# Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Historical Introduction - section V

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Section V.
CHURCH GOVERNMENT AND WORSHIP. (Supplementary to a similar Section in Volume I.)
The Huguenots rejected Saints’ days, though they retained the observance of the festivals dedicated to the Divine Persons of the Godhead. Their baptismal ritual was simple. They, however, allowed, though they did not compel, the appointment of sponsors, but without such designations as god-fathers and god-mothers. A child might have a male sponsor called the parrain, and a female, the marraine; sometimes there were two of each sex. In the city of London, Canterbury, and Southampton, there were no sponsors, but only témoins, witnesses. The witnesses, however, were expected to have an eye upon the child during his or her years of pupilage.
What the Huguenots most delighted in was Clement Marot’s metrical version of the Psalms. These they sang in their churches without instrumental accompaniments. They sang them as they walked in the streets or roads, and in their boats on the rivers, until the irate and jealous Romanists procured a law to silence them. Mary Queen of Scots’ French education brought into Scotland her loathing abhorrence of this joyous and heretical psalm-singing, and she seems to have infected Darnley with the same feverish irritation. John Knox publicly from the pulpit accused him of “haveing caste the Psalme-booke in the fire.” In 1751 appeared a splendid edition of the “Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg,” in which Frederic wrote about the refugees to this effect:— “An entire people departed from the kingdom out of party spirit, having the Pope as its object of hatred, and to receive under another sky the communion in both kinds. Four hundred thousand souls expatriated themselves and forsook all their possessions, that they might roar within other temples Clement Marot’s old Psalms.” The poet Akenside rebuked the Royal Author:—
Whence then at things divine those darts of scorn? Why are the woes, which virtuous men have borne For sacred truth, a prey to laughter given? What fiend — what foe of nature — urged thy arm Th’ Almighty of His sceptre to disarm — To push this earth adrift, and leave it loose from Heaven?
Many of the nobles, bishops, and gentry of England laid the refugees under great obligations to them by many acts of kindness, so that the refugees in private life were more associated with them than with the middle class to which the dissenters belonged. The English upper classes also made it a matter of personal longing that their friends in the French churches should adopt the same prayer-book as their own; so that gradually the majority of the French churches adopted Durel’s Prayer Book. But this did not alienate the dissenters from them. Their leader, Dr. Edmund Calamy, when the Schism Bill was to come before the House of Lords, sat up a whole night, drawing up queries which were addressed to my Lords the Bishops, and in which he pled equally for English Dissenters and French Protestants.
On the other hand, when the High Anglican Church party had the upper hand, it repudiated any alliance with the Huguenots. In 1712 both Houses of Convocation in Ireland addressed the Queen on the state of religion, which they represented as being unwholesome and dangerous, and among other alleged proofs they particularized the following:—
“Here we humbly acquaint your Majesty that the French Refugees who, upon their first coming over into this kingdom, did all conform to the Established Church, and were treated with utmost tenderness and humanity, and great numbers of them subsisted at an immense charge for these twenty years past, in the hopes that the more they were acquainted with our constitution and worship, they would more firmly adhere to the Communion of our Church: yet for some years before your Majesty’s happy accession to the throne, they were broken into non-conforming congregations — and this in contradiction to the known principles as well as of other Reformed Churches and Divines as of those in France — who, since the Reformation, have kept in strict communion with our Church, and on all occasions given ample approbation of our doctrine and worship. In all likelihood their numbers ​will be considerably increased when God shall bless these nations with peace; so that there is just cause to fear, that unless some effectual expedient be found out to bring them into union with the Established Church, these divided congregations may be perpetuated to posterity, and that their children at least will fall in with those several Sectaries among us, who will omit no art or industry to confirm them in their separation; by which means that great charity may end in the promoting of schism in the church and faction in the state.”
