Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/308

 army) was kept in the dungeons of Laon, the old capital of France, from 1688 to 1705. A letter is extant which he addressed to his parents on his liberation, dated Fontaine, 4th March 1705.

The parents had made an earlier escape; the father’s imprisonment having terminated in the end of September 1689. They settled in Portarlington in 1695. Daniel David, son of the Vicomte de Laval, was born there, 25th October 1695; his sponsors were Captain David De Proisy, Chevalier et Seigneur de Chastelain d'Eppe, and Anne de Vinegoy, wife of Lieut-Col. Daniel Le Grand, Seigneur du Petit Bosc. In the reign of Queen Anne five of the Vicomte de Laval’s sons were in the British army; three of these gallant youths were killed in action. One of the younger sons, Louis, assumed the title of Sieur de Fontaine from one of the family estates. Other two were named Joseph and David. The former lost his life in the battle at sea between a British transport and a French ship-of-war, of which the venerable Pasteur Fontaine speaks when thanking God that his son, contrary to his own wish, did not embark in that transport. Louis and David de Laval were on that occasion taken prisoners and conveyed to France. The incidents of this mournful casualty are detailed in the following letter from Louis to one of his sisters:—

“My dear Sister, — Since I saw you last I have endured great hardships. Having sailed for two days after our embarkation at Cork, on the third day we encountered a large man-of-war with fifty guns and a mortar; and although we had but 36 cannons, we fought the French for some time, until we lost a considerable number of men, and among the killed was my poor brother Joseph; he was shot with a cannon-ball, and poor Monsieur De Bette (from Portarlington), with a great many more besides. And when the French boarded us, they took from us all we had. and brought us into their own ship, and put the officers and us into a large room, where we lay on deck for three or four nights before we came to land. They disembarked us at Brest, where we remained two days; and while we were there Captain Nicola (from Portarlington) gave David and me an English half-crown, and bid us to be as economical as possible, as he had only two for himself and his son; and we were allowed by the king only fivepence a day. They then sent us from Brest to Dinan, which is forty leagues distant; we performed most of the journey on foot, every league is three long miles. We were five days and a half on the journey, and David and I have walked twenty-one miles in a day. Had it not been for some gentlemen that were with us, we should never have been able to make the journey; for our officer was not with us, and did not know we were gone until after our departure. When we arrived at Dinan they put us into the castle, and there we lay on the ground on straw. The next day they allowed us to go into the town, where they gave us a lodging for fourpence a night, and agreed to dress our food. Excuse me to my father and mother, for I was unwilling to inform them of this bad news; and pray, dear sister, give my brother’s and my duty to my father and mother, and assure them that we are both well and wish to be with them:— and give our regards to my sisters and to all who enquire for us, whom it would be too long to name. Your loving brother till death,

“

Sir Erasmus Borrowes (in the Ulster Journal, vol. iii. p. 226) mentions Mrs Willis of Portarlington, the refugee’s great-granddaughter, then in possession of the family heirlooms, such as the picture of the Chateau, a wooden token representing the profile of Louis XIV., and the manuscript written in Guize prison and already described. I had permission to copy the French original (but time did not permit); I therefore reproduce and re-edit the translation by Sir Erasmus Borrowes of the most interesting portion of the manuscript:—

“1689. My dear children, when I spoke to you at the commencement of this letter of my captivity, I told you that it continued still with great inconveniences really insupportable, to the extent that I had lost all hope of ever seeing you again (of which my persecutors wished to convince me) unless I made you return to prison, assuring me that this was the only means to restore myself to liberty. But God was so merciful to me (notwithstanding the torments they inflicted on me) as to enable me to refuse compliance with a condition so cruel, and so prejudicial to your eternal salvation. You were too happy in leaving such a sink of vice that I should consent to plunge you into it again, by a cowardice unworthy of the name and profession of a Christian, and of a Christian enlightened by the Divine mercy through the Holy Gospel. You know that I was arrested by the police of Soissons on the 17th of August, and conducted into the prisons of Verneuill; and this was for being accused, as formerly was St. Paul, for the hope of Israel, — that is to say, for holding the name of God in the purity and the simplicity that it pleased him to reveal to us in his word, a crime which in France at present is esteemed the most fearful, and visited with punishment the most severe. This was the reason that I was so strictly guarded in a place most disagreeable and incommodious, in which I was nearly smothered by different kinds of animals, and where there was not even room to arrange