again a daughter, Maria (Anna, Jacobus and Maria probably died very young). In the late 1650s the famous philosopher Baruch Spinoza and the anatomist Theodor Kerckring were pupils at his school. In the early 1660s some people thought that van den Enden was an atheist, while others believed that he was a Roman Catholic. In this period he worked, together with Pieter Corneliszoon Plockhoy, on a project to set up a utopian settlement in New Netherland, more precisely in the area of the present Delaware. Van den Enden's views on this ideal society are found in the Kort Verhael van Nieuw-Nederlants (Brief Account of New Netherland, 1662). Some years later, in 1665, another political publication appeared, the Vrye Politijke Stellingen (Free Political Proposals), in which he defended democracy and stressed the social and educational duties of a state. In that same year, when the Second Anglo-Dutch War had just started, he wrote to Johan de Witt offering to sell him a secret weapon for the navy. Shortly after the marriage of his oldest daughter Clara Maria with Theodor Kerckring (also written as 'Kerckrinck') in 1671, van den Enden moved to Paris, where he opened another Latin school. There he was visited by Antoine Arnauld and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. He also got involved in a plot against Louis XIV, but the conspirators were caught before they could execute their plans, which included the establishment of a republic in Normandy. Franciscus van den Enden was condemned to death and on 27 November 1674, after the decapitation of the noble conspirators, he was hanged in front of the Bastille. A pioneer of the democratic idea In his 'Kort Verhael van Nieuw Nederlants Gelegenheit' (1662 - 'a Short Story of a New Dutch Occasion'), Van den Enden gives his views on the political notion of 'Gelijkheidsbeginsels" - equality. "The state must bring benefits in equal measures to all. The well-being-increasing effect of the state must become apparent independently of a person's abilities, sex, property, and social status. He opposes explicitly that equality comes down to equalization. The laws should aim towards the general benefit, while they give to all in the same manner give space for individuality." (A translation as close as possible to his originally Dutch wordings as per Dutch Wikipedia article on Franciscus van den Enden - A pioneer of the democratic thought). In his "Vrije Politieke Stellingen" (1665- 'some Free Political