Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew (1st ed. vol 3).djvu/246

 Reformed to live at discretion. The entire Vivarais was thus treated. At Montpellier dragoons were sent to preach conversion. Bearn, Languedoc, the Bourdelais, Montauban, Saintonge, Poitou, Normandy, Dauphiné, Guyenne, were laid waste by persecution At least half a million — some say one million, of French subjects were living under the hourly menace of racks, tortures, stakes, massacres, often executed, until five hundred thousand of them withdrew to more hospitable regions.” — (p. 524).

(19.) Thomas George Fonnereau (born 1789, died 1850), was a gentleman of fine literary culture, in whose conversation the best literati and connoisseurs greatly delighted. Some of his thoughts on matters of fact, of taste, and of politics, he gave to the public anonymously, and under a fictitious description of the author, in 1849, under the title of “The Diary of a Dutiful Son, by H. E. O. .” [H. E. O., are the second letters of his name]. He represents himself as a merchant’s son, frequenting the dinner-parties of the learned and the influential. The merchant extorts from the youth a promise to make notes of the profitable table-talk, in order that the time expended at table, viewed commercially, may not be lost. The son pretends to have compiled the diary, which he produces entirely out of a sense of filial duty; but upon receiving paternal commendations, he confesses, “I invented the whole myself.” This avowal is true; but as the author was a posthumous son, the very preamble is only a jeu d’ esprit. The book which is written with combined vigour and grace consists of 104 miscellaneous sections; it was highly praised by Lockhart. Mr Fonnereau’s fortune was made by his ancestors in the linen trade; he had some very beautiful table linen with the Fonnereau arms, a present from Saxony — from correspondents in the trade. He was descended from the same refugee ancestor as the family of Fonnereau of Christ Church Park; and he had a portrait of the noble refugee. This, with other heirlooms, came into the possession of his residuary legatee, Nathaniel Hibbert. One document is appropriate to this work — viz., a certificate on parchment, finely written, and surmounted by the Fonnereau arms, emblazoned:—

d’ avoir fait les recherches dans l’Armorial General des Armories de France qui est entre mes mains comme genealogiste du Roy: et j’y ay trouvé que le Sieur Zaccarie Fonnereau descendu des Fonnereau de la Rochelle pays d’Aunis epousa en 1674 Marguerite Chataigner dont il eut un fils Claude qui passa en Angleterre en son enfance, et que les amies de cette famille sont de gueules a trois chevrons d’argent au chef cousu dazur charge dun soleil d’or, selon qu’elles sont blazonnées cy dessus.

“Fait a Paris ce 20 Juillet mil sept cent trente. , Genealogiste.”

From memoranda among Mr T. G. Fonnereau’s papers it appears that he represented Zachary Philip Fonnereau, the fourth son of Claude. The following is the descent:—

Claude Fonnereau = Elizabeth Bureau.

Thomas, Claud, Elizabeth, Mrs Benezel, Abel, died 1753, Anne, Mrs Crespigny, Zachary Philip born 1705, registered at Martin’s Lane French Church. = Miss Martyn.

Thomas = Harriet Hanson.

John Zachary died at Douay 1822; no issue. = Caroline Sewell.

Thomas George — unmarried, born at Reading, Aug. 1789; died at Haydon Hill, Bushey, 13th November 1850. 