Protestant Exiles from France/Book Second - Chapter 4 - Section I
Chapter IV.
LORD GALWAY’S REFUGEE RELATIVES.
I. Le Sieur de la Caillemotte.
Pierre de Massue de Ruvigny, second son of the Marquis de Ruvigny, was born in Paris on the 4th of January 1653. As was usual among younger sons of the noblesse, he assumed one of the family titles, and was styled Sieur de la Caillemotte, or Monsieur Caillemotte (which the English transformed into Calimote).
He entered the French army, and was a protégé of old Marshal Schomberg, under whom he served in Catalonia and Flanders. On the establishment of peace in 1679 he received a pension of 3000 livres.
Of the date of his leaving France I can find no reliable information. In 1685, when his parents and his elder brother came to England, he did not accompany them. But in the Memoirs of Du Bosc he seems to have been known by name and by character to the refugees in Holland, and to have been loved and admired by them. He was an officer of infantry, and was in the year 1688 eligible for the rank of Colonel. He first appears in British annals as Colonel of one of the infantry regiments of French refugees. In that capacity he served under Schomberg in Ireland, and also under His Majesty. He did good service in 1689, and helped to soothe the weariness and impatience of the officers and troops by his cheerfulness and pleasantry.
We find him in the spring of 1690, engaged in the blockade of Charlemont. “On the 8th of March he possessed himself of a small village within less than two miles of the fort, from which the enemy attempted to dislodge him, but retired on the loss of three or four men. Four nights afterwards he marched out with twenty officers and eighty soldiers, to cut down the wooden bridge at Charlemont, and thus prevent the garrison from making nightly excursions. He landed his men from three boats within a mile of the place, and though he was discovered at a distance, he marched to the bridge and set fire to it, taking a redoubt at the end of it, and another near the gate leading to Armagh.” This strong town surrendered to Schomberg on the 15th May.
La Caillemotte’s memory is chiefly associated with the Battle of the Boyne. In the midst of the river, when he was at the head of his regiment, and in command of the Huguenot brigade of foot, resisting the Irish cavalry, he was shot through the thigh. As he was carried off by four soldiers, he encouraged his men to advance, by calling out cheerfully and undauntedly, “A la gloire, mes enfans, à la gloire!”
The first news that reached his friends in England was, “Monsieur Caillemotte is wounded, but (it is hoped) not mortally.” (Letter from the Hon. Mrs. Edward Russell.) On the morning after the battle, Dumont de Bostaquet had an opportunity to inquire for him at his tent; he found that he had fallen into a pleasant slumber, and the surgeon spoke hopefully of his case. But too soon the wound proved to be mortal. At his own request he was removed to Dublin; and he died there, aged thirty-seven.
To his widowed mother the following letter of condolence, written in French, was addressed by Rachel, Lady Russell:—
“God hath smitten us, my dear madam, with a blow that to us appears harsh; but God’s thoughts are not like man’s, and we should believe that He takes no pleasure in torturing His poor creatures. And what! are we dreaming that God shall change His course in His Providence for our pleasure? No — assuredly! We must bear up as best we can under all kinds of events, living in hope that we shall one day see more clearly the reason of all His dark dispensations which encounter us and pierce us to the quick.
“Madam, I do not censure your lively grief. You owe it to a son, to a man so brave and so beloved, removed from this world.
“There is every possible variety of consolation in the manner of his death. In the retrospect of all his last occupations my soul realizes a strong hope that he was accepted, and that his spirit is now reposing in the arms of that Saviour on whom he did repose with so much faith. God grant, madam, that you and I may so discharge our obligations, that the casualties which may happen to us may not turn us away from God’s paths, but on the contrary may aid us to pass peacefully the few days that remain to us before our entrance into the eternal delights which He is preparing for us. Till that happy moment, I am, &c,
“R. Russell.”