should be assured that the guards slept; then she had to find means to open the prison door; to disengage the prisoner’s bands; to conduct him to a room in the castle in which was a window looking towards the outer side of the walls; that he should descend from thence to a wall of great height.” Mademoiselle Guichard accomplished her heroic enterprise, and no suspicion fell upon her. But finding that the Marquis, who had once been a Protestant, was suspected and was in danger of prosecution, she volunteered a confession. For her offence against the sanguinary laws of France, she was publicly whipped by the executioners, and was for some years imprisoned in Sommières. In 1696 she set out for England by the circuitous route of Switzerland, Germany, and Holland. In Switzerland she met Roman, who had the opportunity of personally offering his assurances of gratitude and sympathy. She was living in London in 1700. (See Baynes’s Life of Brousson, p. 347.)
2. Henri de Dibon was a Huguenot refugee in England; he had one son, Henri, who married, but died (as did his wife) in his father’s life-time. The younger Henri’s only child, Margaret, was thus the good refugee’s sole representative. Margaret de Dibon married a clergyman, and was in her turn represented by an only child — namely, a daughter, Anne, afterwards Mrs. Faber, mother of the uncommonly erudite, valuable, and valiant religious author, Rev. George Stanley Faber, B.D. (born 1773, died 1851 ). Within the old French Bible handed down to him by his maternal ancestors (and now the property of Charles Waring Faber, Esq., barrister-at-law), the Rev. G. S. Faber wrote, in 1834, what follows:—
“This Bible once belonged to M. de Dibon, a Huguenot gentleman, whose family estate and residence were situated in the Isle of France. At the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in the year 1685, M. de Dibon was arrested by order of Louis XIV.; and on his firm refusal to abandon the religion of his ancestors, his whole property was confiscated, and he himself was thrown into prison. Before the arrival of the dragoons at his residence, he had time sufficient to bury this his Family Bible within a chest in his garden. Here he left it, in hopes of some day recovering what he esteemed his best treasure. While in confinement, he was frequently tortured by the application of fire to wreaths of straw, which were fastened round his legs; but through the grace of God, he was enabled to persevere in making a good confession. This particular torture was specially resorted to, in consequence of his being a sufferer from the gout. He at length effected his escape; but, ere he quitted his native land for ever, he had the resolution to re-visit the estate of his forefathers, now no longer his, for the purpose of recovering his Bible. This he accomplished; and with the Word of God in his hand, an impoverished exile, he finally reached England in the reign of William III. of glorious memory. It was the will of heaven that he should survive his only son and daughter-in-law, who left behind them an only child, Margaret, born a.d. 1720. In consequence of the early death of both her parents, Margaret de Dibon received her education from her pious grandfather and grandmother, who, having sacrificed everything for their religion, were thence proportionately anxious to inculcate its great saving truths on the mind of their grand-daughter. Nor was their labour useless; for, through many trials and privations, Margaret ever showed herself the faithful descendant of a faithful ancestry. At the age of twenty-four years, in the year 1744, she became the wife of the Rev. David Traviss, only son of William Traviss, Esq., of Darton, in the County of York, Vicar of Snape, &c. The offspring of this marriage was — 1st, Anne, born a.d. 1745, and married a.d. 1772, to the Rev. Thomas Faber, A.M., Vicar of Calverley;” [2nd, Caroline, Mrs. Buck; 3rd, William (died without issue)].
3. Jane Guill was a daughter and co-heir of Monsieur George Guill, a French Protestant, proprietor of “noble estate in Tours in France.” Her family became refugees in Britain, and she was married, first, to Mr. Francis Barckstead, and secondly, in 1701, to the Rev. Daniel Williams, D.D. The father wrote a memorandum within his family Bible as follows:—
“On Thursday, 11th October 1685 (French style), we set out from Tours, and came to Paris on Monday, the 15th of the said month. On the 17th came out the king of France his declaration to drive out the Protestants, who had notice in Paris in four days, which day falling on the 21st, was just the day whereon our places in the waggon for Calais were retained; and the day before I was warned by letters from Tours by several friends, that upon false accusations I was sought out by the Intendant and other magistrates, and that they had written to the Chancellor of France to send after me and arrest me. But it pleased God that, immediately after his signing and sealing the declaration for the annulling of the Edict of Nantes, he fell sick, and died while we were on our journey; so I have extraordinary occasion to take notice of God’s providence towards me and mine in such eminent dangers, out of which He hath miraculously saved us,”
A sister was married to Rev. Joseph Stennett, another learned and patriotic Dissenting divine. Mr. Baynes possessed a manuscript which belonged to Stennett, described as “Reflexions on the Cruel Persecution which the Reformed Church of
