Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/208

 

Madame Hervart (née Esther Vimart), the mother of Baron d’Hervart and of Esther Marquise de Gouvernet, and the grandmother of Esther, Lady Eland, was a refugee along with her noble relatives. The date of her arrival in England is not known, and no fact is on record concerning her, except her burial in Westminster Abbey on 7th December 1697. Her daughter the Dowager Marquise administered to her estate on 23d September 1698.  

Esther Hervart (born in 1636) became (as already recorded) the wife of the Marquis de Gouvernet. She and the Marquis were firm Protestants to the end of their days; but he died soon after the marriage of Lady Eland. Thus at the Revocation the Marquise de Gouvernet was a widow. She was permitted to take refuge beside her married daughter, only on the condition of her leaving her other children in France; these included the young Marquis, another son Jean Frederic, a third son who was a Romish ecclesiastic and an Abbe, and a daughter, afterwards Comtesse de Viriville — all of whom had to conform to Romanism. The Marquise was permitted to bring her ample worldly possessions to England, and she purchased a house in St. James’s Square, London. She became an influential member of London society. She is mentioned by John Evelyn, under date 6th July 1686; he calls her Madame De Governé, and says of her, “This lady was of great family and fortune, and had fled hither for refuge. . . . Her daughter was married to the Marquis of Halifax’s son.”

The refugee Marchioness was naturalized at Westminster on 16th January 1691 (n.s.), as “Esther Hervart, widow of Charles de la Tour, late Marquis de Gouvernet.” “She occupied,” says Colonel Chester, “a distinguished position in society, and seems to have been a universal favourite.” We meet with her often in the Countess Cowper’s Diary in the reign of George I. On 16th February 1716 this clever and beautiful countess writes:—

“Madame Gouvernet offered me an emerald necklace, which I accepted rather because it was offered me and I was afraid of disobliging her, than to make myself fine; for I don’t care one farthing for setting myself out, and I hope always to make it my study rather to adorn my mind than set off a vile body of dust and ashes.”

Again on 12th March of the same year:—

“This day poor Madame Gouvernet was taken ill of a palsy. ’Tis a thousand pities. She is the most charming, agreeable woman in the world, without any of the ill humours of eighty, though of those years.”

Happily the much beloved lady recovered, and did not execute her Will till 20th October 1718. She alluded to herself thus:— “While I yet enjoy a tolerable measure of health, and God has preserved to me the free use of my senses, I have thought fitt to make my Will, in order to dispose of what estate I have here. But first, I commit my soul to God, in whose mercy I put my trust through the alone merits of my Saviour Jesus Christ, and as touching my body, I will that after it has been decently kept, it be buried in my vault at Westminster, near my dear mother and my dear daughter Eland, in a plain manner, without any ceremony, willing that there be no rooms of my house hung in mourning.” She also described herself as “now duelling, as I have for above thirty years last past, in my own house in St. James’s Square in the Liberty of Westminster.” She survived the making of her Will for nearly four years, and passed away on 4th July 1722, aged eighty-six. She left an immense quantity of china, jewels, furniture, and pictures, both French and English (including the Savile Portraits), to her grandson, Charles de la Tour, Marquis de Gouvernet, her heir. She also remembered in her Will her surviving children, John Frederick de la Tour de Gouvernet and the Countess of Viriville. She mentioned her granddaughters, sisters of the young Marquis, Frances Emelia (married to the Marquis de Monsales), Jane Angelica, and Emelia Margaret Esther. She also left £600 to the French hospital, and 200 guineas in gold to my Lady Cowpcr, wife of the Right Honourable William Lord Cowper, formerly Chancellor of Great Britain.” The Earl Cowper proved the Will on 3d August 1722.

As a specimen of the goods and chattels of a refugee lady of rank, I present my fair readers with her own inventory of moveables, from the copy preserved at Somerset House, “translated from the French:” 