The Execution

There was an overwhelming amount of work in the days leading up to the execution of Jean Calas, and I spent morning to night drawing up documents while my fellow calligraphers abandoned the profession, the city, or life itself. The magistrates’ unease was reflected in even greater anxiety at the lower levels: secretaries, ushers, calligraphers. A judge’s distracted silence, half-spoken word, or hesitant glance would race up stairs, through courtrooms and offices to become a botched document, an ink stain creeping out over a ruling, or a file in flames. My boss, Tellier, assigned me job after job; before the ink was dry on one document, it was replaced by another. I was always a good calligrapher but never quick: speed is completely contrary to my profession. Those days, however, I was forced to rush and take less care.

I was the one to record the execution of Jean Calas: his limbs broken with an iron bar, his chest crushed, his death on the wheel. It was hoped he would reveal his accomplices, but he merely asked God to forgive those who had judged him. The closer he was to death, and the more horrific the words were, the faster and more perfect my calligraphy became. It was as if I wanted to distance myself from the torture by taking refuge in the calm formation of each letter. There always comes a time when a calligrapher relinquishes the meaning of the words to focus solely on their appearance, demanding the right to know nothing, to understand nothing, to serenely trace an incomprehensible foreign language.

The story had come to the worst possible end, and there was no longer any reason for me to be in Toulouse. I wanted to return to Ferney and wrote Voltaire for instructions. His reply was alarmingly obscure; I didn’t know whether to attribute the confusion to his advanced age or his fear the letter would be intercepted. I managed to glean that he had carefully read my reports and concluded the Calas case was part of a more complex set of events relating to a series of miracles that had occurred in various parts of France. He sent me some money and told me to leave for Paris.

I went to the courthouse to ask for my pay and told Tellier I would be leaving. He asked me to do one final thing: deliver a letter to the bishop in Paris. The messenger who was supposed to leave that night had gotten drunk and was fast asleep; his horse and carriage were waiting. I felt like an actor who arrives halfway through a performance of an unknown play and is told to faithfully follow incomprehensible stage directions. I barely had enough time to gather my things.

The coach left my lodgings but was soon forced to stop; there was a crowd near the square where we had watched The Calas Murderers. I thought there must be an evening show—the dark would accentuate the shadowy story, and hearing voices alone would underscore the horror. But there was no movement on stage, and I found it odd that something you could neither see nor hear would attract so many people. Someone carried a torch on stage, and I recognized the actor who played Marc-Antoine. He was now hanging from a rope, his performance so flawless that his face was blue and his swollen tongue protruded from his mouth.

I saw Kolm on the edge of the throng, where the distracted and the newly arrived listen to hazy, disjointed accounts of events occurring on center stage. I wanted to ask him about the play’s ending but was only able to wave. He, in turn, held up his mechanical walking stick.

Despite the terrible things I had witnessed in Toulouse, I was sad to be leaving. That feeling soon disappeared, however, as if trampled under the horses’ hooves. I was only twenty years old, and at that age, the cities you leave behind are erased from memory while those that lie ahead fill your imagination. Now, on the other hand, the only clear picture I have is of the cities I’ve left, while the more I explore my new home, the more blurred and shadowy it becomes.