De la Barre had been executed for “blasphemy.” First of all, Voltaire tried to discover whether there existed a law by which people guilty of that supposed crime could be condemned to death. He could not find one. Then he asked his lawyer friends. They could not find one. And it gradually dawned upon the community that the judges in their unholy eagerness had “invented” this bit of legal fiction to get rid of their prisoner. There had been ugly rumors at the time of de la Barre’s execution. The storm that now arose forced the judges to be very circumspect and the trial of the third of the youthful prisoners was never finished. As for de la Barre, he was never vindicated. The review of the case dragged on for years and when Voltaire died, no decision had as yet been reached. But the blows which he had struck, if not for tolerance at least against intolerance, were beginning to tell. The official acts of terror instigated by gossiping old women and senile courts came to an end. Tribunals that have religious axes to grind are only successful when they can do their work in the dark and are able to surround themselves with secrecy. The method of attack followed by Voltaire was one against which such courts had no means of defense. Voltaire turned on all the lights, hired a voluminous orchestra, invited the public to attend, and then bade his enemies do their worst. As a result, they did nothing at all. CHAPTER XXVI THE ENCYCLOPEDIA There are three different schools of statesmanship. The first one teaches a doctrine which reads somewhat as follows: “Our planet is inhabited by poor benighted creatures who are unable to think for themselves, who suffer mental agonies whenever they are obliged to make an independent decision and who therefore can be led astray by the first ward-heeler that comes along. Not only is it better for the world at large that these ‘herd people’ be ruled by some one who knows his own mind, but they themselves, too, are infinitely happier when they do not have to bother about parliaments and ballot-boxes and can devote all their time to their work-shops, their children, their flivvers and their vegetable gardens.” The disciples of this school become emperors, sultans, sachems, sheiks and archbishops and they rarely regard labor unions as an essential part of civilization. They work hard and build roads, barracks, cathedrals and jails.