“If a prime minister or a favourite were looking for a companion at Court in whom he could thoroughly confide, and were to ask my advice, I would say that he could not select one more worthy than Monsieur De Ruvigny. You may discover in some other men more brilliant talents, or may be told of some actions of greater eclat than his; but, taking everything into account, and judging of men by their entire career, I know no man who claims greater esteem, and with whom one could for a longer time keep up a confidence without suspicion and a friendship without weariness. Whatever complaints may be made of the corruption of the present day, things are not so bad but that one may yet meet with faithful friends. But the most of these people of honour have such an indescribable rigidness about them, that really one would prefer the wiles of an impostor to such austere fidelity. I observe in these men, whom we in France call solid and essential, either a gravity which teases you, or a heaviness which fatigues you. Their good sense, however valued because on occasion it may be useful to you in business, comes forth day by day to mar your pleasure. You must manage people who embarass you when you see that you may require them. They will not fail you when you confide anything to them, and so they establish a claim to incommode you when you have nothing to confide. Monsieur De Ruvigny’s probity, while quite as strict as theirs for matters of confidence, has nothing in its train but what is unassuming and goodnatured in society. He is a trusty and agreeable friend, whose alliance is firm, whose intimacy is refreshing, whose conversation is uniformly sensible and satisfactory.”
England having latterly been regarded as a first-rate Protestant power, and Charles having been viewed with suspicion in his native country as half a Romanist, the French government resolved to send a Protestant envoy to compliment the king on his restoration. The Marquis De Ruvigny was selected as a most eligible nobleman, and brother-in-law of the Earl of Southampton. The Marquis had other acquaintances in England, among whom was the Countess-Dowager of Derby, née Charlotte de la Tremoïlle. Lady Derby wrote to her cousin and sister-in-law, the Duchess de la Tremoïlle,[1] from London, 13th August 1660, “I shall be very glad if M. De Ruvigny comes; I was acquainted with him before; but I did not know he was so much attached to you; and I will do as you wish.”
Secretary Sir William Nicholas wrote, 24th August 1660, — “Monsieur De Ruvigny is coming as envoy from France.” Robert Covin, master of the ship Alliance, of Dieppe, petitioned “for an order for exemption from tonnage — is employed for transport of the horses, baggage, &c, of Monsieur De Ruvigny, a person of state lately come from France, and hath brought no other goods; such vessels are usually exempt from duty.” Secretary Nicholas again wrote on September 6, — “Monsieur De Ruvigny, French Envoy, has had several audiences.” Lady Derby wrote on the 22d, — “M. De Ruvigny has been twice to see me.”
About this time he seems to have been made a Privy Councillor, for in 1661 Daillé’s Exposition of 1st Timothy was published, dedicated to Monsieur De Ruvigny, as “Conseiller du Roi en ses conseils, Lieutenant-General de ses armées, et Deputé-General des Eglises Reformées de France auprès de sa Majesté.” In the year 1663, Charles II. presented him with £330 as “the King’s free gift to buy him a jewel.”
As Deputy-General he had the good opinion of his own pastor, the great Protestant divine, Jean Daillé of Charenton, who, in the dedicatory epistle just alluded to, assured him that he had earned the unanimous approbation of all their churches by his discharge of his office, in which it was required of him to be the mouthpiece of all their assemblies and people dispersed through France, and to lay before the king all their necessities and requests, and to be constantly soliciting the exercise of either the justice or the clemency of the monarch, and all this amid the frowning elements of malice and misapprehension.
Some insight into his duties as Deputy-General may be obtained by dipping into the Life of Pierre Du Bosc, pastor of Caen, in Normandy. This talented man and distinguished preacher was accused to the king in 1664 of haranguing indecently against the Romish confessional. Mazarin had then been dead for three years, and Louis being his own premier, by a letter de cachet (or sealed order), dated 2d April 1664, banished the pastor to Chalons. For his deliverance Du Bosc had to apply to
- ↑ Lady Derby was Charlotte, (laughter of Claude, Due de la Tremoïlle by Lady Charlotte Brabantine de Nassau, daughter of William the Silent, Prince of Orange, and Charlotte de Bourbon Montpensier, the prince’s third wife. The Duchesse to whom she wrote was Marie de la Tour d’Auvergne, daughter of the Duc de Bouillon by Elizabeth de Nassau, and grand-daughter of William the Silent, and his fourth wife, Louise de Coligny. When the French church in the Savoy, London, was opened on 14th July 1661, Lady Derby was present, and her daughter Amelia Sophia, Countess (afterwards Marchioness) of Athole. King Charles II. esteemed Lady I >eiby, and promised to make her the governess of his children; but the expected royal family was never born. She died in 1664, aged sixty-three. See “The Lady of Latham,” being the Life and Letters of Charlotte, Countess of Derby, by Madame Guizot de Witt. London, 1869.
