The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1877-09-20
President Of the French Republic.

! President Of the French Republic
MARSHAL MACMAHoN'S ANCESTORS-THl
SINGULAR AND ROMANTIC STORY OF
THEIR PROGRESS TOWARD THE NOBLl
ESTATE REACHED BY M AURICE PATRICE
| MARSHAL OF FRANCE.
London Truth To render clear to you
readers the ancestry of Marshal MacMahon
and how he came to be what he is, | mus
go back to the middle of the seventeenth
century.
In the household of Sarsfield there was q
retainer named Terence MacMahon. He die
not, poor fellow, suspect that he was de
scended from King Murtogh O'Bren Of the
Red Hand, who died in 1117, after reignine
twenty years over all Ireland. His fore
fathers had been attached, time out of mind
to the glebe of Leadmore, in the County
Glare. Honest Terry had a son. christened
after himself, who married waiting maid
named AEne Clarke. She had been in the
employment of the Castlemaines, and was
brought from England to Dublin by Tyrcon-
mel. After the final defeat of James H. the
worthy pair, with, probably, saved walls and
wages in their pockets, went back to Lead
| more.
| Heaven blessed them with a seventh son,
called John, whose birth happened in l717,
and who alone, OF numerous Otfsprings, sur
vived infancy. They good naturally took
to live with them nephew christened John
| Baptist, after a French soldier settled near
Llmrick This boy was two years older than
his cousin, who, according to an Irish super
stition, was as seventh son, "a born doc
tor" John grew up bright lad, and was
soon able to write for his parents to rela-
tions, on both sides Of the house, that had
emigrated to France with Jacobite masters
and mattresses. He was taught French by
Pats sponsor. There being no means of
making him physician, the father thought
| of educating him for holy orders. Friends In
Paris had appraised him that James II. found
ed a college in that city for Irish divinity
students of the Catholic faith.
John was dispatched to France, and OBJ
tanned admittance to the College Irelandais.
Young MacMahon was tall, able-bodied,
| handsome and troubled with superfuity of
animal spirits. His adventures on the Mont
Ste. Cenevieve were forgiven by his supe-
|! riors for the sake of his brilliant parts. The
archives of the College Irelandais testify
| that he was a first rate Latinist, crack
wrangler and had an extraordinary taste for
physics and mathematics. His scientific vo-
cation leading him to cast aside the sout0ne
and to accomplish the destiny Of "a seventh
son. he entered himself as student of the
Faculty Of Medicine, and wrote to John Bap-
fist to realize property left by Anne and
Terence, and bring him the money.
John Baptist did as he was asked. He
was fair French scholar. and handsome,
strapping fellow, six feet high. The cousins
studied together, and amused themselves
prodigiously, which did not stand in the
way of their advancement.
Intidelity was the fashion. John and John
Baptist proclaimed themselves atheists, and
with so much CHATTER that their names are
recorded in LIE DictsonGire DIES Attees. They
were plucked at their examination for a
medical diploma in Paris. John went in
search Of better luck to Rheims, where there
was faculty. His cousin followed him,
and they both were successfully licensed
to purge and bleed aT6e ct Nbique terrarunl
in 1888. Lord Tyrconnel and Duke Fitz-
james liked the son of Terence, who, the ira
dition is, was joyial and witty fellow.
Through their patronage he was appointed
head surgeon of the military hospitals of Col
mar and New Brisack. John Baptist, push
ed by his pleasant cousin, was named to be
the ssbleeder'' of the Swiss Guard when it
was on duty at Fontainebleau | shall leave
him there awhile to follow the fortunes of
DR.. John.
The irrepressible Irishmali got sick Of the
dull Alsatian town in which he killed and
cured soldiers. He threw up his situation
and went back to Paris. Tyrconnel was GO
ing as ambassador of King Louis to Berlin.
John asked his 1ordship to take him as doc
tor to the embassy. The friends posted to-
gether to the new capital of the Fredericks,
where the physician became the friend Of
Voltaire, and got confirmed in his atheism.
He stayed nearly twenty years in Germany.
D,t, Ia los hi, he o1J
in the bridal train of Marie Antoinette at
Strasburg, and in 1772 was named head ply
stefan at the Ecole Militaire. Having sown
his wild oats and obtained 4 permanent sit
uation, he thought Of marrying, and wrote
to distant cousin, who, he heard, had a
daughter, to know il she would take him.
Her name was Anne Clarke, and her mother
in her youth had been in the household of
st. John Lord Bolingbroke, at the Chateau
de la Source du Loirct. Cousin Anne con-
Sented.
Cardinal Lemoine, free thinking church.
man, joined hers and the DOCTORS hands in
his private chapel The issue of this union
was son named Patrick, who lost his moth
er at his birth. He was seventeen at Johns
death, in 17SS. In Napoleon's reign his
fathers medical friends procured for him
the place of librarian to the faculty of medi-
cine, which he held up to 1888, the period of
his decease.
Medical students of Irish extractonwere
welcomed at his house in the Rue Grenelle
st. Germain He was an amiable, simple
hammered man, a living repertory of good
stories about the great people and wits sof
his fathers time. Atheistcal, Voltairian,
and apt to laugh at the members of his fam
lily who had become barons, counts and mar
quises, and invented for themselves coat
of-arms and royal pedigree extending back
to red-handed Murtogh. Father Prout and
DR.. Higgins, of the Rue de Rivoli, had from
him the whole history of how the Mac Ma
hons came to France, and how, by their
agency, incubation was inflicted on that
country. DR.. John knew Mathy. Lady
Mary Wortley Montague's disciple was Bit
ten by his inoculating mania, and got Vol
taire to defend it. High society and the
Kings mistress sided with the Levantine
innovation, whichathe faculty of Paris was
brought to tolerate. Europe became va
riolic pest-house, and smallpox no more
spared the palace than the cottage.
l now shall take up the thread of John
Baptist?s life. John protected him from
afar, getting him recommended to Nine. de
Maupion and other influential personages.
He hoiSted in season and out the atheistical
flag. At party in the rooms of lady OF
honor, at Fontainebleau, the Princess AIDE
laide happened to say she was shocked to
| hear his majesty the King had appointed an
atheist to bleed his garde de corps, and asked
what the name of the reprehensible surgeon
was. John Baptist MacMahon was present.
Starting up, and crossing his hands on his
chest, he defiantly cried out; ''Cest moii'
''C'est aea tres beau garcon!" whispered the
| ladies to each other. Nine. dc Brienne took
fancy to him, and advised him to go to
Autun, a town she often visited. A mill
| tary hospital was established there, of which
she got him made the chief physician. She
introduced him, moreover, to a crippled old
lady with fortune of three million francs.
MacMahon became her doctor, made love to
her, and got her to quarrel with her family,
and to convey him all her fortune, in return
for which he bound himself to maintain her
for the rest of her life, according to her rank.
Changarnier was the notary who drew up
the deed, which gave rise to suit ranked
among the causes celcbres of the eighteenth
century With this instrument in his hand,
the doctor offered his heart to Charlotte lie
Belin d'Egullly, widow of Jean Lazare de
Morey, Governor of Vezelay, daughter OF
| Loo, In Pol;p coorotoru IF thn KinO and