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| offered itself for serving his fellow creatures, and hef acquitted himself of the task with resolution and suc-cess.
The frightful spirit of persecution of the Huguenots ,engendered by the revocation of the edict of Nantes ,by Louis XIV. and his dragoon-missionaries, stillsurvived in the provinces ; and not only embittered theminds of the ignorant, hut influenced the legal autho-rities, and led them always to associate the ideas ofcrime and Protestantism together. Jean Calas had beena merchant of Thoulouse for forty years. He was aProtestant — an upright and good man , and by no1 means bigoted. One of his sons was a convert to Ca-tholicism ; but, far from showing displeasure, Calas madehim an allowance for his maintenance. A female servantwho had been in his family for thirty years was a Ca-tholic . One of his sons, named Marc-Antoine, com-mitted suicide. He was a young man of a restless,sombre, discontented disposition ; he disliked trade, andfound himself excluded by the laws against his religionfrom entering on any profession. He read various hookson suicide — conversed on the subject with his friends—and one day, having lost all his money in play, resolvedon the fatal act. The family supped together ; they had a1 guest with them—a young man only nineteen, namedLavaisse, known for his amiable and gentle disposition.After supper, Marc-Antoine left them ; and when,shortly after, Lavaisse took his leave, and the father went; down stairs to let him out, they discovered his son hang-ing from a door : he had undressed himself, folded uphis clothes, and committed the act with the utmost de-liberation. The family were seized with terror. Theysummoned medical aid and officers of justice ; their criesand terror gathered a crowd about the house. Theonly error they committed was, that, knowing the horror| in which suicide was held, they at first declared thatthe unfortunate man had died a natural death. Thefalsehood of this assertion being at once detected, themost frightful suspicions were the consequence.