less than 1480 convicts, condemned to the galleys for adherence to the reformed faith during the period referred to. Almost every variety of age, class, and condition, is represented in these rolls. The youth of fifteen or sixteen, sentenced for attending with his parents at their prayer-meetings, and the old man of seventy years and upwards, whose brief remnant of life was in most cases speedily cut short by the rigours of his treatment, are found there. There, among the humble and low-born members of the reformed church are enrolled no less than forty-six gentlemen of birth, and two chevaliers of the order of St. Louis. There are the names of some men, such as the erudite Louis de Marolles, eminent for their attainments in science and learning, and who found even in their vile floating dungeons some consolation from, and means to carry on, their cherished studies. Of the ministers of the proscribed religion but very few names occur, which is explained by the fact that it was only in rare exceptions that the sentence of death in their case was commuted for the doubtful mercy of the galleys. What is more remarkable is the appearance in this martyr-roll of a few individuals, born and educated as Roman Catholics, who embraced, in the very midst of the storm that raged against it, the persecuted side. One of these converts was Jean Bion, the chaplain of the 'La Superbe' galley, who has recorded in his touching narrative, published in London and at Amsterdam in 1708-9, the circumstances which impelled him 'to preach the faith which once he destroyed.' It was when he visited in the hold of the vessel the mangled and bleeding sufferers who had undergone the terrible 'bastonnade' for refusing to kneel at the celebration of the mass, and when shocked at that spectacle he found himself addressed by them in words of comfort and encouragement, that his heart was melted and his creed changed. Their blood,' he says, 'preached to me, and I felt myself a Protestant,'

The account of the treatment and condition of the convicts on board the galleys, which is to be found in M. Coquerel's volume, is mainly derived from the other work, of which the title is also prefixed to this article, the Mémoires of Jean Marteilhe.' The genuineness of this narrative, which was originally published at Rotterdam in 1757, and is referred to in several contemporary publications, appears to be beyond question. The work had, however, become extremely scarce; only two or three copies were known to exist, and it was with some difficulty rescued from oblivion. It was known, however, to M. Michelet, who in the 13th volume of his History of France,' containing an account of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, referred to and cited from

the

the volume, characterising the neglect to re-publish it as discreditable to Protestants, and describing it in these terms:

'C'est un livre du premier ordre par la charmante naïveté du récit, l'angélique douceur, écrit comme entre terre et ciel. Comment ne le ré-imprime-t-on pas?'

The re-publication of the volume in Paris in 1864, under the editorship of M. Paumier, is the answer to this appeal; and we do not hesitate to say that a more valuable contribution to the records of genuine martyrology could hardly be found. The style of the narrative in its graphic simplicity reminds us of Defoe; but the well-authenticated facts which it relates are more interesting than fiction, and the incidents not less strange. The pictures which Miss Ouvry has drawn in her two pleasing tales of the sufferings of the high-minded Hugonot martyrs, though delineated with ingenuity and skill, must yield in interest to the unadorned but vivid records of personal experience contained in Marteilhe's pages. The narrator is a young Frenchman, who from the year 1700 to 1713, when, through the intervention of our Queen Anne, he and some hundreds of his fellow Protestants were released from bondage, underwent the punishment of the galleys. The tale of suffering is told with a candour and ingenuousness extremely captivating, and in a spirit of moderation and forbearance towards his persecutors which increases our sympathy for the writer. In addition to the personal narrative, Marteilhe gives a very full and interesting description of the French galleys,their construction and equipment, the organisation of their crews, their discipline, and the treatment of the miserable beings who worked in them. His volume contains also an unusual variety of striking incidents and illustrations of human character, exhibited sometimes in its lowest degradation, sometimes in its noblest aspects of fortitude and devotion. The constancy of those humble confessors who endured patiently for many years the abominations of such a hell upon earth as the convict-ships, from which, at any moment, a simple declaration of conformity to the faith of their persecutors would have set them free, entitles them beyond all question to a high place in the roll of martyrs. We believe that a summary of the leading points of Marteilhe's narrative will interest our readers, and we shall be glad if it should be the means of making his touching narrative better known.

'I was born,' says the writer, at Bergerac, a small town in the province of Perigord, in the year 1684, my parents being persons of the middle class engaged in trade, who, by the grace of God, lived and remained constant unto death in the principles of the reformed

faith, and whose conduct was without reproach, bringing up their children in the fear of God, and instructing them in the tenets of the true religion, and avoidance of the papal errors.'

6

It was in the year 1699, that the Duke de la Force, a renegade from the principles of the reformed faith, which his ancestors had nobly upheld and suffered for, obtained a commission from the King to go down to Perigord, in which province he had large estates, to convert the Hugonots.' The instruments which he employed for this service were of two kinds-they were four Jesuit fathers and a regiment of dragoons. The keen blades of the latter were found even more efficacious in subduing heresy than the arguments of the former. There were no cruelties which these booted missionaries did not put in force to compel their miserable victims to attend the mass, and to abjure the Protestant religion with the most dreadful forms of imprecation. No less than twenty-two of these ruthless dragoons were quartered in the house of the Marteilhe family. The father was consigned to prison; two sons and daughters, who were but children, were sent into a convent. The mother alone was left in the house with this gang of ruffians, who inflicted shocking cruelties upon her. Having destroyed or plundered all that was in the house, and left only the four walls standing, they dragged the unhappy woman before the Duke, who compelled her by violence and menaces to sign the formulary of conversion, protesting as she did so against the force which was put upon her will. Jean Marteilhe, then but sixteen years of age, managed to effect his escape from Bergerac by night, in company with a young friend and fellow-townsman of about his own age; they entered into a compact together, while they implored the Divine protection, to remain firm and constant to the reformed faith, even at the peril of death or the galleys. How nobly this vow was kept will appear by the sequel.

