to my thinking, the finest
fifth act there is on the stage." Henceforth he finds himself
transformed into the defender of the oppressed. The Protestant Chaumont,
at the galleys, owed to him his liberation; he rushed to Ferney to thank
Voltaire. The pastor, who had to introduce him, thus described the
interview to Paul Rabaut: "I told him that I had brought him a little
fellow who had come to throw himself at his feet to thank him for having,
by his intercession, delivered him from the galleys; that it was Chaumont
whom I had left in his antechamber, and whom I begged him to permit me to
bring in. At the name of Chaumont M. de Voltaire showed a transport of
joy, and rang at once to have him brought in. Never did any scene appear
to me more amusing and refreshing. 'What,' said he, 'my poor, little,
good fellow, they sent you to the galleys! What did they mean to do with
you? What a conscience they must have to put in fetters and chain to the
oar a man who had committed no crime beyond praying to God in bad
French!' He turned several times to me, denouncing persecution. He
summoned into his room some persons who were staying with him, that they
might share the joy he felt at seeing poor little Chaumont, who, though
perfectly well attired for his condition, was quite astonished to find
himself so well received. There was nobody, down to an ex-Jesuit, Father
Adam, who did not come forward to congratulate him."

Innate love of justice and horror of fanaticism had inspired Voltaire
with his zeal on behalf of persecuted Protestants; a more personal
feeling, a more profound sympathy, caused his grief and his dread when
Chevalier de la Barre, accused of having mutilated a crucifix, was
condemned, in 1766, to capital punishment; the scepticism of the
eighteenth century had sudden and terrible reactions towards fanatical
violence, as a protest and a pitiable struggle against the doubt which
was invading it on all sides; the chevalier was executed; he was not
twenty years old. He was an infidel and a libertine, like the majority
of the young men of his day and of his age; the crime he expiated so
cruelly was attributed to reading bad books, which had corrupted him.
"I am told," writes Voltaire to D'Alembert, "that they said at their
examination that they had been led on to the act of madness they
committed by the works of the _Encyclopaedists_. I can scarcely believe
it; these madmen don't read; and certainly no philosop