With much better spirit, grammar, and logic, the refugees rejoined in a quarto pamphlet, published at Dublin in 1712, entitled, “An Apology for the French Refugees established in Ireland, addressed to all those who love the peace of the Church.” It is worthy of being reprinted entire. I must content myself with saying that it was a complete answer, representing that as to the Dissenters whom they found in their adopted country, they had formed no ecclesiastical connection with them, neither had they dabbled in any political theories that were purely English or Irish. The following spirited yet modest paragraph is a specimen of the style of the pamphlet:—
“What a medley of inconsistent accusations has been made use of to blacken a poor exiled people, and make them odious to the Queen and nation ! Fifteen years ago, to render them equally the objects of public aversion and contempt, they were represented as a people born and bred in slavery, always ready to be the instruments of the unlimited power of princes, and consequently dangerous in a government where the legislative power is mixed. But now it is asserted that they are of anti-monarchical principles, and ready to join with factious men. God be thanked, both accusations are without grounds, as their behaviour has always shewn.”
The Rev. John Armand du Bourdieu, in 1718, in an “Appeal to the English Nation,” says:—
“It will not be amiss to take a cursory view of the three distinctions in the Church of England, to shew which of them we (the refugees) belong to. 1st. There is a Papist Church of England. . . . 2d. Next to this class is the Laudean Church of England. . . . 3d. I declare we are sincere and hearty members of the Christian Protestant Church of England — which does not found the validity of its ministry on an unbroken chain of Episcopal Ordainers or a succession from Rome, but which, in concert with all its fellow Protestant Churches, builds it on its conformity and agreeableness to the great standard, the Scripture, and the revealed will of its Lord and Lawgiver, as its only solid basis and unmoveable rock — that Church which, far from raising between itself and foreign churches a particular wall of Jure Divino notions and exalted pretensions and prerogatives, as also of ceremonies of all little concern as those meats which occasioned differences in the Apostle’s time, hath constantly, since the Reformation, held a Christian and brotherly correspondence with the Protestant Churches abroad, particularly with the French Protestant Churches.”
With regard to the internal affairs and feelings of the French worshippers, Misson makes some amusing remarks as to wearing hats in church. As to the worshippers, he says “they pull off their hats when they go into church, and never put them on during the reading of the Commandments, the singing of Psalms, or the saying of Prayers, but (if they please) they may cover their heads while the Scripture is reading, and all the time of the sermon.” So the preacher, when he is about to begin the sermon, puts on his hat. This was their custom in France. Englishmen, who came to the refugee churches for an occasional service, could not endure this, and threatened never to come back — a threat which “induced some Consistories of French churches, though nonconformists in other respects, to take a resolution of conforming in that one point of preaching without a hat.” Some, however, “pulled their hats over their eyes more than ever.” And one minister, being unable to get attention to his discourse, through the number of uplifted hands making signals to him, saw that these were protestations against his preaching without a hat, but hesitated as to borrowing an elder’s hat or leaving the pulpit to look for his own.
Either regularly, or occasionally, the refugees observed the anniversary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes as a fast-day. Mr. Baynes' Bibliographical Appendix mentions a sermon preached at the Soho French Church on 22d October 1735, entitled, “Les Larmes de Refuge,” and purporting to be a sermon on the fast-day [jour de jeune] established in memory of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, by Rev. C. de Missy; also another sermon preached in 1750, with the following title:— “Les Dedommagements d’une injuste Persecution, ou, Sermon sur ​l’Anniversaire de La Revocation de l’Edit de Nantes,” by Rev. James Du Plessis, chaplain of the French Hospital of London.
As to church discipline, the French consistories watched over the morals of their members with great conscientiousness. In the countries where they took refuge, there was one scandal which kept all the consistories of their churches fully employed for some years. Weiss says, “During 1686, 1687, 1688, the London consistory, at its weekly meetings, was almost exclusively occupied with receiving the evidences of the repentance of those who, after having abjured their faith for self-preservation, had stolen away from their persecutors. . . . The ministers examined their depositions, listened to the recital of their sufferings, and received them anew into the communion of their brethren.” Burn, in his “History,” has preserved the following minute: — “Le Dimanche, 13me May 1688, Elizabet Cautin de St. Martin de Retz. Susanne Cellier, et Marie Cellier sa soeur, de La Rochelle, ont fait recognoissance publique au Presche du matin — l’une pour avoir été au sermon feignant d’etre l’Eglise de Romaine, les autres deux pour avoir signé l’Abjuration. Monsieur Coutet les a recues.” I have the following note from the register of Le Tabernacle, London:— “Melchizedec Girard of the town of Rochelle confessed having lapsed into Romanism, and asked pardon of God in presence of this assembly, and was received into the communion of the church by the pastor, Mr. C. Pegorier, 6th January 1701.”
