f a galley-slave. The man for whom he
interceded, had been a convict twenty years for attending a Protestant
meeting. Of course, Voltaire cared nothing for his religion, believing
Catholicism and Protestantism to be only two forms of the same
superstition. The name of this galley-slave was Claude Chaumont. Like
nearly all the other convicts he was a working man--a little
dark-faced shoemaker. Some Protestant friends he had at Geneva
interceded with Voltaire for his liberation.

On Chaumont's release in 1764, he waited upon his deliverer to thank
him. "What!" said Voltaire, on first seeing him, "my poor little bit
of a man, have they put _you_ in the galleys? What could they have
done with you? The idea of sending a little creature to the
galley-chain, for no other crime than that of praying to God in bad
French!"[80] Voltaire ended by handing the impoverished fellow a sum
of money to set him up in the world again, when he left the house the
happiest of men.

[Footnote 80: "Voltaire et les Genevois," par J. Gaberel,
74-5.]

We may briefly mention a few of the last of the galley-slaves. Daniel
Bic and Jean Cabdie, liberated in 1764, for attending religious
meetings. Both were condemned for life, and had been at the
galley-chain for ten years.

Jean Pierre Espinas, an attorney, of St. Felix de Chateauneuf, in
Viverais, who had been condemned for life for having given shelter to
a pastor, was released in 1765, at the age of sixty-seven, after being
chained at the galleys for twenty-five years.

Jean Raymond, of Fangeres, the father of six children, who had been a
galley-slave for thirteen years, was liberated in 1767. Alexandre
Chambon, a labourer, more than eighty years old, condemned for life in
1741, for attending a religious meeting, was released in 1769, on the
entreaty of Voltaire, after being a galley-slave for twenty-eight
years. His friends had forgotten him, and on his release he was
utterly destitute and miserable.[81]

[Footnote 81: "Lettres inedites des Voltaire," publiees par
Athanase Coquerel fils, 247.]

In 1772, three galley-slaves were liberated from their chains. Andre
Guisard, a labourer, aged eighty-two, Jean Roque, and Louis Tregon, of
the same class, all condemned for life for attending religious
meetings. They had all been confined at the chain for twenty years.

The two last galley-slaves were liberated in 1775, during the first
year of the reign of Lou