that she might be buried in Millbrook Church “in the same manner as my dear relation Ruvigny De Cosne;” and her brother William leaving directions for his interment in St. Michael’s Church, Southampton, “near my dear friend, Ruvigny De Cosne.”
Chapter V.
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL LE MARQUIS DE MIREMONT, MAJOR-GENERAL LA MELONIERE, AND BRIGADIER PIERRE BELCASTEL.
I. Marquis de Miremont.
Armand de Bourbon, Marquis de Miremont, was born on the 12th of July 1656 at the Chateau de la Cate in Languedoc. He was a scion of the house of Bourbon-Malauze — a branch of the great Bourbon family, founded before the Protestant Reformation by Charles, batard de Bourbon, in the reign of Charles VIII.
Henri de Bourbon-Malauze, Vicomte de Lavedan (born 1544, died 1611), was the first conspicuous member of his family, a good and dashing officer, an enthusiastic Huguenot, and a personal friend of King Henri of Navarre, who was the royal chief of the legitimate Bourbons. He married Francoise de Saint-Exupery, daughter of Guy Seigneur de Miremont. Miremont was a fortress in Auvergne, which the Vicomte de Lavedan often gallantly defended against the royalist papists, and where he died, aged sixty-seven.
His son was Henri de Bourbon, Marquis de Malauze, who for very many years was eminent as a Huguenot military commander, but abjured, and died in 1647, aged eighty. By his wife, Marie (or Madeleine) de Chalons, Dame de La Case, he had one son and two daughters, who all stood firm to Protestantism. My readers are specially introduced to the family of the son, Louis de Bourbon, Marquis de Malauze (born 1607, died 1667), and of his second Marchioness. Henriette de Durfort, daughter of Guy Aldonce, Marquis de Duras, by Elizabeth de La Tour d’Auvergne.
Armand, Marquis de Miremont, was the second son of this family, which consisted of three sons and two daughters, His elder brother, Guy Henri, third Marquis de Malauze, abjured Protestantism in 1678 at Paris, and thus remained in France. Similar, though involuntary, was the destiny of the younger sister, Henriette, who was imprisoned in a convent, and, after a very long resistance, conformed to Romanism. The other daughter, Mademoiselle Charlotte de Malauze, was a Protestant refugee in England, where she died in 1732, aged seventy-four, and unmarried. The third brother, Louis, Marquis de La Case, was an ensign in King William’s Guards, and was killed at the Battle of the Boyne.
The Marquis de Miremont left France without molestation. He was sick at heart at the sight of the wrongs and cruelties inflicted on the Huguenots, and abandoned his native country for a foreign shore: Besides British hospitality, we must mention his relationship to the Earl of Feversham, as attracting him to England. This nobleman was Louis de Durfort, Marquis de Blancquefort in France, and a brother of Miremont’s mother, being a younger son of Guy, Marquis de Durfort. King Charles II. had made him Baron Duras in the English Peerage; and in 1677, by a special destination, he had succeeded to the earldom of his father-in-law, Sir George Sondes, Earl of Feversham. He had come over at the invitation of his comrade in foreign wars, James, Duke of York; and when his patron became King James, he was given the command of his army to oppose the Duke of Monmouth’s invasion. The Prince of Orange, who was pleased at the high spirit with which his royal father-in-law at first treated the French king, volunteered to take the command, saying that Monsieur Feversham, though a very brave and honest man, had no amount of experience adequate to the greatness of the emergency. The event proved this, although Monmouth’s expedition failed through intestine disorders. Dean Swift pronounces that Feversham was “a very dull old fellow.” Burnet says: “Both his brothers changing their religion, though he continued himself a Protestant, made that his religion was not much trusted to. He was an honest, brave, and good-natured man, but weak to a degree not easy to be conceived.” Separating private from public matters, we can understand that Miremont felt sure of a kind reception from his Uncle Feversham.
