Protestant Exiles from France/Book Second - Chapter 5 - Section II
II. Major-General la Meloniere.
Isaac de Monceau, Sieur De La Melonière, was Lieutenant-Colonel of the Regiment of Anjou. He married, in 1679, Anne Addée, daughter of Louis, Sieur De Petit Val et Grand Champ. As a Huguenot, he was under the surveillance of the police at the period of the Revocation, and was officially reported to be “an old and meritorious officer and a handsome man, but of the pretended reformed religion, and extremely opinionative” (ancien officer de merite et bien fait, mais de la R. P. R. et fort opinionâtre). His family is said to have been of Beaume (Belna), in the Duchy of Burgundy, and his estate in Dauphiny. Their arms were three bee-hives.
In attempting to emigrate he had reached the frontier, but was apprehended and made a prisoner. To avoid the galleys he professed to be ready to receive instruction. The priests who took him in hand were pleased with their veteran catechumen, and regarded him as a zealous pupil. Whether he pretended to be a convert is not known. Happily he soon made a more successful attempt at flight. He found his way to Holland, through the help of God. William, Prince of Orange, gave him the rank of Colonel in his army, and made him his aide-de-camp. At that date he had three children — Louis Isaac, born in 1680; Susanne, born in 1683; Marianne, born in 1685.
The refugee colonel took up his abode at the Hague with his young and increasing family. The Lefroy family have preserved an extract of the baptism in that town of his daughter Julia, presented by Messire Nicolas Monceau de l’Estang and Demoiselle Julie Pelissary on the 25th March 1688. When the Huguenot infantry, officers and privates, presented themselves at the Hague in order to join in the descent upon England, Colonel La Melonière enrolled them. The officer who enrolled the Huguenot cavalry is called Colonel d’Estang, probably his kinsman, Monceau de l’Estang.
In 1689 Lamellonière, or Lamellonier (such are the English forms of his name), was Colonel of one of the foot regiments raised by Schomberg and Ruvigny. The former he accompanied to Ireland, and during the Irish campaigns he held the local rank of Brigadier; he was inserted as such in a list given to King William, 18th June 1690; Story calls him La Millionière. On the day of the victory at the Boyne, Lamellonier was sent by King William with 1000 horse and some foot to summon the town of Drogheda. The Governor, having a good store of ammunition and provisions, and a garrison of 1300, received the summons with contempt. The king, however, sent him word that if he should be forced to bring cannon before the town, no quarter would be given. The summons was then obeyed, and the garrison marched out. On the 20th September, Lamellonier accompanied the Duke of Wirtemberg, with 4000 men, to reinforce the Earl of Marlborough for the siege of Cork. He had charge of some Dutch and French infantry, and arrived before Cork, September 26; the town capitulated on the 28th. “Wirtemberg and Marlborough being both Lieutenant-Generals, a warm dispute arose between them about the chief command, each claiming it in right of his rank. Marlborough was the senior officer, and led the troops of his own nation, whereas Wirtemberg was only at the head of foreign auxiliaries. Lamellonier interposed, and persuaded Marlborough to share the command with Wirtemberg, lest the king’s service should be retarded by their disagreement. Accordingly the Earl commanded on the first day, and gave the word 'Wirtemberg;' and the Duke commanded the next day, and gave the word ‘Marlborough.’”
It was resolved to open the campaign of 1691 with the siege of Athlone, and the troops rendezvoused at Mullingar on May 31st. The sudden attack and storming of Athlone on the 1st of July is notorious; Lamellonier took part in the perilous fording of the Shannon, under Major-General Mackay, and was honourably mentioned. He received the substantive rank of Brigadier in July 1692. He afterwards served in Flanders, and rose to be a Major-General. In July 1697 he was tried by court-martial in Flanders, being accused by several officers of illegal practices in his regiment; he was honourably acquitted.
On the disbandment of his regiment, Major-General Lamellonier received an annual pension on the Irish establishment of £303, 15s., which was paid up to the year 1715. This was probably the date of his death. Captain Florence Lamellonier, who had the annual half pay of £91, 5s. in 1719, and of £155, 2s. 6d. in 1723, was probably his brother. We may also conjecture that Anne Lamellonier, who lived in London on an Irish pension of £91, 5s., was his sister.
Two of his daughters were married. On 15th October 1707 Marc Anthoine Ravaud (son of Marc Anthoine Ravaud and Susanne Seignoret) was married to “Demoiselle Susanne De Monceaux de la Melonnierre” in Hungerford French Church, London. The other marriage was solemnized in London, at the French Church in the Savoy, on 17th November 1712; the names are registered thus: “Mr. Pierre Langlois and Mademoiselle Judich De Monceau La Melonniere;” but the baptismal certificate produced by the Lefroy family from her marriage papers, as well as all successive documents, prove that her name was Julie. Her husband was a merchant at Leghorn, and there she died on 26th March 1727, aged thirty-six. Her sister, Mrs. Ravaud, died in 1731 as a widow, her husband having died at Hammersmith in 1728.
The Major-General’s son, Louis Isaac, is said to have returned to France and to have “inherited from an uncle the family estates.”[1] But a younger son, Anthony, was born in England, and served in our army. He was in the Grenadier Guards, with the rank of Major in the army, in 1736. In July 1737 he was made Lieutenant-Colonel of Churchill’s Dragoons. He also held at Court the office of “Gentleman Usher Quarter Waiter” to the Queen [Wilhelmina Dorothea Carolina, consort of George II.]. Her Majesty died on 20th November 1737, and Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Lamellonier was made a Groom of the Bedchamber to H.R.H. the Duke of Cumberland. He was wounded at the Battle of Fontcnoy in 1745. He died in the post of Lieutenant-Colonel of the first troop of Horse Guards, at London, 13th November 1761. He left no descendants. A memorial of him was preserved by the Lefroy family, namely, his sword, made of steel, inlaid with gold, with a very valuable hilt; he had received it, on account of his influence with the Royal Duke, as a present from Colonel Folliott, but with the Duke’s leave. The signature of his will is spelt thus — Anth. La Meloniere. His charitable bequests were “£100 to be paid, applied and distributed to and among such poor French Protestants, objects of charity, as my executor and executrix shall in their discretion think fit;” and “to the ministers and churchwardens for the time being of the parish of St. Marylebone, in the county of Middlesex, the sum of £50 for the use of the poor of the said parish.” The witnesses were Danl. Boote and Fran. Duroure.
Last century the La Melonieres were represented by both the Ravaud and Lefroy families. The Lieutenant-Colonel, in his will dated 27th February 1760 [proved 19th January 1762], named as his executors his nephew, Stephen David Ravaud, and his niece, Margaret Ravaud. The former died in 1776 unmarried; the latter (Margaret Mary), celebrated as the beloved friend of Mrs. Delany, died at Bath in 1800. Two other Ravaud nieces, Mrs. John Cooke and Elizabeth, Mrs. Columbine Le Carre had died before the making of his will. [One of the brothers went to America, and his grand-daughter was married to General Skinner of the United States Army.] The Lieutenant-Colonel had female cousins, on the mother’s side, of the name of Addee, living in 1760 at Imbert, near Warminster, in Wiltshire. In the present century the Lefroys are the sole representatives, at least in England and Ireland, of the family of La Melonière.
The following tablet to Julie La Melonière, Mrs. Langlois, is at Leghorn:—
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Hic jacet pars mortalis
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summâ in amicos benevolentiâ,
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- ↑ “Notes and Documents relating to the Family of Loffroy” [by General Sir J. H. Lefroy], page 50.