Mr Burn gives a specimen of a tesmoinage, similar to the certificates which communicants in Scotland now must obtain on transferring themselves from one congregation to another:—
“Monsieur Guillaume Benoist et Magdalon Hanet son femme ont été membres de notre Eglise, en laquelle ils ont participe a la Ste Cène aux autres exercises de pieté publics et solennels, et ont vêcu honêtement et sans scandale qui ont venu à notre connoisance. Nous les recommandons à la grace et garde de Dieu, et à la communion de nos frères de Londres ou ils font état de se retirer. Fait à Amsterdam le 16 Juin 1746.
“Par les Conducteurs de l’Eglise Wallonne du dit lieu et au nom de tous,
“Boullier, l’un des pasteurs. Louis Thellusson, l’un des anciens.”
These témoinages were granted by the consistory when applied for; the applications were called demandes de tesmoinage. When a member was enrolled, the date of his tesmoinage was added to his name, and also the church or influential individual who had granted it. For instance, in the Threadneedle Street register of admissions we find Jacques Chataux, 28th May 1682, Par tesmoinage de Jean Destrilles de la Clide.
In the precept that baptism ought to be administered in public, they also agreed with the Scottish discipline. The Portarlington consistory (see the Ulster Journal of Archaeology) decided, that, on a formal representation to that church-court that ​an infant was very delicate, a petition for private baptism might be presented and acceded to, without prejudice to the discipline of the Church.
An oath being properly a devotional deed, I may notice that in the mode of swearing witnesses the French Protestants coincided, not with the English but with the Scotch practice. As to “the custom of swearing by laying the hand upon the Gospels and kissing them,” a foreign author states, “Many of the Protestant churches condemned the usage and laid it aside. The Protestant Church of France in a national synod at Gap, 1603 (Quick’s Synodicon, vol. i., p. 239), determined it to be unlawful, and gave it as their judgment, that those who were called to swear, should content themselves barely with the lifting up of the hands. The Reformed Church of Scotland has also exploded the custom, and established the other in its stead. . . . Books were surely meant for reading and not for kissing; but [in England] we see those, who care not to read, forward to kiss. Many who never read the Bible once in their lives, can kiss it twenty times in a day. Thousands of infidels, who know not or believe not a sentence in the Gospels, are yearly allowed, nay, compelled to swear by or on them.”
A writer in the Edinburgh Review (vol. 121, page 495) suggests that in a preference for Scriptural names, and especially for Old Testament names, for their children, the French Protestants resembled the English Puritans. He says, “About the middle of the sixteenth century, as we gather from the names in their pedigree, the Dumont family became Huguenots, in common with many of the nobles of the province [of Normandy]. The Geoffreys, the Pierres, the Remys, and the Guillaumes, who had transmitted the honours of the house, give place to Isaacs, Abrahams, and Samuels.” By consulting the long lists which I have printed under the head “Naturalization,” my readers can form an opinion for themselves on this suggestion. The peaceful patriarchal names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are frequent; and the Apostolic names of Peter (the same as Pierre), James and John; Guillaume seems no less abundant, and it is the fault of our language, that its equivalent “William” has not an old Norman sound. There is the Bible name, Daniel, to hint at the call for fidelity in a court and society which were more than semi pagan; there are Abel and Stephen to whisper “Be thou faithful unto death.” But from secular history there is a favourite name, “Mark-Antony” (perhaps associated with the difficulty of steering between the rocks of governmental vindictiveness and mob brutality). Antoine and Antoinette, Francois and Francoise, Louis and Louise, Mary and Mary-Magdalen, are the other names that seem to have been most in favour.
