Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 18 - Section II
II. Chatelain.
Rev. Henri Chatelain was born in Paris, 22nd February 1684. He was the great-grandson of Simon Chatelain (born 1590), the famous Protestant manufacturer of gold and silver lace. This lace was a much-prized article. It procured for the steadfast Huguenot the toleration of his religion, in which he was zealous from the fifteenth year of his age to the eighty-fifth, which proved to be his last. In 1675 he died, leaving more than eighty descendants, who all paid fines for openly attending his funeral. Henri’s grandfather was Zacharie Chatelain (born 1622), and was married to Rebecca Bonnel. On old Simon’s death, he was harassed with a view to a forced apostasy; but at length, in 1685, he fled to Holland in disguise. For this offence he was hanged in effigy, and his house at Villers-le-Bel was razed to its foundation. He died at Amsterdam in 1699, having had five daughters and an only son. This son, the second Zacharie Chatelain, was married to Catherine Bonnel, and had an infant family before he left France. He was thrown into the Bastile in 1686, and on being set at liberty, removed to Holland with his wife and children. There he introduced the gold and silver lace. His eldest child, Henri, studied for the ministry at Amsterdam and Leyden; and having removed to England in 1709, he was ordained by the Bishop of London on the 3rd October 1710. He was pasteur of the Church of St. Martin Orgars (St. Martin’s Lane) from 1711 to 1721, when he removed to the Hague, and in 1727 to Amsterdam, where he died on the 19th May 1743. His sermons were published in six volumes, with his portrait, bearing the motto, “Flexanimo sermone potens.” — (Haag.)