August 1710, when he appeared as a candidate, there is a minute to the following effect:—
“Rev. John Cherpentier states that he hath been a minister of the Gospel and exercised his ministry with edification and approbation for twenty-five years — that his family hath suffered very much for the Protestant religion, especially his father, who was put to death by the dragoons, and died as a martyr in the year 1683.”
13. Rev. Henri D’Aubigny, presiding in La Charenton French Church, Newport Market, London, as its minister, the consistory did, on 21st July 1701, associate with him in the ministry, the Rev. Louis de Lescur de La Prade, who was formally received on August 11, and on 8th September it was agreed to erect a tablet containing the Ten Commandments. M. D’Aubigny had opened the church on the previous 13th April.
14. Pascal Du Casse is described in 1705 as a young clergyman who had been chaplain to Colonel Ecklin’s regiment and in possession of a living near London of £80 per annum. Mr. Aug. Laspois, minister of the French Church of St. Patrick’s, Dublin, writes disparagingly of his preaching, and calls him levis armaturae miles. But Dean Abbadie took him by the hand and obtained his appointment to be collegiate minister of the French Church of St. Mary’s, Dublin, promising to preach for him once a month. This was in 1705, his Irish stipend being only £40; but he must have had higher hopes, which were realised when his place of worship was shut up. For in 1722 the University of Dublin conferred on him the degrees of B.D. and D.D. A royal patent, dated 5th May 1724, made Paschal Ducasse, D.D., Dean of Ferns and Leighlin, and another patent, dated 29th February 1728 (n.s.), made him Dean of Clogher. He died on 8th January 1730. (See the Second Report of the Irish Historical MSS. Commission 1871, Appendix, p. 243, col. 2.)
15. The name of Monsieur Roussel, as a French pasteur in Dublin, in and about 1685, occurs in the registers. There were two pasteurs of that name who escaped from France, brothers, and one of them had been sentenced to be broken upon the wheel for conducting public worship for his own congregation on the ruins of their temple. It is well known that though King James ran away from Great Britain, he, with the help of Louis XIV., made a stand in Ireland. And it was said that he had promised the French King that, as King of Ireland, he would give up M. Roussel to undergo the barbarous execution to which he was doomed by French law.
16. Pierre Brocas de Hondesplens was the pasteur of Castel-jaloux. He and his son John were naturalized at Westminster in 1696 (see List xxi.). When Queen Anne sent the Marquis de Miremont to negotiate for the liberty of the French Protestants at the congress of Utrecht, this pasteur was sent as his co-adjutor by the refugees of London.
17. Charles Theophile Mutel was one of several refugee pasteurs naturalized on the same day as the last mentioned. But I have found nothing as to his antecedents, and only one thing as to his refugee life, namely, that he was the translator of J. F. Ostervald’s anonymous work,“ Traité des sources de la corruption qui regne aujourdhui parmi les Chrétiens,” 1st edition about 1699; 9th edition, 1709. The first edition of the English translation was published in 1700, and the second, corrected in 1702, both by Ri. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul’s Churchyard. I have the third edition, entitled, “A Treatise concerning the causes of the present corruption of Christians, and the remedies thereof. The third edition, corrected, London, printed for D. Midwinter at the Three Crowns, and B. Cowse at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1711.” The Dedicatory Epistle is to the Right Reverend Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Sarum, and is signed Charles Mutel; probably it was written for the first edition in 1700. From it, it appears that Bishop Burnet had befriended him and had given him some post in the church. I extract a few sentences:—
“My Lord, — The treatise I now humbly offer to your Lordship in English has met with a very great and general applause in French; a second edition of it was desired in less than two months after the first, and it is already translated into more languages than one. Your Lordship thought fit that so valuable a work should be put into English. You were pleased, my Lord, to commit this translation to my care. . . . And now, my Lord, I do gladly embrace this opportunity to make a publick acknowledgment of the extraordinary obligations your Lordship has laid upon me. A post in the service of the Church is not the greatest favour I have received at your hands. I reckon myself much more beholden to your Lordship for the benefit of your example and instructions which I have enjoyed several years in your family.”
