Smith makes use of the incident to illustrate the proposition that while unmerited praise gives no satisfaction except to the frivolous, unmerited reproach inflicts the keenest suffering even on men of exceptional endurance, because the injustice destroys the sweetness of the praise, but enormously embitters the sting of the condemnation. "The unfortunate Calas," he writes--"a man of much more than ordinary constancy (broken upon the wheel and burnt at Tholouse for the supposed murder of his own son, of which he was perfectly innocent)--seemed with his last breath to deprecate not so much the cruelty of the punishment, as the disgrace which the imputation must bring upon his memory. After he had been broke, and when just going to be thrown into the fire, the monk who attended the execution exhorted him to confess the crime for which he had been condemned. 'My father,' said Calas, 'can you bring yourself to believe that I was guilty?'" FOOTNOTES: [140] _Hume Correspondence_, R.S.E. Library. [141] Ibid. [142] Lord Beauchamp was the eldest son of the English Ambassador, the Earl of Hertford, and Dr. Trail, or properly Traill, was the Ambassador's chaplain, who was made Bishop of Down and Connor soon afterwards, when Lord Hertford became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. [143] _Hume Correspondence_, R.S.E. Library. [144] Burton's _Letters of Eminent Persons to David Hume_, p. 37. [145] _Wealth of Nations_, Book II. chap. iii. [146] _Wealth of Nations_, Book I. chap. xi. [147] The Duke's servant. [148] _Hume Correspondence_, R.S.E. Library. [149] _Hume Correspondence_, R.S.E. Library. [150] Stephen's _Life of Horne Tooke_, i. 75. [151] Samuel Rogers told this to his friend the Rev. John Mitford. See Add. MSS. 32,566. [152] Tocqueville, _State of Society in France_, pp. _265, 271._ [153] _Hume Correspondence_, R.S.E. Library. CHAPTER XIII GENEVA