To return to Church-government. The French Church courts were careful as to the trustworthy teaching for which the office of pastor was instituted. The pastors, as a body, were anxious that their soundness should be proved. In 1691, the Jesuits having accused of heterodoxy the French pasteurs in England, the charge was met by ninety-six ministers issuing and signing a paper declaring their sentiments. Along with their names they gave the places in France where they had resided (Baynes, p. 276). The dictum of Pasteur Cousin of London in 1569, expressed their idea of a minister as distinguished from a groping individual enquirer. A Protestant preacher, soliciting admission to the French Church, was confronted before the consistory by a letter of his own writing, in which was a series of heterodox statements. His defence was that his letter was written by way of questioning, not of affirmation. The President replied, “Such kind of questioning is not meet in these times for a minister of God’s Church.”
From a Minute-Book which is still extant, it appears that the French Churches of London formed themselves into a General Assembly, “pour la paix et pour l’ordre dans notre Refuge.” (Article 8.) The first moderator was the Rev. Louis Saurin, minister of the Savoy; the first secretary, Moses Pujolas. There are several articles of Constitution. At the date of institution, 10th August 1720, there were eight churches in the City and eight in Westminster; of these churches, Threadneedle Street and the Savoy were to send, each of them, two ministers and four ciders as representatives to sit in l’Assemblée Generale des Eglises Francoises de Londres; the other churches were to send, each of them, one minister and two elders, except the chapel of St. James’s Palace, which (having no elders) was to be represented by two ministers. The Eighth article declares that the Assembly’s decisions are to have no authority except that of advice, unless in special cases, where consistories ​desire arbitration. The Ninth is to the effect that “Unknown ministers or proposants [students of divinity] shall not be admitted to our pulpits, unless they have produced good testimonials from the places from whence they come. Suspended or deposed ministers from foreign countries shall not be admitted to our pulpits, and any church contravening this rule shall lose its right to elect deputies to the General Assembly until the scandal is removed. The churches are entreated not to admit proselytes to preach until six months after their abjuration made in this town, or (if they made their abjuration elsewhere) six months after their arrival, and if during that time their conduct has been edifying.” The following is the Tenth Article: —
“When a consistory has suspended any one from the Lord’s Supper, that consistory shall give intimation to all the other churches, and they shall hold that suspension good. If the suspended person complains of unjust procedure and presents an appeal, the General Assembly shall examine the affair in the fear of God, and shall confer with the consistory. If the General Assembly finds that the suspension is just, it shall hold in all the churches; but if the Assembly finds it ill-founded, it shall be held as null in all the churches, and the church appealed against shall be exhorted to submit to the advice of the Assembly.”
The Assembly met in 1744, for the collateral object of reporting what number of volunteers could be mustered from their people to defend the Protestant dynasty in case of a Jacobite invasion. It met to present loyal addresses to George III. on his accession; and in 1761, on the announcement of his marriage; in September 1786, on account of the attempted murder of the king by Margaret Nicholson; and on 5th April 1789, to offer congratulations on the king’s convalescence. Whatever spiritual business may have been discussed or settled, it was not minuted, though in February 1721 it was found advisable to appoint two secretaries, Rev. Israel Anthony Aufrere and Mr. Henry Guinand.
Note.
