Mr. Lefroy discovered that he had lost £30,000, and anticipated that he might be judged as deficient in sagacity. “But (he writes) I thank God not any person can with reason call in question my sentiments of honour and honesty, who have always in view the example of one Mr. Paul Durande, who failed about fifty years ago when I was an apprentice to Mr. Mark Weyland, and who afterwards, having met with great success, paid all his creditors near cent, per cent., which was of more honour to him than if his statue had been erected in marble.” (Sir J. H. Lefroy’s Notes and Documents.)
4. Paul Lewis La Caux, Esq., who, according to the Historical Register, died on 10th July 1728, made his Will on June 6th of that year, which was translated from the French and was proved by his widow and Mr. Paul Dufour on July [8th. Her Christian name was Claude. He had a cousin, John Lewis La Caux, and two sisters, Mesdames La Colombine and Sigier, the former being either the wife or mother of Paul La Colombine. Mr. La Caux left two sons, Michael and Peter, and four daughters, Anne, Magdalen, Elizabeth, and Olympia Claude, wife of Captain Thomas Eaton; the portion of each of his children was £2000. He left to the Governor and Directors of the Hospital for French Protestants, for the use of the poor of the said hospital, £100; to the French Church in the Savoy, for use of the poor French Protestant Refugees, £100; to the Church La Patente, for the use of the poor French Protestants of said church, £50; to the Charity House in Soho, commonly called La Soupe, for the use of the poor French Protestant Refugees, £50; to the House of Charity in Spittalfields called La Soupe, for the use of the poor French Protestant Refugees, £50.
5. Gabriel Tahourdin, a Protestant refugee from the province of Anjou, was naturalized in 1687 (see List xiii.), and became a London merchant; he died in 1730, and was buried at Wandsworth. His eldest son, Gabriel, was unmarried. His second son, René Tahourdin, Esq., merchant citizen and grocer, dying in 1750-1, left an only son, Richard. (Mr. René Tahourdin married Mary, daughter of Mr. Richard Wright, merchant, and lies in the same grave in the church of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook.) From Peter, the refugee’s third son, the English families spring. The refugee had four daughters, of whom Dorothy was married to Maximilian Western, and is thus an ancestress of the Western and Larpent baronets; Cassandra was married to John Graydon, and is an ancestress of the Earls of Milltown. Peter Tahourdin (born 1720, died 1784) was the father of two clergymen and of Henry Tahourdin, Esq., of Olveston, in Gloucestershire (born 1752, died 1816). The latter, who was the youngest son, left six daughters, of whom Anne was married to Sir Hanson Berney, Bart, and Mary Henrietta to Lieut.-Colonel the Hon. Savile Henry Lumley. The younger of the clerical sons was Rev. Charles Tahourdin, B.D., rector of Stokc-Charity, Hants (born 1750, died 1819), father of the late Rev. William Tahourdin, M.A., Fellow of New College, Oxford. The eldest clergyman, and chief of his name, was Rev. Gabriel Tahourdin, M.A. (born 1743, died 1814): he married Mary, daughter of Stephen Le Bas, Esq., and was the father of Peter Tahourdin, Esq., of London, solicitor (born 1771, died 1844), whose eldest son is Peter Le Bas Tahourdin, and the second son, from whom the apparent heirs-male spring, is Charles Tahourdin, Esq., of Westminster, solicitor (born 1805). The eldest son of the latter is Charles John Tahourdin, Esq., B.A., Oxon, barrister-at-law; the second son, Harry Tahourdin, Esq., who married, in 1868, Bridget, daughter of Robert Hannay, Esq., of Rusko, died in or about 1872.
6. Stephen Seignoret was a London merchant in the parish of St. Gregory. He was a Huguenot refugee, and was naturalized at Westminster, with his wife Elizabeth, on 20th March 1686 (see List xii.). Narcissus Luttrell mentions one of his early transactions thus: — “9th June 1693. — Mr. Seignoret, a merchant of London, paid in £2000 on the fund act on the life of the Duke of Burgundy, eldest son of the Dauphin of France.” In 1698 Luttrell alarms us by tidings of a State Trial impending over seven French merchants who had pleaded not guilty, and were to be arraigned at the tremendous bar of the House of Lords. But on looking back we come to the less painful information — “19th May 1698. — Seven French merchants were impeached before the House of Lords for trading to France.” In those days all leading Englishmen were monopolists, and furious ones; however, the refugee merchants, of whom Mr. Seignoret was one, escaped a trial by withdrawing their pleas of not guilty. The British Chronologist says:— 4th July 1698. — The Commons having impeached John Goudet and others for importing French lustrings [glossy silks], they confessed the facts, and this day the Commons demanding judgment against them at the Lords’ bar, they were condemned in very great fines.” Luttrell notes that the fines were fixed on July 2nd, viz., John Goudet, £1500; Barran, £500;
