Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/213

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robethon, falaiseau, and d’allonne.
199

(2). Cerjat.

Sabine Frances Hervart, the younger daughter of our refugee Baron, was married in 1725 at Moudon, in Switzerland, to Sigismund Cerjat, Seigneur dc Bressonay. Her son, John Francis Maximilian Cerjat, was born at Moudon in 1729; but coming to London he was naturalised by an Act of the twenty-seventh year of George II. (6th April 1754). On the 13th November of that year he married “an English lady of large fortune,” probably a descendant of a French Protestant refugee, Marguerite Madeleine de Stample, only child of Peter de Stample and Jeanne Foissin, his wife. Mr Cerjat lived for more than twenty years at Louth in Lincolnshire, but died at Lausanne, 17th June 1802. His sons were Captain John Cerjat of the 1st Dragoon Guards, who was born in London in 1755, and died in 1801; Lieut-Colonel Henry Andrew Cerjat of the Fnniskillen Dragoons, born in London in 1758, and died at Lausanne in 1835 in his seventy-seventh year; Lieut.-Colonel William Paul Cerjat of the Blues, born at Louth in 1764, died at Lausanne in 1814; Rowland Alexander Cerjat, a young officer in our royal navy, born in 1766, and was killed in Rodney’s action. 12th April 1782; Lieut-Colonel Charles Sigismund Cerjat of the 1st Royal Dragoons, born at Louth in 1772, died at Lausanne in 1848 in his seventy-sixth year. The latter officer was married and had an only child, Sabine Lizettc, wife of Sir Rowland Winn, fifth baronet of Nostell Priory, and mother of the sixth baronet, the last Sir Rowland Winn. She was also the mother of Esther, Mrs. Williamson, whose children assumed the name of Winn. Thus Sabine Lizette, Lady Winn, may be noted to have been the great-grandmother of Rowland Winn, M.P. for North Lincolnshire, proprietor both of Nostell in Yorkshire, and of Appleby Hall, near Lincoln, now Baron St. Oswald.



Chapter VIII.

ROBETHON, FALAISEAU, AND D’ALLONNE.

I. Right Honourable John Robethon.

Jean Robethon was a son of Jean Robeton or Robethon, Advocate in the parliament of Paris, by his wife, Anne Groteste, daughter of Jacques Groteste Sieur de la Buffiere, and sister of the Reverend Claude Groteste De la Mothe. As he bore his father’s name, so he adhered to his religion, and followed the same professional employment From his will, deposited in London, we learn that his brother, Jacques Robethon, who remained in France, was in 1722 Attorney-General of the Court of the Mint in Paris. To him the refugee was indebted for the realisation and remittance of £3000 from the property in France, which he had forfeited by his flight. His cousins, also mentioned in his will, were Francis Grimandine, “Cousin Catal,” residing at Middleburg in Zealand, and James Robethon, of Poland Street, St James’s, Westminster (also an ex-Advocate of Paris).

The cousins, John and James Robethon, seem to have taken refuge in Holland. John Robethon was recommended to the Prince of Orange, who made him his secretary, and highly appreciated his capacity and fidelity. He was continued in the same confidential post when his great master became King of England; and he frequently accompanied him in his campaigns. Leibnitz wrote to him about a book which he had hunted for successfully in a shop at the Hague, and he wrote his answer in the camp at Gemblour, July 26-16, 1690[1]:—

“Sir, — I have received the letter with which you have honoured me, and I wrote off directly to the Hague, to M. de Viquefort, as the Sieur van der Heck has been here for some days. M. de Viquefort has answered me that he had found the book, just as I had seen it at Moektien’s, and that he had even kept it back, so that he should not sell it to anybody else. I think you already know that the Peace with the Turk is looked upon as settled. The envoy of the king writes to him, from Adrianople, that the Grand Vizier had told him that if he had full powers, it should be made in four-and-twenty hours, upon which the envoy despatched his secretary to Vienna to ask for them. The Turks will accept whatever conditions the Emperor chooses to impose upon them, so we expect to see 40,000 Imperials on the Rhine for the
  1. Kemble’s “State Papers.”