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Full Description
Voltaire's involvement with Sirven, has - for long - elicited laudatory judgements from French or Anglo-Saxon voices. If the former proclaimed that 'Voltaire avait une fois encore gagné' (as he had famously done with Calas), the latter have been even more fulsomely assertive : 'he secured a complete victory'; 'Sirven was in one important respect the most successful of Voltaire's human rights campaigns'. Such confidence seems strange, however, given that the topic has not received the coverage that it deserved in France, while - in the English-speaking world - it has merited not one single monograph. This study attempts to rectify such curious overstatements, and to propose conclusions that are more consonant with a good understanding of such a complex affair which was, however, emphatically not 'Calas bis'.
Contents
Chronology (1760-1772)
Foreword
Part I: The background
Chapter 1
i. Protestantism and central authority 1702-1761/1762. Towards a lifting of the clouds
Chapter 2
Caussade and Toulouse 1761-1762
i. How the chance arrest of François Rochette led to a generalised panic in Caussade
ii. Toulouse and the climate in which Huguenots found themselves
Chapter 3
Voltaire, Protestantism, and toleration, 1716-1762
Part II: The Sirven affair
Chapter I
A Protestant family in hostile surroundings
i. The Sirven family. Elisabeth a troubled soul: March 1760 - December 1761
ii. An investigation into the cause of Elisabeth's death becomes a criminal investigation (4 January 1762 - 20 January 1762)
iii. The investigation continues in Mazamet (21 January 1762 - 6 May 1764)
Chapter 2
The early stages 1762-1765
i. The Sirvens in Switzerland (April/June 1762) and Voltaire's silence on their plight until 1 March 1765
ii. The campaign for a revision of the trial (March - August 1765) begins
Chapter 3
Beaumont marks time and Voltaire steps in, 1765-1766
i. Beaumont's defence of Sirven (April 1765 - April 1766) comes to a halt. Voltaire, fearing further delays, rejoins the fray (May 1766)
ii. The Avis au public sur les parricides imputés aux Calas et aux Sirven
Chapter 4
Beaumont and Cassen finally produce the arguments in favour of Sirven, 1766-1767
i. Waiting for Elie de Beaumont, (September 1766 - Fenruary 1767)
ii. Mémoire à consulter, et consultation pour Pierre-Paul Sirven
iii. The Consultation
iv. Cassen's Mémoire pour Pierre-Paul Sirven, feudiste, ou commissaire à terrier à Castes, sa femme, ses filles, demandeurs en évocation, Paris, 1767
Chapter 5
More delays 1767-1768
Waiting now for Chardon and, above all, for the Conseil des dépêches (March 1767 - March 1768)
Chapter 6
Activity on behalf of Sirven comes to a halt. Voltaire takes alternative action.
The Sirven case in limbo (March 1767 - January 1768). The problem of fanaticism and intolerance remains for Voltaire very much a public issue. His writings of 1767-1768, plus 'Voltaire and the Affaire de Bélisaire' (February 1767 - January 1768)
Chapter 7
The campaign for Sirven fails. Voltaire's response: disengagement, but immediate re-engagement
i. Pierre-Paul Sirven in the doldrums (March 1768 - January 1769)
ii. Despite, or because of, the failute of the évocation, fanaticism and toleration are still very much an issue: Voltaire and Les Guèbres, ou la tolérance (March 1768 - January 1769)
iii. Les Guèbres, censorship and performance: high expectations dashed (March - May 1769)
iv. The vain appeal to diverse publics (May - November 1769)
v. The 'Discours historique et critique': September 1769. Voltaire's last stand
Chapter 8
Sirven confronts his original judges. Mazamet March 1769 - November 1769
i. Pierre-Paul Sirven, on home territory, prepares his rehabilitation (March 1769 - 31 August 1769)
ii. Pierre-Paul Sirven faces the legal processes once more (31 August - 16 November 1769)
Chapter 9
Last stages, November 1769 - November 1770
From the unsatisfactory verdict in Mazamet to La Croix's appeal to the Parlement de Toulouse (November 1769 - November 1770)
Chapter 10
La Croix's final victorious arguments
La Croix's memorandum is lodged; Sirven is finally exonerated (late December 1770 - 25 November 1771)
Afterword
Voltaire and Sirven, 1765-1772
Bibliography
