Thanks to Sauret's teaching and his own zeal, the lad was considered competent, at the age of sixteen, to fill the post of mate on a brigantine, the _Cochon Gras_, of which the redoubtable Valbué was appointed commander. Jean Bart and his elderly adviser, Sauret, were, however, destined soon to find employ elsewhere, the occasion of their leaving the _Cochon Gras_ being an exhibition of wanton cruelty on the part of their captain. The fact of the two having protested rendered it advisable that they should not remain. M. Valbué, it appears, in common with many captains, both in the Navy and elsewhere at that period, still affected to be bound, together with his crew, by the Laws or Judgments of Oléron--a brutal code, dating from the twelfth century. Valbué, half drunk, had been relating some wonderful tale of the miraculous intervention of a saintly bishop to save a fishing-boat, and proceeded to emphasise his own belief and his contempt for heretics by flinging his half-empty tin cider-mug at one Lanoix, a harmless Huguenot seaman. (Huguenots are habitually represented by the ordinary British writer as harmless, exemplary persons; a large number of them were, in fact, bloodthirsty, cruel, and seditious ruffians, who richly deserved all they got.) Lanoix meekly but firmly pointed out that the Laws of Oléron ordained that the captain was not to punish a seaman until his anger had cooled down. (It reminds one rather of Midshipman Easy walking about with the Articles of War under his arm, and admonishing his superior for using strong language!) Valbué's rejoinder was a blow with a handspike, which narrowly missed braining the seaman. Antoine Sauret ventured to remonstrate, but was warned that he was in danger of similar treatment: for the Laws of Oléron allow the captain one blow, just as the law of England allows a dog one bite--only the skipper was apparently permitted one crack at each member of his crew. So Sauret said no more. Lanoix, however, was as well up in the law as his captain, and, jumping over the iron rail which separated the forecastle from the after part of the vessel, reminded Valbué that if he followed him on to the forecastle and repeated the blow he would put himself in the wrong, and he, Lanoix, would have the right to retaliate. Valbué immediately let loose a string of contemptuous and insulting epithets, and, passing the barrier, struck Lanoix two violent blows on the face. Out came the seaman's knife, and in a second the captain's arm was badly gashed; but the instinct of discipline induced the crew to rush to the rescue, and they pinioned Lanoix--but not before he had killed one man, stabbing him to the heart. Valbué thereupon sent his cabin-boy down to bring up a copy of the Laws of Oléron, Jean Bart, at the helm, looking on all this while with disapproval and horror very plainly expressed in his countenance. When the boy appeared with the book Sauret went aft and sat down by the helmsman.