# Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 25 - Beranger

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​Beranger. — Three detachments of this respectable Huguenot family left France as fugitives from the persecutions under Louis XIV., and Gabriel, the subject of this paragraph, rose to eminence. His forefathers took refuge in Holland, from whence he himself came over to Ireland in order to marry a fair cousin of Beranger refugee stock who presided over a warehouse for artists’ materials in Dublin. The third branch of the family located itself in England, and one of its members is said to ​have been the original of Sterne’s “Maria.” The aforesaid Gabriel Beranger was by profession an artist; his landscape drawings were most beautiful; he drew birds with perfect ornithological skill and exactness, and he was also a flower painter of great accuracy and grace. His representation of antiquarian objects of every description was faithful and valuable. And of all his productions in the above-named departments a very large collection has happily been preserved, which was exhibited at a recent meeting of the Royal Institution of Architects in Dublin by Sir William Wilde. Beranger, becoming enamoured of the interesting and romantic remains of architecture and fortifications of which he had made drawings, entered the department of historical and antiquarian study and authorship; he learned to write English with great correctness and even to handle the more intricate implements of epigram and jest. An illustrated manuscript volume still exists as a memorial of his grand artistic journey through many of the Irish midland counties. Further than that he flourished between the years 1750 and 1780, I am not informed as to the chronology of his career; but a forthcoming memoir is announced by Sir William Wilde. (I am indebted to a correspondent for the report of Sir William Wilde’s communication to the Royal Institution, contained in the Dublin Freeman’s Journal of 18th February 1870.)
Note.
Sir William Wilde’s Memoir, continued by his widow, Lady Wilde, was not published as a volume till 1880. Without attempting to master its artistic details, I note what is personal. Gabriel Beranger was born in Rotterdam in 1729, and came to Dublin in 1750, when he married his cousin; he married, secondly, another refugee lady, Miss Mestayer. He became Assistant Ledger Keeper in the Exchequer Office, and latterly he lived in comfort upon a legacy from his brother-in-law, Colonel Mestayer, who had made a fortune in India. He died at No. 12 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, on 18th February 1817, aged eighty-eight, and was interred in the French burial ground in Peter Street. He left no children, and the descendants of the Mestayers, Mrs. Sharkey and Mrs. Walker, nieces of his wife, inherited his property and collections. A portrait in crayons of Beranger by himself is in the possession of the Rev. Cotton Walker of Ballinasloe, “a very pleasing picture, showing an acute, intelligent, French face, with a clear intellectual outline.” Mr. Walker wrote in 1865, “I recollect him well, for he used to breakfast with us every Tuesday; he was a very remarkable looking person, and made a great impression on my young mind.” Mrs. Beranger’s grand-nephew, Dr. Sharkey, wrote in 1864, “Although Beranger was advanced in years at the time I knew him, he had even then an upright carriage and good presence.” Sir William Wilde has ably memorialized this worthy representative of the Huguenots, expelled from France, who carried their acute intellects and delicate taste to benefit other countries. Lady Wilde informs us that —
“It was the earnest wish of Sir William Wilde that Beranger’s sketches, so rich in suggestions for our living artists, and so important to the antiquary and the genealogist, should be published in a volume; those admirable and accurate sketches, preserving with such fidelity for the present age, the appearance and characterestics of Irish architectural remains, as seen existing a hundred years ago. Probably more than two hundred of these interesting works of art may still be forthcoming. He would have undertaken the work himself, even at his own expense, had health and life been spared to him. But it is to be hoped that the project will not fall to the ground.”