in the Protestant church of Grand Quevilly, near Rouen,[1] by the Pasteur Maximilien De l’Angle. From this time the young Seigneur added largely to his landed possessions in deference to his mother, by whose advice he acted, and who had persuaded him, as an only son, to give up thoughts of campaigning, and to settle down as a country gentleman. Le Bostaquet was but a small house and estate. In 1660 he removed to the fine chateau of La Fontelaye.
He was an elder in the church of Lindeboeuf. In 1665 it was by sentence of law condemned to be demolished, because it stood within a Catholic Seigneurie, a zealot lady, the Marquise de La Tour, being prosecutrix in the action. De Bostaquet went to Paris, and resisted the action to the utmost. He solicited the good offices of Turennc, who said that he did not meddle in ecclesiastical business, but referred hiin to his illustrious Victomesse; and she took infinite pains in the matter. The Protestant advocate in all such cases was the Sieur Des Galinières, who had hoped to have won this case. De Bostaquet, however, complains that he was not assisted by the Marquis De Ruvigny, the Deputy-General, whom he describes as “well-intentioned,” “a very eminent and most honourable man, but devoted to the court, and more anxious for his own standing there, than for the interest of the Churches.” It is remarkable that De Bostaquet never withdrew these expressions, although afterwards not only so much indebted, but also so respectfully and affectionately attached, to the old Marquis.
De Bostaquet was on his way home when he heard that the sentence had been pronounced against his church. He therefore proceeded to Longueville, and made a formal declaration before a magistrate that La Fontelaye was his principal residence, and that Protestant worship would be celebrated in it. When he was at the gates of Dieppe with the intention of making a similar declaration in that town, a messenger from home informed him of the dying condition of his wife, and before he could reach his house she had expired.
After little more than a year of widowhood, De Bostaquet married his second wife, a beautiful cousin of the maternal stock, Anne Le Cauchois, daughter of the Chevalier De Timbermont, by Marie de la Haye de Lintôt. This lease of married life was cut short in the eleventh year of its course. In August 1678, a few months after this wife’s death, another calamity came — namely, the destruction of his Chateau of Fontelaye by fire; the occupation of rebuilding, however, somewhat calmed his violent grief. He now had many children, and his eldest daughter having married, he was obliged to enter upon another marriage; and in 1679 he again made a happy selection. His third wife, Marie de Brossard, daughter of the Chevalier de Grosmenil, was the devoted partner of his lot as a refugee in Holland and in the British Islands.
The troubles of the Protestants of Normandy thickened from year to year. In 1685 he had completed the preliminaries of a marriage between his eldest son Isaac, Seigneur de la Fontelaye, and Ester, daughter of Monsieur David Chauvel. “The religion,” he writes, “was at its last gasp, all our temples being cither demolished or shut up. Monsieur Chauvel and I had to take our young folk to Charenton to be married, where Monsieur Mesnart gave the nuptial benediction.” The date of this event was 16th June 1685, as appears in the Charenton Register. This and all the principal occurrences in Dumont du Bostaquet’s memoirs are confirmed by cotemporary documents still in existence and quoted in the form of notes by the editors of the printed volume.
The Edict of Revocation (l’edit de revocation de eclui de Nantes) was registered at Rouen on the 21st October 1685. Every Protestant temple in Normandy having been already put down, De Bostaquet flattered himself that the dragoons would not disturb the Protestant families of his province in their private worship and silent faith. Forewarnings of the opposite event soon were published; he therefore meditated an immediate flight into Holland. In that republic his late uncle Abraham Dumont[2] (who died in 1653) had served with distinction in the Estates’ army, and his own family was connected by marriage with a Dutch officer of high rank, General De Torcé, with whom they corresponded as a kinsman.
The Seigneur de Bostaquet called a meeting of Huguenot gentlemen. He moved that they all should ride off at once, because by signing written abjurations at the dictation of the military visitors they would serve their families no better than they would by leaving them for a time under the guardianship of the God of Providence,
- ↑ The editor of Legendre’s Persecution faite à l’eglise de Rouen states in his Appendix II., that in 1656 there occurs in the register of this church the name of “Isaac Dumont, Chevalier, Seigneur de Bostaquet de la Fontelaye.” This seems to fix the date of his marriage.
- ↑ In 1615, the Rouen French Church register has, “Abraham Dumont, escuyer, l’un des cents gentilhommes de la maison du roy.”
