What if Voltaire lost the Calas case?

Had Voltaire lost the Calas Case do you think France would have stayed fanatically Catholic?

Because it wasn't too much longer untill the revoloution after it happened, and despite the French Revoloution had Voltaire lost the case, the most recent image for the Revoloutionairies would have been of the greatest Secularists being decisively defeated by the Catholic Authorities on an issue he felt strongly about.

I am just wondering because I got bored and started reading about it since a book about him happened to be around.

 

Tough the Calas case was highly mediatized for that time, I do not see how it could have affected the confessional/political situation in France....

 

For those not educated in the way of the French, what was the Calas case???

 

From the little I remember from schooltime:

Jean Calas was a rich merchant from Toulouse, and above all, he was a calvinist.
He had several children, all raised as calvinists.
However his oldest son converted to catholicism, and another of his sons was about to do the same.
However before he could convert, he was found hanged in his fathers house.

The people of Toulouse soon made a martyr out of him, accusing Calas to have killed his son in order to prevent him from converting to catholicism.
A court in Toulouse sentenced Calas to death and he was executed while claiming his innocence.

Friends of Calas convinced Voltaire that he was innocent, and Voltaire decided to restore the honour of the family by proving Calas innocence.
During the process Voltaire repeatedly strongly criticised the Catholic Church.
Finally another court proclaimed Calas innocence.

But until this day it is not clear wether Calas was really innocent or not.

At the time this case was very mediatized and seen a bit(wrongly) as "The philosophes vs the Catholic Church"....

 

never heard of it

 

The case is merely a trivia in French history i am afraid.

Frst of all, from the time of Louis XIV the country was in poverty due to the revocationedict of Nantes in 1685 disallowing protestants and jews to trade with France i think. The nobility wasn't taxed but the peasants of the 3rd estates,27 million of them were taxed by the clergy and the nobles(tithings,hunting tax,baking taxes) There were fiscal problems as well.Also a succession of finance ministers from 1774 till 1783 did not solve economic problems and instead worsened it with its instability of ministers.

Furthermore,the 3rd estate has no righyts at all which included the merchant class,bourgeoisie. Hence as with any rich businessman,they would want to have themselves represented in the government for reasons intellectual and economical. Then there was the influence of ideas from the American war of independence.

Not to forget,Louis XVI ,the one that got executed in 1793, was an inept king,failing to his his absolute powers and the vested interests of the nobility to support him in policies,causing further dissent. He was weak-willed,supporting the 3rd estates' cause one moment and then shutting them out after they have won an estates-general(a referendum if u might say) when they were about to hold an national assembly.

All in all,think Russian revolution and the causes of French revolution will be quite similar.

 

I haven't been here a while, since my computer's working has been on and off, I really need to get a new one.

Back on the Calas case though, to have said Catholic France was going to die at that time would have been a good enough reason for you to get hauled away to a mental institution.

The devotion of most Frenchman to Catholicism was unshakable, and the mere rumour of heresy in town was enough to get Militias to form.

At the time the Calas case was a case of Secularism vs Catholicism, and as can be guessed Voltaire was leading the secular side, since afterall he was Europe's most popular living playwright.

It was very clear that whichever side lost would be completely humiliated and disgraced.

So my basic question is had Voltaire lost, and been humiliated, would the French Revoloution not have been secular?

I have no doubt the revoloution would have happened, but I do have doubt that the french would have burned down churches, and destroyed Church Authority/Renamed streets with Saint in them etc etc.

 

well i learned some tihng new

 

i have never said catholicism was dying my friend,in no where in my posts will you see that. But now that you have clarified yourself,i see whrre u are coming from.

And my answer to your theory is that it is highly impossible. Because firstly, even though in 1789 when the 3rd estate won and took over the government,it was an assemblt that was moderate and liberal. Just that the Catholic church lost their tithing rights and political powers. It was however during the radical phase or reign of terror in which names like marat and Robesppiere came along AFTER about 2 years into the revolution then did the Cult of Reason came along. Henceforth, it was during the revolution that things took on an anti-church form rather at the beginning and it definitely wasn't a cause at all. The early revolutionaries just wanted political rights and power. The peasants just wanted bread.