My Great-grandmother’s Letter

 

 

A brief Report of my Escape from France (translation)

“It happened at La Rochelle de Saint Denis, where there is a harbor, in the year of the Lord 1687. I was the oldest among my brothers and sisters, and during the absence of my parents the oldest in the house, with five siblings younger than me, the youngest brother five and the youngest sister only two years of age. My dear parents had impressed on me not to miss any opportunity to escape from the kingdom if not with all, then at least with some of my siblings.

“On April 24, of the same year, 1697, there came into our house a good and dear friend who asked me not to mention his name because of the harsh penalties and awful consequences this may cause him to suffer, and informed me of a small vessel bound to England, whose skipper he had implored to take on board four or five people, and that there is no more space on this ship than to accommodate just five people, although in order to hide us between the cargo of sea-salt he would have to toss a barrel of wine into the ocean, lest he would run the danger of being discovered and lose everything, and therefore demanded a great sum of money to cover his risks. All this was no obstacle for our plan and we accorded.

 “I asked our friend that he may bring the ship’s captain to our house, not later than 3.45 a.m., so that none of the neighbors would grow suspicious, while I could employ our friend’s services in this agreement as a witness and translator. We came to an accord, I promised the skipper 200 Louis’dors per head of the five people he would provide with passage; this was 1,000 Louis’dors in French currency. One half he was to receive before we set out, and the rest when safely landing us in Chichester (a city in England), to where he promised to bring us. After in the presence of our witness I made the accord, we then agreed, that the time to go aboard should be on the 27th of April in the evening at 8.00 p.m. - When the day arrived, I, two of my brothers and two of my sisters dressed up as clean and fastidious as possible with everything that we were allowed to carry on us, the circumstances did not allow us to handle it any other way, and I ordered the governess for the little ones to go with us, because she knew of the secret.

“We pretended to take a turn on the palace promenade, where people of consequence used to gather every evening. About ten, the people began to disperse, and we sneaked away from our acquaintances; but on a very different route, namely to the spot, which had been communicated to me, not far off from the city’s pond. In the building behind it we found a door ajar, slipped in, and climbed up the unlit stairs and holding our breath remained there in utmost silence well until after midnight, when our friend and the captain came in. I said to the captain that nothing could cause me greater pains than leaving behind my smallest sister; especially since she is my goddaughter, I felt even more obliged to rescue her from the idolaters than with the others.

“This I couldn’t say without great many tears and sorrow of my heart: I promised the captain everything, whatever he desired and the heaven’s blessing, if he complied to do the good work. My address and my tears moved him to such lengths, that he expressed willingness, to let her go with us, too, if only I could promise him that she wouldn’t scream and make noises should the coast guards inspect his vessel which at two or three occasions might not go without poking rapiers into suspicious nooks and crannies. I promised him, hoping that the grace of God will be with me. Immediately my friend and the governess rushed into town to fetch my sister from where we used to live.

“The governess lifted the child from the bed, wrapped her together with her dresses into a blanket and carried her hither hidden in her apron; it was God’s will that nobody would notice the least of it. The little child, which was particularly attached to me, was very glad to see me again, and promised, to be faithful and quiet, and only to do, what I would tell her to do. I dressed her and swaddled her in the remainder of her belongings.

“In the same night, at about two a.m., four members of the crew came from the harbor and carried all of us on their shoulders on board of the ship - me with my little sister in the arm - and to the prepared place in the cargo hull: the entrance to our hiding spot was so small, that somebody needed to enter it first to drag us into it; and when we had found our positions between the salt barrels, and were unable to move about, they sealed the opening behind us, so that it looked as before and nobody would suspect anything. The deck’s rafters were so low that we hit it with our heads; yet we all endeavored to hold our heads high, so that the coast guards’s rapiers couldn’t reach us.

“As soon as we had boarded, the vessel hoisted the sails; the king’s guards came to inspect it but we had the good fortune that neither on the 28th nor on the other two occasions we were discovered. The wind was favorable and by 11 or  12 a.m. carried us away from all the enemies of the truth ... .”

 

Here the torn fragment ends. Together with the letter there has been handed down the information that it was written by my great-great-grandmother when she was seventeen and that it had been mailed from Amsterdam, not Chichester, the original destination. Why and how is unknown; we also know that Marianne married an other Huguenot living in Scotland, a Monsieur Coliere, my father’s ancestor on the mother’s side. The “idolaters” mentioned in the letter are the Roman Catholics.