A form of reconnoisance, or acknowledgment of the offence of going to Mass under intimidation, is given in the Acts of La Cour Ecclesiastique de l’Ile de Guernesey, which, with a memorandum of the names of French Protestant Refugees, has been kindly sent to me by a correspondent resident in Guernsey. The first date is x. Avril 1686:—
Sur l’instante requeste à nous presentée par Dame Marie Anne du Vivier de Bayeux en Normandie, par Adrien Viel de la ville de Caen et par Jean Pichon d’Alencon en Normandie, pour estre receus à la paix de l’Eglise après avoir malheureusem$^t$ renoncé à la Reformation de la pureté de l’Evangile, pour eviter la persecuon que Ton fait en France aux fideles Protestans: Nous etans assemblez extraordinairement pour cet effet, Il a eté trouvé a propos, pour satisfaire à leur desir, & pour contribuer à leur consolation, qu’ils se presenteront Dimanche prochain onzième jour de ce present mois, dans le temple de la ville: où, après avoir temoigné leur deplaisir, & le regret qu’ils ont en leurs ames du peché qu’ils ont comis & donné des marques de leur repentance, ils seront receus à la paix de l’Eglise; & pour cet effet ils repetront après le Pasteur mot à mot ce qui s’ensuit, eux etans à genoux:
Nous Marie Anne du Vivier, Adrien Viel & Jean Pichon: reconoissons icy en la presence de Dieu & de cette sainte Assemblée: que nous avons peché très-grievem$^t$ & d’une façon extraordinaire: d’avoir été a la Messe; et par ce moyen en renoncant à la Reformation: et a la pureté de l’Evangile: Ce dont nous sommes très-sensiblement touchez: & marris d’avoir comis un tell peché: au grand deshoneur du Dieu Tout-puissant: & au danger &; perill de nos ames: & au mauvais exemple que nous avons donné aux Fidèles: C’est pourquoy nous protestons icy devant Dieu: & devant cette Assemblée: que nous sommes marris de tout nôtre coeur: & affligez en nos ames: d’avoir comis cet horrible peché: Nous supplions tres-humblement le Dieu de toutes misericordes: de nous pardoner ce grand & cet enorme peché; & tous les autres que nous avons comis: promettans solennellem$^t$ de ne l’offenser jamais de telle sorte: Et nous vous prions très-instamment: vous tous qui êtes icy presens: de nous assister continuellem$^t$ de vos prières; & de vous joindre plus particulierement avec nous: dans l’humble & cordiale Prière que nous adressons au Dieu Tout-puissant: en disant,
Notre Pere qui es aux Cieux, &c.
Les susdittes Personnes firent leur reconnoissance publique dans l’Eglise de la Ville le Dimanche xj Avril immediatem$^t$ avant le sermon de la relevée, conformement à ce que dessus.
20 Août 1686. Demoiselles Jeanne de Gennes, Charlotte de Moucheron, Elisabeth du Bordieu, Susanne le Moyne et Elisabeth du Mont. Item, Benjamin & Pierre Gaillardin [un de nos frères].
29 Sept$^{re}$ 1686. Demoiselles Charlotte & Judith Moisan, de Bretagne.
30 Sept$^{re}$ 1686. Moyse Bossis, de Royan.
28 Oct$^{re}$ 1686. Messire Jacques Mauclerc, chevalier, Seigneur de S$^t$ Philibert-Muzanchère; Messire Jean-Louis Mauclerc, CheV S r de la Clartiere; Messire Benjamin Mauclerc, Chev. S$^r$ de la Forestrie; D$^{lles}$ Marie et Susanne Mauclerc et D$^{lle}$ Françoise-Marie Pyniot, de la ​province de Poitou, diocèse de Lusson; et Messire André le Geay, Chev$^r$ S$^r$ de la Grelière & D$^{me}$ Françoise de la Chenaye, sa femme et D$^{lle}$ Marianne le Geay, leur fille, de l’évêché de Nantes.
25 Nov$^{re.}$ Sieur André Goyon de S$^t$ Just en Xaintonge en France; Marie Horry, sa femme; Louyse & Jeanne Horry, ses belles-soeurs; Jean l’Amoureux, père et fils; Marie Langlade and Ester Massé, leurs femmes, aussi de S$^t$ Just; et Daniel Le Marchez et Isaac Fournier de Mornac en Xaintonge.
12 Avril 1687. Maitre Jacques Ruffiat de Royan.
4 Fev$^r$ 1687-8. Sieurs Gabriel Adrien, Pierre Guivé Raymond Poittevin, Isaac Adrien, Samuel Adrien, Estienne Gendron, Jean Aubel, Pierre Aubin, Daniel Caillau, Jean Haudry, Jean Hercontaud, Jacques Adrien, Jean Hartus et Elisabeth Roy, Marie, Marguerite et Elizabeth Adrien et Jeanne Hercontaud de Saint Sarcinien de la Province de Xaintonge.
19 Fev$^r$ 1687-8. Isaac Eliard du Pays d’Auge en Normandie.
4 Mars 1687-8. Mons$^r$ Pierre Courtaud; D$^{lles}$ Anne du Chemin, Anne Brodeau et Philis Germen de Quintin en Bretagne.
