Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 10 - Section X

by David Carnegie Andrew Agnew

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X. Rev. Alexandre Descairac.

Alexandre Descairac, born in 1637, was educated at Montauban, and became the Reformed Pasteur of Le Fleix in 1665, but was translated in the following year to Sauvetat. He married Mademoiselle La Brue, daughter of a distinguished military engineer, and sister of Madame Rigaud. His last church in France was Bergerac, in the province of Guienne, where he settled in 1677, and from whence he removed by command of the Revocation Edict in October 1685. Being in Bordeaux as a traveller, he brought himself under the lash of the law by conducting family worship for his host. He wrote a narrative of his subsequent adventures, which is preserved in manuscript^[1] by the Rigaud family, by whom I have been obligingly furnished with the following summary:— “In consequence of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and the orders of the French court for all the Protestant clergy to leave the kingdom in a fortnight, M. Descairac went to Bordeaux. He lodged in the house of a friend, who desired him to read prayers, and he considered it to be contrary to his duty to refuse. A female servant, who had been permitted to attend, betrayed him (as he was told) to the jurats of the city; he was seized and sent to prison. They visited him there four or five times every day, and pressed him to abjure his faith, as the evidence was so strong, and the king’s orders so precise, that they could not otherwise avoid condemning him to the galleys. He resisted; but the magistrates importuned him at least to comply with the outward ceremony of going over to the Roman Catholic faith. To this he was at last induced to submit, by the fear of the utter ruin which otherwise hung over his family. He resolutely refused, however, to go to church, or to do more than sign an abjuration either in prison or in a private room. This was contrary to the directions of the Church; but when the archbishop was consulted, and assured that more could not be obtained, he consented to dispense with his own orders in this respect. Having regained his liberty, M. Descairac endeavoured to send his family out of the country. The ship in which his wife embarked was burnt, and the report was that none on board had escaped but a few sailors. Notwithstanding this, he sent his two eldest daughters, who could not embark with their mother, on board another vessel. [These had a difficulty in escaping, and one of them was obliged to be concealed, when the vessel was searched, in a coil of ropes.] About this time the Jurats of Bordeaux, having had information of his intention to escape with his family out of the kingdom, were about to seize him, when he fled to Paris, thinking it might be more easy from thence to put his intentions into execution. He remained there a month, but to no purpose. He then went into Normandy, and, returning through Paris, went to Brittany, and after visiting several seaports, he went to Rochelle, but the watchfulness of the government was so great that he found no means of getting away. He then came to Bordeaux. But the rigour there was greater than ever, and left him no hope of escape; but he learned that his wife was safe in London, and that his two daughters were with her. He was unable to stay more than two hours in Bordeaux, and from thence he went to St. Foy. A friend, whom he found by the way, gave him hopes that it would be possible for him to embark at Bordeaux, and that something might be done if he returned there in a fortnight; but this required money. The travelling, which he had now had for three months, had exhausted his purse. He employed six weeks to raise money; but now M. de Bonfleur, having heard that he did not go to mass, and that he was supposed to encourage others to resist the Roman Catholics, issued orders to seize him. He nevertheless continued for three weeks longer in the useless endeavour to raise some money, and at last escaped the search which was made for him.

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[Here there is a digression on the sin of apostacy, and the necessity of taking refuge in a Protestant country, in order to exercise the duties and privileges of true religion.]

“Notwithstanding he had still the tie of a part of his family whom he must leave behind him, he at last determined on trying to get off from France, per Bordeaux, but being too well known to think of venturing to go there himself, he applied to a friend for his assistance in negotiating the business for himself and his son. His friend could not go; but at his house there was a young relation, who was about to set out immediately with a party of recruits (une recreue) for the frontier of Switzerland. Amongst these the young man hoped to escape. M. Descairac and his son were suffered to join the party, which consisted chiefly of persons who thought with him, and the commander happened to be an acquaintance. This was fortunate, as M. Descairac could not well have passed for a common soldier; and he was permitted to lead the rest, while his son acted as his servant. In forty-five days they reached Zurich, where they were received with Christian charity by the Swiss, who likewise furnished them with the means of getting to Holland. After remaining at Zurich only five or six days, they set out in the month of June, and in about a month after, they reached England.”

This summary brings the narrative down to July 1686. It appears from an ecclesiastical document that M. Descairac had voluntarily appeared before the consistory of the Church of Zurich and professed his repentance for his act of abjuration; this consistory restored him to the position of a church-member, and gave him a written témoignage (a certificate of full communion). He arrived in London in July, and presented the témoignage to the consistory of the French Church in Threadneedle Street, by whom he was received into congregational fellowship, and was encouraged to hope that he would be re-installed in the pastoral office. The following is the Minute:—

“25^e Juillet 1686. — M. Descairac ministre de Bergerac a presenté a la Comp^e. - un témoignage de l’église de Zurich par leq il paroit qu’etant en danger d’être envoié en galères pour avoir faire la prière dans une maison à Bordeaux, on l’a sollicité à abjurer notre religion, et qu’enfin il le fit mais en protestant qu’il n’iroit jamais à la messe, et que sur la repentance qu’il fit paroitre il a eté admis à la communion de nos Eglises; que même on lui a temoigné qu’après quelque temps on ne doutoit pas qu’on ne dût le retablir au ministère.”

Huguenot refugees had flocked into Bristol in great numbers. The famous bishop of the diocese, Sir Jonathan Trelawny, interested himself in procuring church accommodation for them, and the mayor and magistrates co-operated with him. The Church of St. Mark-the-Gaunt was granted, and the opening services are narrated in the first page of the register of the congregation. Mr. Tinell, a refugee pastor from the Province of Guienne, conducted the devotional exercises, and Mr. Alexandre Descairac preached the sermon; and these two were declared to be the ministers of the French Church of Bristol, Tinell signing first, and Descairac second. M. Descairac during his lifetime attended to the registrations. But another hand had to record his burial on 16th June 1703, “aged about sixty-six.” Professor Rigaud has noted as to his death, the cause of which was apoplexy, “He died in his pulpit at Bristol; he had had a lap-dog with him at the time, which could not be driven from his corpse. His daughter married M. Triboudet Demainbray, himself a refugee from France in consequence of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and their granddaughter was my mother.”

1. This precious heirloom is known in the family as the De Schirac Manuscript; the ink has faded very much, and in a few places the words are nearly obliterated. The late very eminent Professor Rigaud made a fair copy of it, and drew up a summary. He, however, quite mistook the surname. There is a list of necessitous ministers, drawn up by themselves in 1695 (M.S. Treasury Papers, Vol. 35), and one of the names is Desqueirac, aged fifty-eight. In the Bristol French Church Register, each baptismal entry is followed by the perfectly distinct surname, Descairac. See D’Hozier’s Armorial General de la France for an account of Hugues D’Escairac, Seigneur d’Escairac (whose wife was alive on 11th June 1556), and his descendants.