Les amitiés des galères reconsidérées : René Barraud de La Cantinière et « les amis » de Rotterdam

Avec une réédition de sa lettre du 25 mai 1693 à Jean de La Place, sieur de La Sauvagerie

Ruth Whelan

Abstract

The letter dated 25 May 1693, which René Barraud, sieur de La Cantinière, a French Protestant galley slave, sent from the Perle, one of the galleys at anchor in Marseille, to Jean de La Place, sieur de La Sauvagerie, a French refugee pastor living in Rotterdam, is often quoted by historians, who always quote the transcription published by Jules Bonnet in the BSHPF in 1866. But it is a truncated transcription of the autograph letter, which is preserved in the Collection Antoine Court of the Bibliothèque de Genève. This unabridged critical edition with commentary restores the passages that were cut from the autograph letter and replaces it in its original context, which reveals its collective dimension, and unveils aspects of the experience of the Protestants on the galleys that were occulted by Bonnet’s transcription.