injustice and prosecutions of the innocent.

Voltaire never advocated the separation between church and state in the modern sense. This principle was one of the legacies of the French revolution of the end of the 18th century. The thinker believed that the state should establish one state religion, the rest are only permissible. However, firstly, governmental power should have the ultimate authority over the Church, and secondly, religious persecution of those who held other beliefs, especially Protestants, is unacceptable. The Voltaire Library contains material on such cases, in particular on the famous affair of Jean Calas and the Chevalier de la Barre case.

The Protestant merchant Jean Calas (1698–1762) was charged with the murder of his son Marc-Antoine to prevent his supposed conversion to Catholicism. (In fact, Calas's son had committed suicide.) The merchant was sentenced to death and executed on March 10, 1762. In April 1762, Voltaire began a campaign to rehabilitate Calas. Three years later, thanks to the philosopher's efforts, Calas was posthumously declared innocent, and his family's rights and position in society was restored. The injust case motivated Voltaire to wrote the famous Treatise on Tolerance on the Occasion of the Death of Jean Calas, the book is available in the Voltaire Library (БВ 5–197).

Among Voltaire's manuscripts, we see his letter to the notary Laleu, which speaks for itself and needs no further comment here (БВ 5 –240 т. XIII л. 225):

"I ask you, sir, to be kind enough to hand over six louis to Madame Calas at my expense, in order to help restore justice that must be provided to her husband's memory. I don’t think you have my money, but you could do me a big favor by giving me this small amount in advance. I flatter myself that there will be generous people to help this unfortunate family. Your most humble and obedient servant, Voltaire"⁸.

On the back of the sheet is the receipt from Calas's widow:

"I have received from Monsieur de Laleu, a royal secretary, a notary, one hundred and forty-four livres, or six louis, for which I give a receipt. Paris, May 10, 1763. Calas's widow"⁹.

Volume VI of Voltaire's manuscripts contains The History of My Disasters; a letter to Voltaire from Madame de Brou, an aunt of the Chevalier de la Barre, as well as a clerk's copy of the charges laid against Jacques d'Etallonde. The young Chevalier de la Barre and his friend d'Etallonde were accused of mutilating crucifixes and uttering blasphemies. A search of de la Barre’s house uncovered a number of banned books, including erotic literature and a copy of Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary. D'Etallonde managed to flee, but la Barre and another defendant, Moisnel, were arrested. La Barre was not found guilty of desecration of a cross, nonetheless he was executed only for blasphemy. The young man was tortured and beheaded, his body was burned. Voltaire tried to get La Barre exonerated. The thinker did not succeed, but he was able to help Jacques d'Etallond.

Struck by the cruel and unfair punishment of the chevalier, Voltaire wrote two pseudonymous pamphlets. The philosopher championed la Barre in the Account of the Death of the Chevalier de La Barre published under the name of the lawyer Cassin, and in The Cry of Innocent Blood written under the name of d'Etallonde (a printed copy of this brochure is kept in Volume VI of the manuscripts in the Voltaire Library).

Voltaire's particular interest in faith matters was reflected in the nature of his library. It includes both holy books of world religions and theological treatises, as well as atheistic and deistic writings. His library also contains an extensive collection of documents related to Voltaire's defense of victims of religious fanaticism and arbitrary justice. Paradoxically, Voltaire argued the need for faith in God and the danger of religions which often engendered cruelty and superstition. "If God did not exist, he would have to be invented", but religious faith must exhort people to religious tolerance, not fanaticism.

 

Athors: A.A. Zlatopolskaya,
with the participation of K. Payar and N. Speranskaya