length of
France, enchained with other malefactors. On his arrival at
Marseilles, he was placed on board the galley _Grand Reale_, where he
remained until peace was declared between England and France by the
Treaty of Utrecht.[50]

[Footnote 50: "Autobiography of a French Protestant,"
112-21.]

Queen Anne of England, at the instigation of the Marquis de Rochegade,
then made an effort to obtain the liberation of Protestants serving at
the galleys; and at length, out of seven hundred and forty-two
Huguenots who were then enslaved, a hundred and thirty-six were
liberated, of whom Marteilhe was one. He was thus enabled to get rid
of his inhuman countrymen, and to spend the remainder of his life in
Holland and England, where Protestants were free.

CHAPTER X.

ANTOINE COURT

Almost at the very time that Louis XIV. was lying on his death-bed at
Versailles, a young man conceived the idea of re-establishing
Protestantism in France! Louis XIV. had tried to enter heaven by
superstition and cruelty. On his death-bed he began to doubt whether
he "had not carried his authority too far."[51] But the Jesuits tried
to make death easy for him, covering his body with relics of the true
cross.

[Footnote 51: Saint-Simon and Dangeau.]

Very different was the position of the young man who tried to undo all
that Louis XIV., under the influence of his mistress De Maintenon, and
his Jesuit confessor, Pere la Chase,[52] had been trying all his life
to accomplish. He was an intelligent youth, the son of Huguenot
parents in Viverais, of comparatively poor and humble condition. He
was, however, full of energy, activity, and a zealous disposition for
work. Observing the tendency which Protestantism had, while bereft of
its pastors, to run into gloomy forms of fanaticism, Antoine Court
conceived the idea of reviving the pastorate, and restoring the
proscribed Protestant Church of France. It was a bold idea, but the
result proved that Antoine Court was justified in entertaining it.

[Footnote 52: Amongst the many satires and epigrams with
which Louis XIV. was pursued to the grave, the following
epitaph may be given:--

"Ci gist le mari de Therese
De la Montespan le Mignon,
L'esclave de la Maintenon,
Le valet du pere La Chaise."

At the death of Louis XIV., Voltaire, an _eleve_ of the
Jesuits, was appropriately c