the two-and-twenty Protestant galley slaves who
were there are marched across to Marseilles.
The march begins in October, and lasts nearly
four months, and Marteilhe declares that he
suffered more in that journey than during all
the twelve years that had gone before. They
march either in single or double file. The
latter is much the easiest work: then there is
just a short chain to fasten every pair, and " the
chain " joins all the pairs together. In single
file each convict has two chains fastened to his
iron collar, linking him to the men in front and
behind, so that the, weight he has to carry is
something terrible, and every movement along
the line is felt upon the necks of every separate
prisoner. When the order is given to sit, or
lie down, or get up, everybody must move at the
same instant, or else everybody suffers. And
so they were constantly being set to solve
the impossible problem how a string of poor
fellows of all heights and ages and strength
could act together more perfectly than the
best-drilled regiment. Besides, somebody was
always falling down exhausted, and his fall,
of course, gave each of his neighbours a
shrewd blow and an ugly bruise on their
necks. In this way they are driven by their
"argousins" across France, stopping for the night
in doleful places. Take, for instance, the Tournelle,
their Paris quarters. Fancy a big cellar,
with rows of stout oak benches about three feet
apart. The benches are not to sit on,
however. No such luxury for the poor footsore
wretches. As they come in they are made to lie
half down, their heads resting on the benches,
which are forty feet long. At every interval
of two feet there is a chain, a foot and a half
long, with an iron collar at the end. Into
these collars their necks are clinched. And
there they grovel, twenty to a bench, in the
most painful position in which the human body
can be placed, three days and three nights.

What befel them as they were leaving Paris
was still worse. Everybody knows what the
octroi is. Before the " barrières" were done away
with, it used to be great fun to go and dine at
one of the pleasant restaurants just outside (you
could dine there a good deal cheaper than you
could within the city bounds), and to watch the
octroi men " visiting" the suspicious-looking
passengers, jumping up on the hay-carts, and
prodding them all over with long iron rods.
But the idea of " visiting" these wretched
convicts to see if they had not managed to get a few
files and knives, and a little money, during their
stay in Paris, few would have thought of. It
is nine at night; a hard frost, and a cold east
wind; when the convicts have their collars
taken off, and are turned out into the courtyard
of this Tournelle (a little private royal
palace in old time) ; and there, by moonlight,
they are made to strip, the "cat" quickening
the movements of the lingerers. Starknaked, they
are marched to the other end of the yard, and
kept there full two hours while the " archers "
overhaul the clothes ; pocketing handkerchiefs,
scissors, snuff-boxes, anything they took a fancy
to. "When the poor prisoners were ordered to
march back, they were found so stiff with cold
that the " cat " 'itself could not stir them, and
they had to be dragged across by a squad of
archers tugging at the chain. Eighteen died
either that night or next day, eighteen out of
one gang. Marteilhe's own gang fared much
better. They had got some money, slipped into
their hands by sympathising friends as they
marched through places where there were
some " converts " (Protestants who had conformed),
and they used it so well that the archers
treated them with something like decency, only
just robbing them of everything. "Thank
God," says he, " not one of our set died, in spite
of the exposure." Thrice more during the march
had they to submit to this piece of gratuitous
torture, every time in cold sharper than
before. The object probably was to kill off the
weaklings; for those whom the " cat " failed to
rouse had to be taken in carts, and, as the officer
in charge was paid so much a head and was
bound to find his own conveyances, it was to his
interest to have as few to carry as possible. On
the road they are lodged " anywhere." Near
Mountpellier they are driven into a stable, and
think themselves happy in having the warm
dung as a protection against the weather. At
last they come to Nismes, the holy city of the
Protestants, and as they march in under heavy
rain they take off their caps and begin a psalm;
the gangsmen try to silence them by the usual
recipe; but the cat could not quell the singers.
As they neared Marseilles, they had to put, up
with the insults of the villagers. Half dead
with thirst, along the dusty roads they held out
their wooden bowls to beg a little water; but
the savage Provençal women would cry out,
"Get along with you; you'll have plenty of
water where you're going to."

But Marteilhe, happily, did not have to remain
long at Marseilles. Already there was a
rumour that efforts were being made to free the
Huguenot galley-slaves; though, as yet, the only
effect of the presumed intervention was to make
the Jesuits all the more active in trying to get
converts.

Marteilhe gives us some strange tales of the
special pleading of these gentry. " Yon can't
charge your sufferings on the Church, you know,"
said one. " The Church regrets it as much as
you call. It's the king's doing. Just think
why you are here. One of you tried to leave
the kingdom. Well; his majesty does not allow
his subjects to leave the kingdom. And you,
you went to ' meeting.' Just so; the king does
not allow ' meetings.' You, again, hid Pastor
So-and-so, when he was planning his escape.
Now, you know the king does not permit any
one to conceal a pastor. So in every case it is
the king who punishes, for it is the king whom
you have offended." " But what would happen
if we were to recant?" asks Marteilhe, quite
simply. " Why, within forty-eight hours you'd
be free, and probably have some nice little
appointment into the bargain." " But how about
the king, whose laws we have broken?" asks
Marteilhe, in a tone that shows he sees through
the Jesuit's sophistry