Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 27 - Morell
Morell.
At a village in Champagne (says Mr. Smiles), during a dreadful day of persecution, when blood was streaming in the streets, two soldiers entered the house of a Protestant, and after killing some of the inmates, one of them, seeing an infant in a cradle, rushed at it with his drawn sword and stabbed it, but not fatally. The child was snatched up and saved by a bystander, who exclaimed, “At least the babe is not a Protestant.” The child proved to be a boy, and was given to a Protestant woman to nurse, who had a male child of her own at the breast. The boys, Daniel Morell and Stephen Conté, grew up together. When old enough they emigrated into Holland together, entered the army of the Prince of Orange, accompanied him to England, and fought in Ireland together. There they settled and married, and Morell’s son married Conté’s daughter. Such were the ancestors of the Morell family, which has produced so many distinguished ministers of religion and men of science in England.