Page:Matthew Fontaine Maury 1806-1873.pdf/9

 and moral of these French Protestants found safety in America. Of these, in 1714, there settled in Virginia among the English already more than a century there, the Fontaines and the Maurys, names long famous in French literature, French architecture and in the best annals of the French Church.

Matthew Fontaine Maury was of the fifth generation of these families in Virginia; his father, Richard Maury, was the sixth son of the Rev. James Maury, an Episcopal clergyman and teacher of Walker Parish, Albemarle County, Virginia, who left the impress of his influence in the simple ritual which still prevails in that Diocese and, no less, his influence as a teacher upon the founders of the Republic; he numbered among his students five signers of the Declaration of Independence and two or three future Presidents of the United States, Jefferson, the immortal exponent of modern democracy, 'belonging to both groups. The father of the Rev. James Maury was Matthew Maury, "a Huguenot gentleman"; his mother, Mary Ann Fontaine, the only daughter of the Rev. James Fontaine, who in 1722 occupied his leisure writing his autobiography, for the use and edification of his children. He began the family record with the birth, in 1500, of Jean de la Fontaine, who, with his wife, was cruelly murdered sixty-three years later, by religious fanatics. Their three sons escaped and lived to rear large families. The Reverend Autobiographer, with much fervor, exhorted his descendants never to forget that the blood of martyrs coursed in their veins. In 1872, one hundred and fifty years later, this manuscript was discovered in the home of Mr. James Fontaine, near Richmond, Virginia. It was translated and published under the title, "The Memoirs of a Huguenot Family," by Miss Ann-Fontaine Maury, the great-great-granddaughter of the autobiographer.

While Jefferson was still a lad the grandfather of the subject of this sketch was already teaching the wonderful political future awaiting America; he was preaching a bona-fide Americanism to which the present-day type is but a counterfeit. Who can doubt that Jefferson profited by his teachings!

Richard Maury shared with the Master-Builder of the Republic his father's wise instruction and beneficent example. In 1790 he married Diana Minor, the daughter of Major John Minor,