The French Kirk, as a local habitation, is named but once in the City of Edinburgh registers, viz., at the registration of the marriage of Lewis Tostée, jeweller, on 29th April 1696. There is reason to think that a French church was built in the Canongate, The Church of Scotland, in the end of last century, had a chapel known as the New Canongate Church, and latterly as the Church of New Canongate, quoad sacra parish. This edifice was sold to Mr. William Ford, and in it he found the communion cups of the French Church of Edinburgh, which he presented to the Trinity College Church, and which, through Mr. David Winter’s kindness, I have seen. One difficulty as to identifying this building with the refugee’s church is that the cups were “gifted by William Sprott, Esq., to the New Church of Canongate” in “1813,” i.e., twenty years after the closing of the French Church. Certainly the cups are genuine, and experts have decided that they are of London workmanship, and of the date 1700. They are of solid silver, quite plain, and with the inscription outside around the rim of each cup:—
POUR • L’EGLISE • FRANCOISE • DeDINBURGH.
With regard to the refugees in Edinburgh, my readers can judge of them by the notes I have printed from the City Parish Register, and from the Records of Greyfriars’ churchyard, and of the churchyard of the Canongate. There is a serious gap in the latter, owing to the destruction of several books by an accidental fire. In the Greyfriars’ there was a space marked off, called the Frenchmen’s Ground, or the French Ground, as the records prove, although they have not described the spot. There was a disposition among all ranks to show hospitality to the strangers, and to assist them. The Earl of Panmure, and his brother, Hon. Harry Maule, stood as witnesses to the baptism of a son of James Mel, merchant of Rouen, and Mary Godin, his wife, on 25th March 1686. Monsieur Bineau was tutor to the Master of Napier in 1688. Mr. Latuges was tutor in the family of Lord Basil Hamilton in 1713, and Mr. Basil Hamilton was cautioner for the representatives of Anthony L’heureux, hatter, in 1729.
The best remembered names, perhaps, are those of Paul Roumieu and his son, Paul Roumieu, both watchmakers in Edinburgh. They seem to have been very kind members of their small community. The father was buried in Greyfriars’ churchyard on 16th March 1694. The son, who was a burgess of Edinburgh, died on 5th November 1709, aged between sixty and sixty-six; a posthumous daughter, Janet, was buried two years after the death of the latter. His wife’s name was “Joannett Bizzett;” and a daughter, Margaret, was baptized on 23rd November 1690. In the circle of their Huguenot friends there was Alexander Mercier, button-maker, and Anna Atimont, his wife; and Daniel Callard, vintner and burgess, and Magdalen Bunell, his wife. A witness at a baptism in the last-named family was David de Bees, chirurgeon-general to Major-General Mackay, 23rd February 1690.
If there was any business in which a majority of the refugees were employed, it was felt-making. At the head of this trade we find, on 15th July 1688, Francis Chameau, master of the manufactory for felt-making, and Susanne Pillet, his wife. “Monsieur du Pont, pastor of the French Church, younger,” officiated at the baptism of their daughter, Elizabeth. Some of the felt-makers, whose names are in the registers, evidently were French, but by no means all of them (I made a long investigation as to the name Schola, which proved to be Scollay, and from the Orkney Islands). One felt-maker can be traced from his marriage to his death; Peter Gautier was married on 23rd March 1694, and was buried in Greyfriars’ churchyard on 4th April 1703. The two different records sometimes throw light on each other; thus I extracted dubiously the marriage in Edinburgh, on 15th October 1701, of Daniel Lasagette, merchant, burgess, to Anne, daughter of the late Rev. William M‘Ghie, minister of Aberlady; but doubt was removed by the entry in Greyfriars’ churchyard, on 23rd January 1703, of the burial of a child of “Daniel Lashagett, a Frenchman.” With regard to felt, which in those days was limited to hats, a felt-maker, when he rose in the world, became a hatter, and the French refugees everywhere were famous for their manufacture of hats. Anthony L'heureux, hat-maker in Edinburgh, seems to have been successful. He married, first, Mary Cadet, and had by her two children, John and Margaret; he married, secondly, Mary Anne Middleton, contract of marriage dated 11th February 1721; he died on 28th August 1727. By the contract his widow had a claim to the liferent of £300, and also to the value in cash of half of the “plenishing,” her share being decided to be £64, 12s. 7d. Antecedently to confirmation before the commissary, she had
