screws. Then he was led, with a cord about his neck
and a torch in his hand, bearing a placard on which
was the word "infidel," to the church, where in a loud
voice he was to beg pardon for his sins; after this
the sentence directed that his tongue should be torn
out, and then at last he should be taken to the scaf-
fold. Only one thing was omitted, the executioner
did not actually tear out the scoffing tongue; at six
in the evening the long torture was over and La
Barre's head was struck off.

As a part of the sentence the executioner was to
mutilate the offending dictionary. A copy was
brought from Paris to Abbeville by special messenger,
and was duly destroyed before the public, for which
operation the executioner received a very pretty fee.
If Voltaire felt that judges who approved such bar-
barity as the punishment of La Barre, and such
nonsense as the burning of the dictionary, could no
longer represent popular thought in the latter half of
the eighteenth century, surely he was not far wrong. ¹

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