He was convicted without the slightest evidence, and he and D'Etallonde were both sentenced: _First_, to endure the torture, ordinary and extraordinary. _Second_, to have their tongues torn out by the roots with pincers of iron. _Third_, to have their right hands cut off at the door of the church. _Fourth_, to be bound to stakes by chains of iron and burned to death by a slow fire. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Remembering this, the judges mitigated the sentence by providing that their heads should be cut off before their bodies were given to the flames. The case was appealed to Paris; heard by a court composed of twenty-five judges, learned in the law, and the judgment was confirmed. The sentence was carried out on the first day of July, 1766. When Voltaire heard of this judicial infamy he made up his mind to abandon France. He wished to leave forever a country where such cruelties were possible. He wrote a pamphlet, giving the history of the case. He ascertained the whereabouts of D'Etallonde, wrote in his behalf to the King of Prussia; got him released from the army; took him to his own house; kept him for a year and a half; saw that he was instructed in drawing, mathematics, engineering, and had at last the happiness of seeing him a captain of engineers in the army of Frederick the Great. Such a man was Voltaire. He was the champion of the oppressed and the helpless. He was the Cæsar to whom the victims of church and state appealed. He stood for the intellect and heart of his time. And yet for a hundred and fifty years those who love their enemies have exhausted the vocabulary of hate, the ingenuity of malice and mendacity, in their efforts to save their stupid creeds from the genius of Voltaire. From a great height he surveyed the world. His horizon was large. He had some vices--these he shared in common with priests--his virtues were his own. He was in favor of universal education--of the development of the brain. The church despised him. He wished to put the knowledge of the whole world within the reach of all. Every priest was his enemy. He wished to drive from the gate of Eden the cherubim of superstition, so that the children of Adam might return and eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The church opposed this because it had the fruit of the tree of ignorance for sale. He was one of the foremost friends of the Encyclopedia--of Diderot, and did all in his power to give information to all. So far as principles were concerned, he was the greatest lawyer of his time. I do not mean that he knew the terms and decisions, but that he clearly perceived not only what the law should be, but its application and administration. He understood the philosophy of evidence, the difference between suspicion and proof, between belief and knowledge, and he did more to reform the laws of the kingdom and the abuses at courts than all the lawyers and statesmen of his time.