Provided with a small sum of money for their journey, the fugitives reached Paris without hindrance, and there procured directions for a route by which they hoped to evade the vigilance of the guards at the frontiers, and make their way to Charleroi, at which place they would be outside of the French pale, and under the protection of a Dutch garrison. Great caution and presence of mind were necessary as they approached the confines of their land of refuge, but they had escaped some imminent perils, and were actually out of France, when a sudden alarm caused them to deviate a little from the prescribed route, and to re-enter French territory at the town of Marienbourg. A spy, however, had watched their movements and suspected their intentions,

intentions, and hoping to get a reward for his information, he had them arrested at a tavern in Marienbourg and brought before the Governor of that town. After a brief examination, in which they avowed their religious profession, but denied their intention to quit France (a breach of truth for which the writer afterwards warmly reproached himself), they were committed to prison, and the governor sent a courier to Paris for instructions how to deal with his captives. The rescript directed that the fugitives should be put upon their trial for the offence of being at the frontier without a passport, but that, meanwhile, the curate of Marienbourg should use his efforts to bring them back to the fold of the Church, and that in the event of his succeeding and abjuration being made, they should receive a free pardon and be taken back to their homes. The officer in whose charge they were, himself a concealed Protestant, and full of sympathy for his prisoners, reported to them this answer:-"I give you no advice,' he said, 'as to what you ought to do, your own faith and conscience will best direct you. All that I have to tell you is that your abjuration will open your prison-doors; without it you will certainly be sent to the galleys.' Thanking him for his kind intentions, the prisoners declared that, placing their trust in God's mercy and support, they would never betray the faith that was dearer to them than their lives. The curate then proceeded to try his polemical skill, but finding them well primed on the usual topics of controversy, and being himself but indifferently skilled in arguing, he soon desisted from the attempt to convince their minds, and tried to sap their resolution with another kind of weapon. Having a young and pretty niece with a fair dowry, he proposed to bestow the damsel in marriage on Marteilhe, as the reward of his conformity, but met with so peremptory a refusal that he at once reported to the authorities that the conversion of the prisoners was hopeless, and that they were reprobates under the dominion of the devil.' Thereupon a process of trial was instituted, and a sentence passed by the local judge, which recited that the prisoners being of the reformed religion, and convicted of an attempt to leave the kingdom, were condemned to the galleys for life, with confiscation of their goods and other consequences. This judgment, however, required to be confirmed before it could be put in execution, by the Parliament of Tournay, and to that city the prisoners were marched, bound together with cords, lodged in vile prisons in the towns at which they halted, and treated as criminals of the worst class.

At Tournay they were again consigned to a dungeon, and the hearing

hearing of their cause was postponed at the instance of the curate, who desired to have time allowed for their conversion. This process, however, it was sought to effect rather by temporal than by spiritual arguments. With the latter he troubled them but little, contenting himself with inquiring when he paid his visits at intervals whether they were not tired of suffering, and reminding them that their liberation rested with themselves, 'if they would only renounce the errors of Calvin.' The trial to which their faith was now exposed was a very painful one. For many weeks they lay in this dungeon, their only food being a portion of bread per day, so insufficient as to reduce them almost to starvation. 'We became so weak and emaciated,' says Marteilhe, 'that it was well for us that a little rotten straw filled with vermin, on which we lay, was close to the door of our cell, through the grating of which our bread was thrown to us, as if we had been dogs, for had we been farther from the door we should not have had strength to get at it.' In this extremity they were surprised one day by having two other prisoners placed in the same cell with them, who turned out to be acquaintances and school-fellows of their own, and who had been apprehended for the same cause as Hugonot refugees. The new comers had money with them, which enabled their halfstarved friends to gain some relief from the pangs of hunger. But their arrival introduced a new temptation and trial of faith. Less stern in their principles, these men had been prepared to leave their country for their religion, and once out of France would doubtless have remained good Protestants, but they had no stomach for the galleys, and when the alternative was placed before them of a life of misery and bondage with adhesion to their principles, or pardon and freedom on making abjuration, their resolution broke down. They avowed their weakness, and wept over it to their companions, who earnestly remonstrated against such a betrayal of the cause of truth, and strove to inspire them with a fortitude like their own, but to no purpose. The Romish Church recovered back the two pretended converts, who having after some trouble obtained their pardon, received commissions in the King's service, and were not long after killed in action.

At length after several fruitless attempts to procure their abjuration, Marteilhe and his companion were summoned before the court of the parliament of Tournay. The evidence of their intention to quit the kingdom was by no means clear, for the accused, who showed much intelligence in their defence, made a skilful use of the fact that they had actually crossed the French frontier, and had voluntarily re-entered it, added to which one of

the