Francois-Marie Arouet, born Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, who believed in the separation of church and state and equality for all religions. Gay wrote of Volataire: “Voltaire was a propagandist, but he liked to conduct his campaigns with dramatized, simplified, tailor-made, but still facts” (276). As an Enlightenment writer, Voltaire believed in reason and science as a guide for courts, society, and religion. Voltaire sought the reason behind the masses turning against Calas and his family and why the Catholic church further supported this factual account of the events that would lead to Calas' death. Voltaire turns to the Toulouse festival as Calas' main source of fanaticism and persecution. He states: “What contributed most to his fate was the approach of that singular festival which the Toulouses celebrate every year in memory of the massacre of four thousand Huguenots” (6). Voltaire believed, from his rational point of view, that the hype around this case was mainly due to the upcoming festival. According to Voltaire, this celebration would raise superstition, hatred and lack of guilt in the masses in condemning Calas to death. Voltaire's personal revulsion at this case fueled his writings against the French justice system and furthered his research