who are not, of course shut their eyes. " And
now, your grace, I'll show you that my opiate
does not lie heavy on them after they're
awake." The whistle sounds, the "cat" is plied
freely, and the miserable sleepers stand up,
after such wriggling and grimacing that my
lord duke fairly laughs aloud. It is a sight,
thank God, such as has never been seen in
England since the days of Baron Front de
BÅ“uf and his peers. Two high-born gentlemen
disporting themselves with the misery of men
like this Marteilhe. And then we wonder at
the French Revolution.

The labour on board a galley was so severe
that no human creature could go through it,
unless goaded by the lash. The French tried
free rowers in 1707, but they could not do the
work. How did the old Athenians manage?
We know their rowers in the triremes were
freemen, and we read of their once pulling at a
stretch across the Adriatic. But the ancients
were quite certain not to kill themselves with
overwork; and the contrast is grim enough
between a fleet of Greek ships racing up to be
ready for the battle for freedom, and such a devil's
boat-race as it must have been, when galley was
matched against galley—the whip urging on
those who would have fainted but for fear of the
gangsman's recipe against such weakness, the
yells of the half-naked sufferers, the oaths of the
gangsmen, and the shouts of the officers urging
them to keep up the pace. Has the world ever
seen anything worse? And this was going on in
the politest nation in Europe. Well may Victor
Hugo, in his Misérables, cry out for " floods of
light" to shame those who in the dark corners
of every land still work the works of cruelty.

We said that Marteilhe and a young friend
got to the frontier; they even got across it, but
their geography was at fault, and they were lured
back by a spy, and put in prison at Marienbourg.
Here it is that the curé wanted Mar-teilhe
to marry his niece, and, startled at his
peremptory refusal, said, " They are a pair of
hopeless reprobates, under the dominion of the
devil." They were then tried by the Tournay
parliament, and acquitted of the intention
of leaving France ; for why (they argue) should
they have come back had they meant to go ?
But M. de la Vrillière, the minister of state,
whose family, by the way, had once been
Protestant, will not let them off with mere
imprisonment. He makes the Tournay parliament
eat dirt, and orders the two to the galleys
without hope of mercy. At Tournay they are
worried by another curé, who gets them kept on
short rations, and so weakens, not their resolution,
but their bodies, that they are glad their
straw is near the dungeon grate, so that they
may easily reach the pittance of bread which
they would be too weak to crawl over for.
This treatment would, at any rate, have saved
them from the galleys, had not two rich young
men from their country been caught just at
this time, so that the starvelings share for a
while their abundance. The new comers,
however, have no stomach for martyrdom; they
soon recant, and the Jesuits persuade Madame
de Maintenon to give them lieutenants' commissions.
Marteilhe is but a man, and the old Adam
cannot help recording triumphantly that they
were both shot just after the battle of Hekeren.
By-and-by five more are brought in, betrayed by
one Baptiste, a convicted thief, who had on.
other occasions really helped fugitives to escape.
This made him liable to be hanged; and the
magistrates wanted to let him have his deserts,
and begged their prisoners to give evidence
against him. They would not, saying, "A convict
has no civic rights; he cannot give evidence."
"Go, you scoundrel," said the mayor to Baptiste;
"go, kiss the footprints of these noble-
minded men who have taken the rope off your
neck for you. You've got them condemned to
the galleys; at any rate, you shall go there
with them." He was chained to one of
his victims; and as they marched along, the
people cried out, " There go goodness and
wickedness tied together."

Fortunately, Marteilhe's youth and manner so
far prepossessed the provost at Tournay, that he
kept the pair on sick leave till a rough lot of
regular convicts had gone off, and then sent
them to Dunkirk, a much better station than
Marseilles. Here Marteilhe was put on board the
Heureuse—what a name! — and his life for the
next twelve years was such as we have described.

A very good thing for him was this fight at
the Nore with the frigate Nightingale, whose
unknown captain took such a clever way of
disabling the galley. Of course the Frenchman
aimed at the frigate's stern. Rowing up at
full speed, and firing in all his guns, he tried to
drive in his galley's beak, when the Englishman
suddenly brought up his helm, and, slewing
round, broke off nearly all the oars along one
side, grappled the galley tight before she could
recover, and poured in the broadside which took
such tremendous effect in Marteilhe's neighbourhood.
The French captain was just able to signal
for his five consorts, and at last (as we said) the
frigate had to surrender. But, after every one else
had succumbed, the English captain stood with
a brace of pistols in his hands by the powder-
room, and vowed he'd blow French and English
into the air sooner than give in. They sent a
sergeant and ten men to take him. He shot
the sergeant dead, and no one else cared to be
number two; so he held out till his convoy had
got safely off, and then gave up his sword,
which De Langeron gave back to him, saying,
"Keep it; you are my prisoner only in name."
Making up prescriptions for galley-slaves does
not seem to have increased De Langeron's
bravery, though it did not destroy his appreciation of
that virtue". And so, owing to the captain of the
Nightingale, Marteilhe's sufferings are very
considerably lightened, and during the rest of his
stay at Dunkirk he may by comparison be called
well off.

But now comes the sorest trial of all. The
treaty of Utrecht is signed, and France " has
sunk so low," says the narrative, not without
a bitter reminder that she, the persecutor of the
saints, deserved so to fall, " that, in 1712,
Dunkirk had to be given up to the English;" and so