Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew (1st ed. vol 3).djvu/217

 (12.) A French gentlewoman (p. 231), memorialized by Rev. Philip Skelton.

(13.) Eleonore D’Esmiers, Marquise d’Olbreuse (p. 231), Great-great-great-grandmother of her Majesty, Queen Victoria.

(14.) Refugee Ancestresses of British families (p. 231).

(15.) Louise Barbot (pp. 231, 232), was married to Antoine Leserre, and died in 1785; of her two sons, James and John, the latter is collaterally represented by Thomas Barbot Beale, Fsq. of Brettenham Park, Suffolk. [James Barbot and Mary Jourdaine, his wife, the parents of Louise, seem to have been related to John Paré, naturalized in 1687 (see List xiii.), and who died at Plymouth a few months thereafter (23d July 1687). Among the Barbot papers there is a document as to the division of Paré’s property signed by the three children named in the List, the witnesses being Marolles, Journard, and J. Castanet.]

(16.) Suzanne De L’Orme aged twelve, daughter of Pierre and Madelaine, and their eldest child, was decoyed into the convent of St Anne, which was not far from their ancestral home near Saumur. It was the year 1685. Monsieur De L’Orme had already been compelled by impending perils to arrange for the secret removal of the family to England, and after a persevering but fruitless search for the lost child, he fled with them to the sea coast. As soon as they set sail, his wife obtained his sacred promise, that when they had secured a settlement in England, he would return to resume the search for Suzanne. The manager of the kidnapping plot was Father Anselmo, a bitter persecutor, resolved (as was his habit in such cases) to succeed in the perversion of the little Huguenot, however violent the needful methods might be. He found the superieure of St Anne’s too mild and indulgent, although she supported him in urging the child, who had been ignorant of her father’s intention to emigrate, startling her by the news of the disappearance of the whole family, and advising her to cease to be bound by her parents’ religion, as she would never see them again. At the end of a few weeks, Father Anselmo removed Suzanne to a convent in Paris, where he left her for two months, a victim to pitiless tortures. His rage was tremendous, when he found her firm in her faith, after all. He brought her back to the neighbourhood of Saumur, and gave her away in slavery to two ruffians, a father and son, brickmakers living in a remote and filthy hut. His plan was that she should be worn out by hard labour and cruel chastisement; and that having her near his own headquarters, he might watch his opportunity for extorting her abjuration in return for his promise of release. The miserable little girl’s business now was to carry loads of bricks on a barrow, along with the son, a strong young man, six feet in height, who, if she fell beneath the load, struck her savagely and repeatedly, the priest having hinted that if cruelty ended accidentally in murder, the outrage would be winked at by the government. The old brickmaker, all of whose children, except that son, were settled elsewhere, gave out that she was his granddaughter, a penniless orphan who must work for her scanty food and her beggar-like clothes and the bed of straw in the outhouse. Weeks and months passed away; winter came to an end, and spring next. During this long durance, the stedfast Suzanne’s woes were periodically aggravated by visits from Father Anselmo, who terrified her with all kinds of menaces and maledictions. And at last, having discovered that the brickmaker’s broken-spirited wife alleviated the beastly little heretic’s lot by her pity, he declared that his next errand would be to remove Suzanne to worse quarters. And what had become of her father’s promise? A refugee in England, he was a poor man. He had to work incessantly to feed his family and to save a little money, and to make friends in his