Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 2.djvu/371

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
groups of refugees.
357

man-of-war (brother to the General), who was very instrumental in animating the seamen, and had a great share in the execution of it. And Brigadier Petit, for his great services there and at the Siege of Barcelona, is made Governor of the Isle.

Oct. 28. Brigadier Petit, a French refugee, Governor of the Island [of Minorca] is adding new works to it, and making the same as strong as possible.

This gallant General died in 1720, and his Will was proved in London by his widow, Marianne, daughter of John Meslin De Glatigny. Their daughters died unmarried, and their son, John Peter, founded a family. (See Chapter xx.)

10. Colonel Rieutort was a native of Montpellier, and of a good family. He served in Ireland under William III., and afterwards in Piedmont. In 1703 he assisted in the defence of Landau. In 1704 he was sent by the Earl of Galway to co-operate in the relief of Gibraltar. He then went to Barcelona with King Charles III., who gave him a regiment of dragoons, but Count Lichtenstein insisted on his becoming a Roman Catholic, and as he could not comply, he resigned his command. He was afterwards Chamberlain to the Elector-Palatine. He had a house in Chelsea, where he died on the 24th January 1726, in his sixty-sixth year. — (Faulkner’s Chelsea.)

11. Brigadier Mark Antony Moncal, promoted to that rank in our army on 12th February 1711, was no doubt the officer who distinguished himself in Gibraltar in 1705, as is recorded in the Annals of Queen Anne. On the 27th January, “Colonel Moncall, Major in Lord Barrymore’s regiment, a French refugee, by a vigorous charge drove the enemy from the round tower which they had held for an hour. The next day his leg was shot off, as he was in attendance upon the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt in the new battery.” He died on 25th March 1729.

12. Louis Hirzel, Comte D’Olon, an old French refugee officer, attended the Earl of Galway as aide-de-camp and secretary at the battle of Almanza. He became Lieutenant-Governor of the island of Jersey. The noble family of Hirzel, to which he belonged, was of St. Gratien, near Amiens in Picardy. His daughter and heiress, became the second wife of Thomas Le Marchant, Esq. of Le Marchant Mann, Guernsey. She had no children; but her step-son, John Le Marchant, a retired officer of the British army (who died in Bath in 1794), married her relative and heiress, Maria Hirzel, of St. Gratien, eldest daughter of the Comte de St. Gratien, a marechal-de-camp of the Swiss Guards in the French service. This is the ancestry of Sir Denis Le Marchant, Baronet. — (Duncan’s Guernsey.)

13. Colonel La Fabreque (military rank superseded Christian names in most of the lists) had a long career. In July 1689 he was a lieutenant in Schomberg’s Horse with the rank of captain; when the regiment in 1698 (then Galway’s) was disbanded he was a captain with a company under his command. He was afterwards in the British cavalry, and was Lieutenant-Colonel of Carpenter’s Dragoons at the Battle of Almanza in 1707. After our defeat Lords Galway, Tyrawley, and Carpenter made good their retreat into Catalonia under his escort, fighting their way with characteristic impetuosity (see Tindal’s Continuation of Rapin, where his regiment is erroneously called Guiscard’s). It appears that he was promoted to be a full colonel of dragoons; it is certain that there was a regiment called La Fabréque’s Dragoons in 1708, which the almanacks misspelt, La Fabrique’s.

14. Lieutenant Gaspard Lanalve was “a native of France, which he left on account of religion at fifteen years of age” — i.e. in 1688-9. He served in the wars in Ireland after the Revolution, also in Flanders and Spain, and received several wounds. So says the Scots Magazine; and the Gentleman’s Magazine adds, “Though never promoted higher than lieutenant, he had served in five battles and several sieges, and was in the castle at the blowing up of the Rock of Alicant.” He probably belonged to Sibourg’s regiment. He died on half-pay at Canterbury on 17th September 1754, aged eighty. He is the same person as Mr. Gaspard La Naive registered in the London French Church in the Savoy, in 1715, on the occasion of his marriage to Mlle. Magdelaine Charles.

15. Brigadier Lalo, “a French refugee in great favour and esteem with the generals,” was killed at the battle of Malplaquet. There was a noble sufferer in France in 1687, Monsieur De Lalo (or De l’Alo), of the house of Epeluche, a councillor in the parliament of Dauphiny. The refugee in Britain was Samson de Lalo; he became Colonel of the 28th Foot in 1701. In 1706 he exchanged with John, Viscount Mordaunt, and thus obtained the 21st Regiment, called the Royal Scots Fusiliers. In 1707 the Duke of Marlborough wrote thus:— “Colonel Lalo is acquainted that his officers must conform themselves to other regiments, and use pertuisans as those of the regiment of Welsh Fusiliers.” The Colonel received a letter, dated 7th December 1708, in which the Duke says:— “I thank you for your