Sirven, a Protestant, lived in Languedoc with his wife and three
daughters. The housekeeper of the bishop wanted to make one of the
daughters a Catholic.
The law allowed the bishop to take the child of Protestants from their
parents for the sake of its soul. This little girl was so taken and
placed in a convent. She ran away and came back to her parents. Her poor
little body was covered with the marks of the convent whip.
"Suffer little children to come unto me."
The child was out of her mind--suddenly she disappeared, and a few days
after her little body was found in a well, three miles from home.
The cry was raised that her folks had murdered her to keep her from
becoming a Catholic.
This happened only a little way from the Christian City of Toulouse
while Jean Calas was in prison. The Sirvens knew that a trial would end
in conviction. They fled. In their absence they were convicted, their
property confiscated, the parents sentenced to die by the hangman, the
daughters to be under the gallows during the execution of their mother,
and then to be exiled.
The family fled in the midst of winter; the married daughter gave birth
to a child in the snows of the Alps; the mother died, and, at last
reaching Switzerland, the father found himself without means of support.
They went to Voltaire. He espoused their cause. He took care of them,
gave them the means to live, and labored to annul the sentence that had
been pronounced against them for nine long and weary years. He appealed
to kings for money, to Catharine II. of Russia, and to hundreds of
others. He was successful. He said of this case: The Sirvens were tried
and condemned in two hours in January, 1762, and now in January, 1772,
after ten years of effort, they have been restored to their rights.
This was the work of Voltaire. Why should the worshipers of God hate the
lovers of men?