Edinburgh two years, attending the colleges and hospitals; he arrived from Scotland about four days ago, and was there all the time of the troubles, and attended the wounded. He is a sober youth, and has taken much pains to perfect himself as to surgery and physic. As he designs to enter as a surgeon in the army in time, he would fain begin by being surgeon’s-mate, which he would immediately purchase. I am thinking that he could not be better off than with you, if you wanted such, and would be glad if he was to serve under you; if he can’t have that happiness, I shall be much obliged to you to inquire for one in some other regiment, and to acquaint me how much is desired for it; the price of it is ready to be paid at sight. He was offered one when in Edinburgh, in Brigadier Bleith’s [Blyth’s?] Regt., when the college was sitting, but at that time would not accept of it, till the college was up.”
II. Portal.
This very honourable family is both Albigensian and Huguenot. It is memorialised in an interesting volume entitled “Les descendants des Albigeois et des Huguenots, ou Mémoires do la Famille de Portal” (Paris 1860). The city of Toulouse was French in its politics; but it had its own legislature and magistracy, independent of the King of France. It was governed by Capitouls — a corporation of civic dignitaries elected annually, the members of the retiring corporation being excluded from re-election for several years. On the 14th June 1204, a treaty between the city and the lord of a neighbouring castle is signed “Oldric de Portal, capitoul." From 1204 to 1423 twenty-one elections to the Capitoulate were in favour of the De Portal family. After the latter date the Inquisition was set up in Toulouse. In 1238 Raymond de Portal had removed to Nismes. But most of the Portals resided in Toulouse until 1463, when, in consequence of a great fire, many of them were dispersed. Jean de Portal is found established at Bagnols, in Lower Languedoc, at the end of that century. His elder son, Jehan, was sent by King Henry II. to the cradle of his race, as Viguier of Toulouse, in 1555. His kinsman, Bercnger dc Portal, chevalier, Sieur de la Pradellc, was then resident at Toulouse as Treasurer-General of Languedoc. Jehan fell a victim to a fanatical riot; his younger brother, Francis de Portal, is the ancestor of the modern branches of the family.
Of Berenger, Sieur de la Pradelle, it is recorded that he was commonly called General Portal, because Treasurer-General to the King. In 1573, although the desolations of the St. Bartholomew massacre seemed to have extinguished Protestantism, he died confidently persuaded that there would again be a Reformed Church in Paris. And he left a tangible proof of his conviction by bequeathing a sum of money for the benefit and maintenance of the Protestant Church of Paris (pour le bien et soustien de l’Eglise de Paris). In 1591 Du Moulin, having accepted the title of Pasteur of Paris, claimed and received his salary out of this Portal Bequest.[1] At the time of the Revocation of the edict of Nantes the chief of the Portals died a martyr’s death; he was the fifteenth in the direct line of descent from Oldric de Portal. His name and title was Louis (or Jean Francois?) de Portal, Sieur de la Portaliere; he with his wife (née Jeanne de la Porte) and a numerous family were living peacefully' and patriarchally at the chateau of La Portaliere, near St. Hippolyte, in the Cevennes. In October, Monsieur Saint Ruth, at the head of regiments of dragoons, made a descent upon the defenceless neighbourhood, set fire to the chateau, and razed it to the ground. In their retreat, Portal, his wife, and their youngest child were massacred. The fifth son, Pierre, fainted at the door of a baker’s shop, at Montauban, and being succoured by the benevolent shopkeeper, he lived to found a family in France, which, amidst gross oppression, remained true to Protestantism.[2] The eldest son, and one daughter, found their way to Brandenburg. Two other sons, Henry and William, and a daughter, reached Bordeaux. The captain of a merchant vessel admitted them on board, hid them in empty hogsheads, and brought them safe to Holland. It is said that they, in point of time, narrowly escaped death by suffocation. For the French Government, enraged at the habit of stowing away fugitive Protestants in cargoes, soon afterwards gave orders to fumigate departing vessels with a deadly gas. “On se servait d’une composition qui, lorsqu’on y mettait le feu, developpait une odeur mortelle dans tous les recoins du navire, de
- ↑ Bulletin, vol. viii., p. 2.
- ↑ The celebrated Pierre Barthelemy de Portal (born in 1765), the French Minister of State, Chevalier and Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, and Baron de Portal (from 1815) was the grandson of the little boy who owed his life to the baker. His eldest son, Pierre Paul Frederic, 2d Baron de Portal (born 1804), is the head of the French family.
