The Works of Voltaire, Vol. IV of XLIII.: Romances, Vol. III of III, and A Treatise on Toleration.
Voltaire · en
[3] After the body was carried to the town-house, indeed, there was
found a little scratch upon the end of the nose, and a small black
and blue spot upon the breast; but these were probably occasioned by
some carelessness in removing the corpse.
[4] I know of but two instances in history of fathers having murdered
their children on the score of religion; the first is the father of
St. Barbara, as she is called; it seems he had ordered two windows
to be made in his bathing-room. St. Barbara in his absence took it
into her head to make a third in honor of the Holy Trinity; she also
with the end of her finger made the sign of the cross upon the marble
pillars, which remained deeply impressed thereon; her father, in a
violent fury to have his room thus marked, runs after her with his
sword in his hand with an intention to kill her; she flies towards a
mountain, which very complaisantly opens upon her approach to give
her a passage. Her father finds himself obliged to go round about,
and at length gets hold of his fugitive daughter, whom he strips
and prepares to scourge; but God envelops her with a white cloud;
however, after all, her father caused her head to be struck off. This
is the story as we find it related in the book called “The Flower of
Saints.”
The second instance is of Prince Hermenegildus, who raised a
rebellion against the king, his father, and gave him battle in the
year 584, but was himself defeated and slain by one of his father’s
generals; however, he has been placed among the martyrs, because his
father was an Arian.
[5] It is necessary for the English reader to understand that in
Paris it is customary for the great lawyers or counsellors employed
in any remarkable case to publish their pleadings on each side. On
this occasion, however, our author observes, “that these publications
were pirated in several towns, by which Mrs. Calas lost the advantage
that was intended her by this act of generosity.”
[6] _Dévot_, or as we call it in English, devotee, comes from the
Latin word _devotus_. The _devoti_ of ancient Rome were such persons
who devoted themselves to death for the safety or good of the
republic, as the Curtii and Decii.