On Natural Liberty.

In several countries, and particularly in France, collections have been made of the juridical murders which tyranny, fanaticism, or even error and weakness, have committed with the sword of justice.

There are sentences of death which whole years of vengeance could scarcely expiate, and which will make all future ages tremble. Such are the sentences given against the natural king of Naples and Sicily, by the tribunal of Charles of Anjou; against John Huss and Jerome of Prague, by priests and monks; and against the king of England, Charles I., by fanatical citizens.

After these enormous crimes, formally committed, come the legal murders committed by indolence, stupidity, and superstition, and these are innumerable. We shall relate some of them in other articles.

In this class we must principally place the trials for witchcraft, and never forget that even in our days, in 1750, the sacerdotal justice of the bishop of Würzburg has condemned as a witch a nun, a girl of quality, to the punishment of fire. I here repeat this circumstance, which I have elsewhere mentioned, that it should not be forgotten. We forget too much and too soon.

Every day of the year I would have a public crier, instead of crying as in Germany and Holland what time it is — which is known very well without their crying — cry: It was on this day that, in the religious wars Magdeburg and all its inhabitants were reduced to ashes. It was on May 14th that Henry IV. was assassinated, only because he was not submissive to the pope; it was on such a day that such an abominable cruelty was perpetrated in your town, under the name of justice.

These continual advertisements would be very useful; but the judgments given in favor of innocence against persecutors should be cried with a much louder voice. For example, I propose, that every year, the two strongest throats which can be found in Paris and Toulouse shall cry these words in all the streets: It was on such a day that fifty magistrates of the council re-established the memory of John Calas, with a unanimous voice, and obtained for his family the favors of the king himself, in whose name John Calas had been condemned to the most horrible execution.

It would not be amiss to have another crier at the door of all the ministers, to say to all who came to demand lettres de cachet, in order to possess themselves of the property of their relations, friends, or dependents: Gentlemen, fear to seduce the minister by false statements, and to abuse the name of the king. It is dangerous to take it in vain. There was in the world one Gerbier, who defended the cause of the widow and orphan oppressed under the weight of a sacred name. It was he who, at the bar of the Parliament of Paris, obtained the abolishment of the Society of Jesus. Listen attentively to the lesson which he gave to the society of St. Bernard, conjointly with Master Loiseau, another protector of widows.

You must first know, that the reverend Bernardine fathers of Clairvaux possess seventeen thousand acres of wood, seven large forges, fourteen large farms, a quantity of fiefs, benefices, and even rights in foreign countr............