Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/535

 Disposition, Assignation, and Translation above mentioned in any sort, Nominat and appoint the said Mr. Piere Loumeau Dupont my executor, sole and universall legator, and intromitter with my whole goods and gear, with full power to give up and confirm the whole moveable goods and gear that shall pertain to me at the time of my decease. Declaring always that the said Piere Loumeau Dupont shall be bound and obliged, Likeas by his acceptation hereof binds and obliges him, to make payment of the sum of six pounds sterling contained in a bill accepted by me to William Alexander, merchant in Edinburgh, with the annualrents that shall be due thereon; as also the sum of one hundered merks to the poor of the French congregation at Edinburgh; and of the sum of one hundered merks to Mary Menzies, relict of Abraham Renny, teacher of French in Edinburgh; and of the sum of two hundered merks to Anne Dasseville, relict of Eber Frammand, of Picardy in France, now residing in Little Picardy, near Edinburgh; and lastly, the sum of one hundered merks to John L’Heureux, son to the deceased Anthony L’Heureux, hatmaker, in Edinburgh, and that at the first term of Whitsunday or Martinmass that shall happen after my decease, with annualrent of the said sums, after the said Term of payment, during the not-payment of y$r$ of. And further, it is hereby declared that these presents shall be without prejudice of the foresaid Disposition and Assignation to the said Elizabeth, Jean David, and Jean Baptiste Tarins, both of this date, as also of the Translation granted by me to the said Mr. Dupont, except as to the said sum of Six Pounds sterling, due by me to the said William Alexander, with interest, which I expressly appoint to be payed out of the sum of Sixty Pounds sterling, conveyed by me to the said Mr. Dupont, as said is. Consenting to the registration hereof in the Books of Council and Session, or others competent, therein to remain for conservation, and thereto I constitute. . . my proctors: In witness qrof I have subscribed these presents, consisting of this and the preceding page of stamped paper, written by David Russell, writter, in Edinburgh, Att Edinburgh, the Twenty-Seventh Day of November,. fourty-one years, Before these witnesses, John Russell, writter in Edinburgh, and the said David Russell, writter hereof.

Sic Subt$r.$. , witnes. , witnes.

Follows an Eik upon the said Latter Will. — I, Elizabeth Faulcon, designed in the preceding Will, in respect that John L’Heureux, also designed in the Testament, has died since making the said Will, I hereby appoint my Executor to pay to Peggy L’Heureux, sister to the said John L’Heureux, the sum of One Hundered Merks at the term, &c.

I conjecture that Madame Tarin, née Faulcon, died in the autumn of 1743, in which year her sister-in-law and two brothers-in-law appointed a factor. Their affairs did not finally pass through the Commissariot till 20th October 1758, on the motion of the sister, then the only survivor.

Mr. William Alexander, whom she names, was in 1752 and 1753 Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and from 1754 to 1761 M.P. for the city. He married a Huguenot lady, Marianne Louise de La Croix. They were the grandparents of an eminent Judge, the Lord Chief Baron Sir William Alexander of Airdrie. In the Books of the Commissariot of Edinburgh Jean D’Harcourt, widow, is confirmed on 12th February 1755 as executrix of her deceased husband, Mr. James Claude D’Achery D’Harcourt, merchant in the city of St. Quentin, in the valliage of Vermandoise, in France.

Mr. Tarin, as one of the French ministers, had always been paid without grudging, being a nominee of the Town Council. Mr. Pierre Loumeau Du Pont had to go to the Court of Session in 1729, and obtaining a “decreet” in his favour, the Council had to pay the colleagues. However, on the death of the former, the Council indulged the expectation that Du Pont would be sole minister, and nominated no colleague. The French congregation met and elected Mr. Jean Baptiste Beuzeville to the vacant charge; he was the brother of Stephen Beuzeville, silk manufacturer in Edinburgh, and brother of Mr. Samuel Beuzeville, afterwards minister of the French Church of St. Jean, Swan Fields, Shoreditch, London. Mr. Beuzeville entered upon his duties as collegiate French minister of Edinburgh, and then applied to the Town Council for his stipend; the Town Council disowning him, he appealed to the Overseers, who also disowned him in their minute dated 3rd August 1742.

“Yet, nevertheless, and notwithstanding,” the two ministers, elected by the congregation, kept their places, and got their money. How this result was reached I am not informed. It may be that the Lords of Session were again appealed to. If not, I may allude to the notorious fact that in the end of 1743 and beginning of 1744 the national policy, aroused by the alarm of an invasion by the Pretender, was to study the Protestant interest in every part of the country. The French Church in Edinburgh was a memento of Popish persecution and Protestant sufferings. Mr. Beuzeville died in August 1771, and his brother received the balance of his stipend. (Other men of this surname were elected Directors of the French