2 Janv$^r$ 1688-9. Messire Isaac Gouyquet, Seigneur de S$^t$ Eloy de l’Evêché de St Brieux en Bretagne.
27 Juin 1699. Caterine de Jarnac, native de Bordeaux.
7 Juillet 1699. Pierre Seigle et Anne le Cornu, sa femme, et Anne l’Orfelin, tous trois de la ville de Caen; comme aussi Marie Cliarpentier, native d’Alencon; Renée Menel, veuve de Marc Colet, Louyse de Grenier, fille, native de Domfront, Marie Colet, fille; Jacob le Comte; Paul Desnoës Granger, fils d’Israel Granger, Sieur Desnoës, natif d’Alençon, André Touchar d’Alençon.
22 Juin 1689. D$^{lle}$ Jeanne Jousselin, de la Rochelle; David Pinceau de Mouchant et René Hersand.
8 Fev$^{re}$ 1669. D$^{lle}$ Caterine Rochelle, de la Paroisse de Ploerney, Evêché de S$^t$ Brieuc.
18 Avril 1700. François Bertonneau, du Bourg de Boulogne en Poitou; Paul Pinceau de Rochetrejoux en Bourbon; Jeanne Seigle de la ville de Caen.
13 Aoust 1718. Nicolas Priou, de la paroisse de S$^t$ Louvier proche de Caen en Normandie, issu d’un père Protestant nommé Herbelin Priou, a fait sa reconnaissance publique, &c, &c.
30 Oct$^{re}$ 1718. Jean le Marchand, natif de la paroisse de Rondfougeré proche de Falaize en Normandie, protestant d’origine, nouvellement orty de France, ayant esté quelquefois à la Messe, a fait reconnoissance, &c.
28 Dec$^{re}$ 1719. Pierre Burreau de Royan en France, cy-devant de l’Eglise de Rome, a renoncé aux Erreurs, &r, &c, dans l’Eglize de la paroisse de St Pierre-Pont le 16 du dit mois et Lydie Emerelle sa femme, native de Mechée, protestante de naissance, a eu même temps fait sa reconnoissance, &c, &c, et ensuitte ils ont esté receus à la Paix de l’Eglize, et ont receu le Sacrem$^t$ de la S$^{te}$ Cène dans le ditte Eglize de S$^t$ Pierre Port le 27 du dit mois et an.
28 Dec$^{re}$ 1719. D$^{me}$ Jeanne de Barisont, de Bourg de Marene en France, veuve du S$^r$ Pierre Chapelier, née Protestante et de Parens Protestans, a fait sa reconnoissance, &c.
21 Avril 1720. Jacques Gain, Philippe Siché et Léon Siché tous trois de Jonsac en Saintonge, néz de Peres en Fils de Parents Protestants (comme ils ont dit) ont esté receus come tels dans l’Eglize de la Paroisse de S$^t$ Pierre Port en cette Isle, le xx de ce present mois et an, sans faire reconnoissance, parcequ’ils ont protesté n’avoir jamais fait ny promis de faire aucun acte de la religion Romaine.
Les trois actes suivans ont esté obmis à leur datte.
29 Dec$^{re}$ 1718. Mons$^r$ Salomon Lauga, de Clerac Agenois, Protestant de naissance et de Parens Protestans, a fait sa reconnoissance, &c, &c, et a receu le Sacrem$^t$, &c.
11 Auoust 1719. Mr. André Condomine et Jeanne Adgierre, sa femme, tous deux de Nismes, néz Protestants et de Parents Protestants, et Pierre Condomine et Jeanne Condomine leurs fils et fille, ont les quatre fait leur reconnoissance, &c.
12 Oct$^e$ 1719. D$^{me}$ Jeanne Chaudrec, de Clerac Agenois, feme de M$^r$ Salomon Lauga, née Protestante, &c., &c.
26 Avril 1720. Renée du Gat, née Protestante, native de la paroisse d’Espargne en Saintonge, a fait reconnoissance, &C
23 May 1720. M$^r$ Jacques Anges Arnaud, de Blois, et D$^{selle}$ Marie Anne des Marets, de Paris, sa femme. tous deux nez Protestans et de Parents Protestants, à ce qu’ils ont dit, ont fait leur recognoissance dans l’Eglize de S$^t$ Pierre Port en cette Isle le jour sus dit pour avoir este a la Messe, et particulierem$^t$ le jour de leur mariage, et ayant promis solemnellem$^t$ de perseverer constamment dans la profession de nostre sainte religion jusques à la mort, ils ont este receus a la Paix de l’Eglize.
