the chief praise to LES INFATIGABLES EFFORTS DU GENEREUX ROCHEGUDE.
Miremont passed the rest of his life as a private member of society. On the consolidation of the Hanoverian rule in Ireland, his pension was raised to £1000. Burn says that in 1740, upon the intercession of the Marquises of Miremont and Montandre, and other members, £150 per annum out of the Royal Bounty was settled on the church of Les Grecs[1] — the old Savoy Chapel having fallen into hopeless disrepair, and its congregation having united with Les Grecs. This may be substantially correct, but the date is wrong. The Marquis de Miremont died in London at his apartment in Somerset House on the 23d February 1732, in his seventy-seventh year.
The right of administration to his property was granted on the 28th inst. to his sister (praenobilis et honoranda faemina, Charlotte de Bourbon, called in the newspapers “the Lady Malauze”); for he left no will. She made up for her brother’s omission before her own death, which took place in Somerset House on the 15th of October following. Her last will and testament, translated from the French by Philip Crespigny, notary public, was duly registered, Josias Des Bordes, Esq., being her executor. She bequeathed to her nephew, the Marquis de Malauze, the residue, which she had reserved to herself, of her gift to him of estates in France, and also her rights to more ample estates. She left £20 to the French hospital of London, £100 to the poor, and (conditionally, on the realization of the three years’ arrears of her late brother’s pension), a sum of £400 to be invested for annual payments to the ministers of the French Church of the Savoy. If that church should ever cease to exist, then the £400 were to be spent in removing her own coffin, and the mortal remains of her late uncle, the Earl of Feversham, and of her two brothers, to Westminster Abbey. Her brother, Louis, Marquis de La Case, had been buried in St. James’, Westminster — and Miremont in the family vault in the Savoy Church. In the same vault she was to be interred, within a leaden coffin, encased in wood, surmounted with a brass plate, “on which shall be engraved my coat-of-arms as on my seal, with the addition of the supporters, which are two angels,” and the following inscription, “Here lies Charlotte de Bourbon, to whom God has given grace to be born, to live, and to die in His holy religion. Glory ever be for the same to the holy, blessed, and adorable Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.”[2]
Except for her younger brother, the Marquis de La Case, the refugee lady’s aspirations as to Westminster Abbey were fulfilled. The register informs us: “The bodies of the said Earl of Feversham, Monsieur Armand de Bourbon, and Charlotte de Bourbon, being deposited in a vault in the [French Church] at the Savoy, were taken up, and interred, on the 21st day of March 1739 [1740, new style], in one grave, in the North Cross of the Abbey.”
II. Major-General la Meloniere.
Isaac de Monceau, Sieur De La Melonière, was Lieutenant-Colonel of the Regiment of Anjou. He married, in 1679, Anne Addée, daughter of Louis, Sieur De Petit Val et Grand Champ. As a Huguenot, he was under the surveillance of the police at the period of the Revocation, and was officially reported to be “an old and meritorious officer and a handsome man, but of the pretended reformed religion, and extremely opinionative” (ancien officer de merite et bien fait, mais de la R. P. R. et fort opinionâtre). His family is said to have been of Beaume (Belna), in the Duchy of Burgundy, and his estate in Dauphiny. Their arms were three bee-hives.
In attempting to emigrate he had reached the frontier, but was apprehended and made a prisoner. To avoid the galleys he professed to be ready to receive instruction. The priests who took him in hand were pleased with their veteran catechumen, and regarded him as a zealous pupil. Whether he pretended to be a convert is not known. Happily he soon made a more successful attempt at flight. He found his way to Holland, through the help of God. William, Prince of Orange, gave him the rank of Colonel in his army, and made him his aide-de-camp. At that date he had three children — Louis Isaac, born in 1680; Susanne, born in 1683; Marianne, born in 1685.
- ↑ The Congregation of Les Grecs at one time worshipped in Hog’s Lane. Hogarth has given a representation of the old Chapel in Hog’s Lane in his picture of “Noon,” and the figure coming out of the chapel is said to have been a very good likeness of the Rev. Thomas Hervé, who was their minister from about 1727-1731. — Burn.
- ↑ A lady, named Catherine De Bourbon, received £36 a-year from the Royal Bounty Fund for French Protestants, till her death on the 23d October 1725. — Burn’s MSS.
