This is the last record of his campaigning that has come under my notice. Professor De Felice says of Cavalier, that he is the hero of a martial epic, skilful, adventurous, dashing, and the bravest of the brave. Both Roland and Cavalier, like Oliver Cromwell, relied on the authority lent by inspiration. If they must plead guilty to sanguinary reprisals on their persecutors, the spirit whom they consulted instructed them to release prisoners from whom they had received no harm, and punish their own men with extreme severity for wanton murder or robbery. The Camisards, as all admit, were not guilty of swearing, drunkenness, or quarrelling. The accusations of licentiousness were false, and arose from their mothers, wives, and daughters living in their camps to cook their food and to nurse the wounded. Until otherwise informed, I conclude that Cavalier was not again in action after the year 1707.
He is now only in his twenty-seventh year, so that probably it was thought impracticable to promote him to be a general officer. He retired on a pension, and took up his residence in England and Ireland. That pension was inadequate to his expenses, and his future life was much embittered by debt. His debts seem to have been his chief faults. The Duke of Marlborough writes to Mr. Granville from the Hague, 10th March 1711:
“I have been solicited by so many people of note here in behalf of Madame Du Noyer, who all complain of the ill usage she meets with from Colonel Cavallier, that I cannot help troubling you with her petition. I pray you will send for the Colonel and exhort him to compliance with her just request, otherwise I shall be obliged to complain to the Queen, that she may have justice done her out of his pension.”
An Edinburgh Reviewer (in 1856) believes that Cavalier married Madame Du Noyer’s daughter; and, at the same time, he attaches weight to the attacks which the said Madame made on Cavalier’s character. Now Madame fired off her countless poisonous missiles, just because he refused to marry her daughter. It is evident that in that affair Cavalier’s error lay in making an engagement, not in breaking it. Mr. Kemble says, “Much obscurity rests over this period of his life, which is not much illustrated by the scandalous libels and evidently false accusations of Madame Du Noyer, whose daughter he was engaged to marry, but disappointed.”
My late lamented correspondent, Sir Erasmus Borrowes, discovered, from original letters in his possession, that Cavalier married the daughter of an aristocratic refugee at Portarlington, Mademoiselle E. Ponthieu, of whose family I have spoken in the chapter on the Rochefoucaulds and the Champagnés. The signatures, “Jn. Cavallier” and “E. Cavallier” are still extant in Portarlington.
To his pecuniary embarrassments we are indebted for his book. A kind-hearted creditor, Major Champagne, took the trouble of collecting payment for copies of his “Memoirs of the Wars in the Covennes,” and gave him credit in his account-book for five books at five shillings and five pence each. This model account-book was in the possession of the Major’s great-grandson, the late Sir Erasmus Borrowes, through whose great kindness I saw and examined it. A loan of £50 was on one occasion granted to Colonel Cavallier. The debtor and creditor account between the Major and Colonel, extending through several pages, seems pretty nearly balanced at last, as far as cash is concerned; but a memorandum is appended: “The colonel owes me for a horse which he borrowed from me and never returned, valew’d four or five pounds.” Perhaps some less patient creditor had arrested the horse on Cavallier’s premises and appropriated it.
In 1723 Champagné bought in Holland for Madame Cavallier, “narrow lease (lace?), cambric and Holland.” He lent her money at different dates, “a guyney,” “a moydore,”[1] &c, &c. He paid for grazing Mrs Cavallier’s yong mere," and on one occasion £12 to release her “gould watch.”
At last the Colonel was remembered as he deserved. Primate Boulter (Hugh, Archbishop of Armagh, formerly Bishop of Bristol), in whom the British Government placed implicit confidence, recommended him to the Duke of Newcastle:—
“Dublin, Jan. 5, 1726-7. — My Lord, As we talk here that some new regiments will be raised, Colonel Cavallier was with me to-day to desire I would recommend him to be put in commission on this occasion. I told him it was wholly out of my way to recommend to the army, but as he had very much distinguished himself abroad in the last war, I would venture to take the liberty to acquaint your Grace that he is alive, and very willing to serve his Majesty if a war comes on. — I am, &c,
“Hu. Armagh.”
- ↑ A moidore (in 1736) was worth twenty-seven shillings in England, and twenty-seven shillings and ninepence in Ireland (i.e., thirty old Irish shillings). See Primate Boulter’s Letters.
