was buried by Mr. Dennis in the French Church.” The French descendants of Gabriel fled from France during the first French Revolution. Napoleon I. included their surname among many others in a list to be read by the clergy in Roman Catholic chapels everywhere, communicating his imperial invitation to them to return to France. Some one reported this in England to the Rev. Henry Reynett, D.D., who obtained information from the French Ambassador that the old Languedoc estate was in the possession of a family of his name. Accordingly, General Sir James Reynett wrote to his distant relatives, who replied that they had got safe home, but had found their house damaged by soldiers, who had been quartered in it. The refugee Reynettes, descendants of the good physician, have prospered. In 1755, James Henry Reynette was sheriff, and he was twice Mayor of Waterford. From him the above-mentioned clergyman and general officer sprang.
6. Dr. Pierre De Rante was another Huguenot physician in Waterford. His first wife was of the influential family of Alcock (she died in January 1716, aged thirty-three), and, partly for her sake, the Town Council gave him the care of the sick poor, with £10 per annum, and he was known as “the French doctor.” In December 1717 he married Miss Anne Pyke; he had several children, and lived till January 1756. He was buried beside his first wife, on the 26th day of that month.
7. James Augustus Blondell, a native of Paris, was naturalized at Westminster, 5th January 1688 (see List xiv.). He studied medicine at Leyden, where he took the degree of M.D. on 17th July 1692, the title of his thesis being Dissertatio de crisibus. He settled as a practitioner in London, having been admitted a Licentiate of the College of Physicians, 26th March 1711. He obtained celebrity by his treatise (London, 1727) on “the strength of the imagination of pregnant women,” demonstrating it to be “a vulgar error” that “marks and deformities” in infants are occasioned thereby. This was contrary to the published opinion of Dr. Daniel Turner, whose strictures called forth a second publication entitled “The power of the mother’s imagination on the foetus examined,” London, 1729. Dr. Blondell’s original book on this subject passed through several editions, and translations appeared in Germany and Holland. He died on 5th October 1734.
8. John La Serre, M.D., was a French refugee in Guernsey. He was born in 1682 at Ville Magne, in Languedoc; he married Esther, daughter of Peter Whitehead of Guernsey, and died in St. Peter’s Port, 10th January 1774. — (Camden Society Lists.)
V. Merchants.
1. Many of the refugees brought considerable sums of money; some who had not money had good knowledge of business and inventive talents, thus they contributed greatly to public prosperity, and some made private fortunes and founded British families. It was a custom in London, regularly observed till 1723, for elders of the Dutch and French Churches, who usually were merchants, to be sent in December of each year on a deputation to the new Lord Mayor; this I infer from a paragraph in the Gentleman’s Magazine for December 1738:— Thursday 14th — “The elders of the French and Dutch Churches, in number about twenty, attended by their ministers, waited on the Lord Mayor (Micaiah Perry, Esq.) to beg his protection, and presented two large silver cups. His lordship received them in an obliging manner, and assured them of his favour. This custom has been neglected fifteen years, and we cannot guess why it is revived.”
2. “A London merchant, Mr. Banal, a good refugee,” was once in 1713 in the French café near the Exchange, when he heard an officer of the French embassy insulting the Protestant refugees, saying that they ought to be hanged. The French Papists had great hopes from the Harley-Bolingbroke ministry, as secret sympathizers with Louis XIV. in his quarrel with the Huguenots, and the French Ambassador’s household were in the habit of speaking in this insolent style; so that this officer had no regard for verbal remonstrances, but went on to say, “Think you, gentlemen, that the king of France has not arms long enough to reach you beyond the sea? I hope that you will soon find that out.” Mr. Banal could stand this no longer, but rushing forward with uplifted hand, shouted, “This arm, which is not so long as your king’s arm, will reach you from a nearer place,” and gave him a tremendous box on the ear. A row ensued, in the midst of which the landlady obtained for the officer the favour that he should be turned out by the door instead of being thrown from the window. (Marteilhe.)
3. Paul Durand (perhaps Paul Darande) was a merchant of good reputation. His conduct greatly impressed Mr. Anthony Lefroy in his youthful days. In 1770
