Protestant Exiles from France/Book Second - Chapter 3 - Section II
Sec. 2. — His Refugee Life before Enrolment in our Army.
He had been selected for embassies to England, partly on account of the great friendship that subsisted between him and the Russells. During her long widowhood, Rachel Lady Russell looked upon her cousin Ruvigny as her best friend. It is in her letters that we find the first mention of him in his refugee life, and that in connection with an act of characteristic generosity. “Some French Protestants were taken going into Holland, and were made slaves in Algiers. They are now redeemed, four ministers or five, and the rest proposants. My cousin Ruvigny has paid the money, and I am to gather to reimburse him the greatest part if I can, 26th Jan. 1689.”[1] At this date she was fifty-two years of age, and Ruvigny was in his fortieth year. In the following July, when his father’s sudden illness and death took place, he himself was at Tunbridge on a visit to Lady Russell. He was overwhelmed with grief on receiving the tidings from Messieurs Chardin and Le Coq, and returned to the house of mourning.
He continued to reside in Greenwich as the head of his family, dispensing hospitality and bounty. By unanimous advice he did not join the British army, but lived as a private gentleman, being continued in the enjoyment of his French property. But at the Battle of the Boyne, his only surviving brother was killed, and also Marshal Schomberg. The ardour of the Marquis De Ruvigny could no longer be kept down. Burnet says he offered his service to the king, “who unwillingly accepted of it; because he knew that an estate which his father had in France, and of which he had still the income, would be immediately confiscated.” He was enrolled in our army as a Major-General, and with universal approval was made Colonel of the Huguenot cavalry regiment, late Schomberg’s. Dumont de Bostaquet says that “the appointment was considered a most excellent one, but it occasioned great surprise that he should return to active service, — he, who had chosen private life, and whose engrossing occupation was to show kindness to the refugees, and, indeed, to perform acts of generosity to mankind in general. As he was in high estimation at court, and had not taken up arms in William’s cause, he was in full possession of his immense estates in France. It was thought that with unquestionable propriety, he would be satisfied to continue in this kind of life.”
- ↑ I shall copy and annotate this letter in the Appendix.