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

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​Benjamin Langlois, Esq., M.P., was a son of Pierre Langlois of Montpelier. There were several branches of the Langlois stock in France; his branch has been designated Langlois of Languedoc, and its armorial bearings have been certified thus:—
Langlois en Languedoc
porte pour armes d’azur un chevron d’or accompagné de trois croissants d’argent deux en chef un en point. Au chef cousu de gueules chargé de trois molettes d’argent.
Je soussigné Jacques Louis Chevillard, genealogiste ordinaire du Roy et historiographe de France, certitie avoir fait dresser l’extrait de l’armorial de France sur les originaux arretés au Conseil en execution de l’Edit du Roy donne a Versailles au mois de Novembre 1696.
Fait à Paris ce 25 Mars 1749,
J. L. Chevillard, Genealogiste du Roy.
The grandfather of the refugee Pierre Langlois was Michael Langlois, who married, on 13th December 1620, Louise d’Arenes, and was the father of Captain Pierre Langlois of the regiment of Anjou, born in 1626; he died in France. The refugee, Pierre, was born in January 1673, and was a cornet of dragoons in England in 1692. He was naturalized by Act of Parliament in 1707. Afterwards he became a merchant, and married Mile. Julie de Monceau de La Melonière on 17th November 1712, in London, within the French Church in the Savoy. He finally settled and prospered at Leghorn. There his wife predeceased him on 26th March 1727, and there he himself died on 21st September 1737.
The following is his epitaph at Leghorn:—
Petrus Langlois Claris in Galliâ parentibus exortus, inter Anglos conscriptus et in Libumensi portu mercator integerrimus, insignis ob eximiam erga Deum pietatem, pauperibus muniticentissimus, quinque liberos Christophorum Joannem Petrttra Benjamin et Elizabeth ex amantissimâ conjuge Julie La Meloniere susceptos sibi superstites relinquens summo suorum et bonorum omnium maerore. Obiit xi. Kal Octobris An. Dom. mdccxxxvii. AEtatis verb suae lxv.
The daughter, Elizabeth Langlois (born 1720), was the wife of Anthony Lefroy, Esq., and died as his widow on 30th November 1782, and is now represented by the Lefroy family. The eldest son, Christopher, was born in 1715 and died in 1796; the second son, John, was born in 1716 and died in 1789; the third son, Peter, was born in London in 1723 or 4, became a Field-Marshal-Lieutenant or Feldzeugmeister in the Austrian service, and was buried at Trieste on 12th July 1789. The fourth son, Benjamin, is the subject of this memoir. All four died unmarried.
Benjamin Langlois was born in 1727. He devoted himself to a diplomatic and parliamentary career. On the invitation of Viscount Stormont, our ambassador at the court of Vienna, he became secretary to that Embassy in May 1763. He sat in the House of Commons as M.P. for St. Gcrmains, in Cornwall, from 1768 to 1779. He received the appointment of Store-Keeper to the Ordnance on 8th December 1772, “with the wages or fee of twelve pence of Lawful! money of Great Britain by the day.” His last appointment was Under-Secretary-of-State (Home Department), which he held under the Secretary-of-State, Viscount Stormont, from 1779 to 1782. The following was the missive which he received from his noble friend:—
“London, Jan. 31 [1779].
“My dear Langlois, — I have been so constantly occupied that it has not been possible for me to give you an account of our debates, in which I have taken so large a share, and not unsuccessfully, if I may credit the partiality of my friends. The Ministers continue to procrastinate, yet they cannot delay the business above three weeks longer; the plan of future arrangement is nearly settled, and I write to you upon a subject of great importance to me. I write, my dear Langlois, to invite you, not as formerly, to a share of toil and labour, but to a bed of down. I am to be Secretary of State for the Home Department; I cannot, therefore, invite you to come and work with me, for we shall have not more business in a year than we have often done in a single week, but I do most earnestly invite you to come and take your share of this sinecure. It will oblige you to come to town sooner than usual; but it will not ​prevent your shooting parties in autumn. In that I can see no objection; but if, contrary to my hope, you should find London disagree with you, and should think even this quiet office too much for your spirits, you can then return to retirement. I am most anxious that you should at least make the experiment. I entreat of you, my dear Langlois; I ask it of your friendship; nay, more, I expect it from that long and faithful friendship from which I have never expected anything in vain. — Ever yours most sincerely,
“Stormont.”
Mr. Benjamin Langlois died on 20th November 1802, aged seventy-five, and was buried at Ashe in Hampshire. Sir Egerton Brydges (Autobiog., ii. 40) has described him as “a good and benevolent old man, with much diplomatic experience, but most fatiguingly ceremonious, with abilities not much above the common.” I do not think that his representatives should be dissatisfied with this estimate of Mr. Langlois; any higher estimate would have implied the qualifications of a cabinet-minister or ambassador, to neither of which eminences he made any pretension. (I am mainly indebted to Sir J. H. Lefroy’s Notes and Documents).