10 Oct$^{re}$ 1720. M$^r$ Pierre Gaultier et D$^{me}$ Ann Ribault, sa femme estans de la Province du Berry, et de la Ville de S$^t$ Savan, à Louden en Poitou, tous deux nez Protestans et de parens protestans, ont fait leur recognoissance, &c.
22 Nov$^{re}$ 1720. Dame Marie de Blanchet, native de Croix, veuve de Noble Homme, Paul Martin, a fait sa recognoissance, &c.
22 Dec$^{re}$ 1720. Jacques Brouard et Jacques Tendrouneau, tous deux de Poitou, de la ville de Poitou, de la ville de Pouzeau, nez Protestans, &c.
* ↑ Misson records as to the French Refugees’ churches:— “Some have stuck to their old service according to the institution of Calvin, others have conlornicd to the Church of England, and part have grown amphibious.”
* ↑ Quoted in Baynes’ Witnesses in Sackcloth, page 227.
* ↑ A certain stigma is attached to the name of one under discipline, even in a deed of restoration. On the other hand, in the list of refugees who received pecuniary aid (which are preserved in the Archbishop's Library at Lambeth), each individual, who stood firm and was tortured and imprisoned for such steadfastness, is honoured by having placed opposite to his or her name the word confesseur or confesseuse. The following, among others, were relieved in 1706 (about twenty-one years must be deducted from what was the age of each at that date to ascertain their age in 1685):— Charles Jamet (67), confesseur, Refugee from Loudun. Jaques de la Hondes (51), confesseur, 〃 Vence en Vivarois. Jean Laloel, M.D., confesseur, 〃 St. Lô. Joachim Kosel (67), confesseur, et sa femme, 〃 Alencon. François Guiteau, M.U. (46), et sa femme, l’un et l’autre, confesseur, 〃 La Mothe St. Ileray. Estienne Dupre (77), et sa femme (68), confesseuse, 〃 Guyenne. Anne de Gosselin (41), $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ confesseuses 〃 $\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right.}$ Martigny. et Gabrielle, sa soeur (29), Normandie. Catherine Varignon Des Gréez (66), confesseuse, 〃 Caen. Elizabeth Ligoure Luret (72), confesseuse, 〃 Saintonge. Claudine de la Farelle (6l), confesseuse, 〃 Nismes. Madclaine Dubreuil] de Chastcignier (58), confesseuse, 〃 Civray. Jeanne Du Four, veuve d’un conseiller (77 et aveugle), confesseuse, 〃 Loudun. Marie Gontier, veuve (53), confesseuse, 〃 Rouen. Judith Hignoult (58), confesseuse, 〃 Havre. Marie Javelle, veuve (72), confesseuse, 〃 Dauphiné. Marie Le Moine de Soulet (60), confesseuse, 〃 Poitou. Marguerite Noblet (62), confesseuse, 〃 Sion, diocese de Nantes. Rachel Picot, veuve d’un orfevre (73), malade et confesseuse, 〃 Normandie. Marguerite Viel (43), confesseuse,. 〃 St. Jean de Gardonenque. Anne Granier (77), avec Georgette Peyraut (45), sa niéce, 〃 Niort. Pierre Amiot, et Marie sa femme, confesseuse, 〃 Tours. Jean Malandin et sa femme Marthe (52), confesseuse, 〃 Fécamp. Pierre Muret (46), Jeanne, sa femme, confesseuse, et deux enfants, 〃 Pont en Royan. Henry Massal (60), qui a accomfagné pendant 14 ans M. Brousson prechant sous la croix. 〃 St. Hippolyte.
* ↑ “Strictures on the form of Swearing by Kissing the Gospels, in a Letter from a Foreign Protestant to his friend abroad.” (London, 1782), pages 10 and 16.
* ↑ Strype’s “Life of Grindal”, book i., chap. 15.
* ↑ Burn’s MSS. Information obtained from the MSS. of the late Mr. John Southerden Burn is acknowledged thus.
* ↑ A few of his descendants are still in existence.