Jean-Marie Calès was a deputy of Haute-Garonne at the two first republican assemblies in French history, the National Convention from 1792 to 1795 and the Council of Five Hundred from 1795 to 1798, and a member as well of the Committee of General Security in 1795.

Nourished by the renovating ideas characterizing the pre-revolutionary Age of Enlightenment, he did not support any of the radical measures taken during the Reign of Terror and even pronounced himself against Robespierre during the events of the 9 Thermidor.

Until his last hours,[2] he never betrayed his republican and humanist ideals and maintained a constant hostility towards the scornful nobility and the obscurantist clergy, as well as a fine understanding of the difficulties of the people.

Their parents were landowners of Lauragais, from old Protestant families rooted in the region and forced to convert to Catholicism after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes issued by king Louis XIV in 1685.

[13] These legislative elections, the first experience of universal suffrage in French History, were held in an extremely tense national context, less than a month only after the Insurrection of 10 August 1792 (attack and take of the Royal Palace of the Tuileries by the armed Parisians, or the «Second Revolution») and under the imminent threat of the Austrian and Prussian troops led by the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, which were marching on Paris to «free» King Louis XVI (who had been arrested and suspended during the journée of August 10), and to restore the absolute monarchy.

Soon after (six months later), on 5 August 1793, Calès, then Representative on mission to the armies of the Ardennes (see below), will send a letter from the camp of Ivoy to the Convention to mark his adhesion to the decree which provided for the dismissal of Queen Marie-Antoinette before the Revolutionary Tribunal.

[22] Thus, the Committee's project, very democratic and decentralized, envisaged that the French people would be distributed, for the exercise of its sovereignty, in Primary Assemblies of cantons.

Finally, the liberal and tolerant Calès criticized several of the directive and uniformizing proposals of the Committee aimed at reinforcing the Unity of the social corps and of the nation:[21] « Indeed, the self-interest, the self-esteem, the inclinations of both sexes towards each other, the religious sentiments, that we can change, modify, but not destroy, these motives of the human heart, have counted for nothing in the calculations of the Committee ».The Convention solemnly promulgated the Constitution of the Year I on 24 June 1793 (constitution of the 6 messidor year I, the "convention montagnarde").

[23] The Convention adopted a few years later the Constitution of the Year III (22 August 1795, which included in its preamble the Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and the Citizen of 1795), which was approved by plebiscite on 6 September 1795 and founded the new regime of the Directory (it established also the Census suffrage, and politically, provided for a two-house legislature: a Council of Five Hundred and a Council of Ancients, and a unique kind of executive: a five-member committee (Directory) chosen by the legislature).

[25] Within this project influenced by the ideas of Condorcet, Calès developed his innovative proposals for the establishment of public education houses « differing from the old convents »[24] in which no religion would be taught, for girls aged from eight to twelve or fifteen, « entrusted to citizens [women] known for their virtues, talents and love for the laws of the state ».

[24] There, they will receive an education « based on the eternal laws of reason and truth »,[24] they will learn to read, write, speak French, count and hold a household.

Similarly, in July 1793, to remedy to the illiteracy in the army, Calès proposed that military rank advancement should no longer be simply determined by seniority of service criteria, but rather conditioned on reading and writing proficiency.

As representative of the Convention, Calès actively participated to the foundation of many famous current institutions as the National Museum of Natural History (10 June 1793), the Ecole Polytechnique (28 September 1794), the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts (10 October 1794), the Ecole Normale Supérieure (30 October 1794), the Metric system, the Music Conservatory of Paris, the Conservateur des hypothèques and the Special School of Oriental Languages (30 March 1795).

On 15 June 1793 Calès was appointed Representative on mission, an extraordinary envoy of the National Assembly for maintaining law and order in the départements and armies.

However, after four months of mission, on 19 October 1793, both Calès and his colleague Jean-Baptiste Perrin des Vosges were called back to Paris, because being considered as « too moderate ».

On the following 23 Thermidor (10 August 1794) was appointed member of a commission comprising twelve representatives who were charged to unseal the « Papers of Robespierre, Couthon, Saint-Just, Lebas ... and other accomplices of the conspiracy, to examine them, and to make a report to the National Convention ».

Because of his clear opposition to the « Incorruptible » and to the Reign of Terror, he received from the victorious party a new mission in the department of Côte d'Or on 9 October 1794.

[36] Conversely, he attempted to prevent the return of the royalists and other fanatic Catholics, who took advantage of the liberalism of the thermidorian reaction to install in turn a violent reign of white terror, by threatening by decree[37] the nonjuring priests (« prêtres réfractaires », except married, sixty-year-old or invalid priests) that their bells would be broken, as well as their crosses and pedestals, and that the celebration of the cult would be forbidden.

[43] On 25 Nivôse Year III (14 January 1795), Calès published a decree,[44] posted in all communes of the department, which encouraged Swiss watchmakers to settle in Besançon.

During the historic session of the Assembly on 14 Vendemiaire (6 October 1795), under the applause of his colleagues, Calès came to announce that he just had, at the head of the armed force, proceeded to the evacuation and closing of the hall[45] where the electors of the "section of the Théâtre-Français" (one of the revolutionary sections of Paris whose illustrious former members were Danton, Desmoulins and Marat) were meeting to protest against the decrees of the Convention and to organize the royalist insurrection of the 13th Vendémiaire year IV (5 October 1795), which had started the day before.

The Convention held its last session on Brumaire 4, year IV (26 October 1795) and closed with the prolonged cries of Long live the Republic!

[49] He also made several reports to the Council (which were adopted), on the costume of the representatives, of the secretaries, of the messengers of State and of the ushers of the Legislative Body,[50] on the establishment of health schools in Paris, Angers, Bruxelles and Montpellier[51] (12 Brumaire, Year VI – 2 November 1797), on medical education[52] (29 Germinal, Year VII – 18 April 1798), and on the organization of the Ecole Polytechnique[53] (he requested that only « young men known for their civic virtue » should be admitted).

The names of « Talot, Jacomin, Martinel, Laa and Calès »[54] were engraved on a copper plate placed under the marble of the « orator's tribune » at the occasion of the installation of the Council of Five Hundred in its new palace on 21 January 1798.

This farm of a hundred hectares, which the descendants of the lord of Bonnelles owned under the Old Regime, is located in the commune of La Celle-les-Bordes, near Rambouillet and not far from Paris.

He became mayor of the hamlet of les Bordes for a while, a breeder of purebred merinos[55] – a sheep species rare at this time – and he also resumed the practice of medicine.

However, after the fall of Napoleon, under the Bourbon Restoration of Monarchy, Calès was condemned to exile as regicide and banished from the national territory by the « amnesty law of 12 January 1816 » proclaimed by king Louis XVIII.

He and his wife took with them only a few belongings, including one book: the works of Hippocrates (Van der Linden edition, Leiden, 1665), which Calès gave to the doctor who treated his last illness.

He was helped for his settlement in the Belgian city by a certain police commissioner Wassin, who at first took him for his younger brother (the Colonel of Napoleon's Grande Armée, Jean-Chrysostôme Calès) with whom he had served.