1687 was the year when the catholic King James II of England endorsed the Declaration of Indulgence which suspended the laws against Catholics and nonconformists while his catholic colleague on the French throne, Le Rois Soleil, Louis XIV continued to enforce intolerance by persecuting a thrifty minority of the middle-class and so created the cause that made him slip from the pinnacle of his power.

Louis had seen it all, and as early as 1648 an angry mob had entered even his bedchamber - but the guillotine still waited to be invented and undeterred the monarch took charge of his own destiny in 1661, turning a bankrupt and divided nation around to unprecedented splendor and greatness. An able cabinet of advisors assisted him in reforms of the currency, efficient taxation, and the introduction of profitable industries. For the first time, after a number of disastrous engagements, the English navy went in hiding and refused to accept the challenge by the newly created fleet of the French. Trafalgar was still a long way off. In 1685, in a private ceremony, Louis XIV married his second wife a former Huguenot, Françoise d'Aubigne, Marquise de Maintenon. It is said the malaise of the Protestants in France under his reign is dating from this liaison.

Madame de Maintenon had converted to Catholicism and the people of her former faith accused her of being involved in the vigorous persecution of the Protestants; it was generally believed that her urging had moved the king to rescind the Edict of Nantes from 1598, which had granted religious freedom to the Huguenots.

On the pretext that the near-extinction of Protestantism and Protestants in France made any edict granting them privileges redundant, the Edict of Fontainebleau, from 1685, affected every non-catholic in Louis’s empire.  In the colonies all Jews were to be expelled. At home Protestant schools and institutions were banned. The children of Protestant families were to be forcibly baptized by Roman Catholic priests, and Protestant places of worship were torn down or confiscated and turned into stables. The Edict precluded individuals from exercising their religion in public, but provided "liberty granted to the said persons of the Pretended Reformed Religion on condition of not engaging in the exercise of the said religion, or of meeting under pretext of prayers or religious services." It was the final chapter to a policy of lingering discriminations that for years had continued to burden the Protestants with forced billeting.

In recognition of their value for the French economy - Huguenots were skilled in the crafts and commerce - the same bill that prosecuted their faith prohibited the Huguenots from leaving the country.

This failed.

200,000 Huguenots slipped through the guarded border and carried their trade to other countries where they were hugely appreciated. As is evident from the letter, not every refugee was a fully educated adult. Still, it illustrates Hegel’s observation, that whenever you instigate something considered beneficial you can be sure that this very action is going to set in motion a number of unforeseen factors that achieve exactly the opposite, and this law began sinking its fangs into the juiciest piece of Europe: France. The economy that had carried King Louis XIV to such heights began to falter, but his military success continued to grow and with it his expenses.

So his European enemies united in a coalition under the leadership of Winston Churchill’s ancestor, John Churchill, the 1st Duke of Marlborough, who turned the tide in the Battle of Blenheim. In 1709 the series of French defeats continued in the battle of Malplaquette. The engagement became notorious for two reasons: A new type of rifle made its appearance, the flintlock musket in combination with a new drill of rapid loading, and, by accident, the Swiss mercenaries on either side confronted each other directly. With flying colors the opposing lines had marched up to each other as if on the parade ground, then stopped at shouting distance. The officers courteously waved their hats and politely offered the other side to fire the first round. This exchange of niceties ended with the first exchange of full volleys on short range in history.

It was also the last time, that this was attempted in this direct fashion.

The butcher's bill was appalling, the worst inflicted in centuries of warfare. The "victorious" suffered far more casualties - 25,000 - than the French - 16,000, according to the most conservative estimates. In the future the approaching battalions would fire from a greater distance and try to traverse the no-man’s land between the lines as soon as possible. The other horror at Malplaquet was even more sinister. Both sides had enlisted contingents of Swiss mercenaries - according to the color of their uniforms called the “Blue-” and the “Red Swiss.” It was not the practice to pitch intentionally against each other units of the same ethnicity, but here it happened.

There was hesitation in the ranks of the Swiss, but then the two battalions went to work. It was unbelievable.

The armies looked on in amazement and horror. Across both sides of the front, these Swiss were often blood relations or at least friends from the same valleys and villages; they knew each other by name. It was the most merciless slaughter in this merciless battle, no quarter given and literally carried to the bitter end with knives, teeth and fingernails. It was a primeval horror - unexpected, unforeseen and utterly irrational.

But so was the cause for my great-great-grandmother’s exile.

 

© - 6/7/2007 - by michael sympson

2,000 words, all rights reserved