Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/28

 22 were at one blow deprived of parents and property, and from ease and affluence plunged into poverty. They were actually begging their bread when they reached Rochelle, and had no recommendation but their affliction and their prepossessing exterior. I have been told they were fair and handsome, and had evident marks of belonging to a good family, and having been well brought up. Some of the inhabitants took compassion upon them, and gave them food and shelter in return for little services they were capable of performing. A shoe-maker, who was a charitable man, fearing God, and in easy circumstances, received James into his house, treated him with much kindness and affection, and taught him his own trade, but without binding him to it as an apprentice. This was no time for pride of birth or titles of nobility to be thought of, but rather to be thankful to God for putting it in his power to earn his daily bread by honest labor. It was not long before he was in receipt of sufficient wages to enable him to support his younger brothers, but in a very moderate way, for they all three lived poorly enough until James reached manhood. He then engaged in commerce, and his after career was comparatively prosperous.

He married and had several children, but only three who lived to be marriageable, two daughters and one son. The latter was my father, and was born in the year 1603, long after the others. He married again, but happily had no addition to his family. It would have been much better for him to have remained a widower, for his last wife was a wicked woman who became tired of him, and tried to poison him, and though she did not succeed, for medical aid was promptly obtained, yet the offence became too notorious to be hushed up, and she was taken to prison, tried, and condemned to death.