year. His wife, after suffering imprisonment in convents, had, in February 1690, found her way to Geneva; at the date of her husband’s death she had been for five years with her children in Brandenburg. In 1698 she returned to Geneva, where she died on 4th January 1700. The fourth son, Maurice, remained in France, and, according to French law, was the fifth Seigneur de Castelnau.
The three elder sons were military refugees in Brandenburg. The third, named Charles, ultimately settled in England. His elder brothers fell in battle, Jean-Louis being among the killed at the battle of Hochstedt in 1703, and Francois-Henri falling at the siege of Tournay in 1709. Accordingly, our refugee, on the occasion of the baptism of a son, named after the Earl of Galway, is registered at Southampton on 9th October 1712, as Monsieur Charles Boileau de Castelnau.
This seigneur (by right of birth) on coming to England, had been admitted to the army, and joined Farringdon’s regiment. After having seen service, he was an ensign still in 1698 at the Peace of Ryswick, but in 1703 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. In 1704 he was taken prisoner, and was released on the occasion of an exchange of prisoners on 1st February 1709, at Valenciennes. He left the army in 1711, and resided at Southampton till 1722, when he removed to Dublin. He became a wine-merchant in Bride Street, and the ancestral business and premises now belong to John George Boileau, one of his descendants. The gallant refugee died in Dublin on 7th March 1733 (n.s.), aged sixty. His will was proved on 22d May; in it he resigned to his brother Maurice all right to his French title and estate; he left £5 to the French Conformist Church in Dublin, and £5 to the Children’s Society at Nismes. He had married in Holland in 1704, Marie Magdelaine, daughter of Daniel Collot d’Escury, late Major-en-second of Galway’s Horse, and had ten children. The headship of the family was descended on an eldest son, Daniel Philip Boileau, with whom it rested till 1772, when he died without heirs. The second surviving son, Simeon Boileau, born in 1717, became a wholesale druggist and chemist and made a fortune; he married in 1741, Magdalene, daughter of Theophilus de la Cour Desbrisay, and died on 15th July 1767. Simeon’s eldest married son was Solomon Boileau (born 1745, died 1810), cashier in one of the Dublin banks, whose heir was Simeon Peter Boileau, merchant (born 1772, died 1842); father of Major-General Francis Burton Boileau, of the Royal Bengal Artillery, the head of the family in 1871. (See Chapters xxiv. and xxvi.)
D’Olier.
The refugee family of D’Olier descends from a French Protestant exile who bore the ancient surname of Olier. Isaac Olier was a Huguenot martyr of eminent piety and courage, who escaped to Holland about the period of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but suffered during the remainder of his life from the effects of the cruelties and tortures of his Romish persecutors. Wishing that himself and his descendants should be recognised as of French Protestant descent, he assumed the prefix of D’. The genealogical memoir of his family was drawn up in the year 1818 by the Chevalier de Saint-Allais, the great French genealogist,[1] and by M. Blanchard, historiographer of the King of France; and the armorial bearings were recorded in the office of the Ulster King of Arms at Dublin, by Sir William Betham.
The pedigree of the family of Olier can be traced to the beginning of the sixteenth century, when it had become established in the Province of He de France, of which Paris was the capital. Its origin seems to have been in the south. “Wilhelmus Olcrius” is named in a quittance granted by Raimond de Baure to Pierre Rigaud, Seigneur de la Bocide, for twenty sous (Toulouse money), dated 4th May 1249. Bertrand Olier, professor of medicine, was one of the capitouls of Toulouse in 1364, as was Bernard Olier in 1376. And in 1386 Juibert Olier was Master of the Mint of Toulouse. These memoranda illustrate the antiquity of the clan. But descending to genealogy, I note that the Olier pedigree contains details concerning four branches, all descended from Jean Olier, Seigneur de Vaudelle, and Marguerite Brisebarre, his wife, who were married before 12th June 1505. His only son and heir was Francois Olier, Seigneur de Vaudelle et de Naintele, who was made Secretary to the King of France on 12th July 1556; he was afterwards Audiencier in the Chancellerie, and died 1st August 1597; his wife’s maiden name was Madeline Molé. He was succeeded as head of the family by his eldest son, Francois Olier, Seigneur de Nointel, &c, who had become secretary to the king on the resignation of his father on 22d March 1586. This royal secretary filled other important offices; his wife’s maiden name was Francoise Bouhier de Beauregard; he died in 1629, and
- ↑ I follow him in deriving the refugee from the chief clan of the Oliers.
