Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 10 - Section V
V. Rev. Prebendary Debia.
This refugee divine, the knowledge of whom as of so many other refugees I owe to the Messieurs Haag, was a member of a Montauban Protestant family which still exists in that academic town. Jaques Debia was born at Montauban on 10th March 1652, son of Jean Debia, merchant, and Marguerite Pelleport. The story of his banishment from France is curious, and a characteristic specimen of Romish trickery. The Protestant Academy of Montauban having been suppressed, this youth was sent for education in the classics as a day-scholar in the Jesuits’ College. He happened to get into some boyish scrape which could be expiated by a flogging; but the Jesuit master offered to let him off if he would become a Roman Catholic. After repeated refusals he signed a form of abjuration on 17th November 1668. This act was kept secret by the Jesuits lest Protestant parents should remove their children from the college, and he himself kept his promise of secrecy, until he had all but forgotten the semi-comic transaction, which was not mentioned to him again for fifteen years. In the meantime he had lived as a regular and steadfast Protestant, and had completed his studies for the ministry of the Reformed Churches. He lodged an application to the Provincial Synod to admit him to the ministry in the year 1683. It was then that the Jesuits produced the written abjuration signed by him, and demanded that he should forthwith profess publicly the Roman Catholic creed. On his refusal he was arrested as a relapsed Catholic, and placed at the bar of the parliament of Toulouse. According to the laws of France he was guilty and liable to be sent to the galleys; but the judges, perceiving that he was the victim of a cruel technicality, were lenient, and were content to order him to quit France. He came over to England and became a clergyman of the Anglican Church. The Rev. James Debia was known by his book entitled, “An account of the Religion, Ceremonies, and Superstitions of the Muscovites” (London, 1710), dedicated to William [Wake], Bishop of Lincoln, 27th March 1710. It seems that there were fifty prebends in Lincoln Cathedral, and one of these fell to the lot of this Huguenot refugee after a residence among us of six or seven years. He was installed as a Prebendary of Lincoln (stall of Crackpole, St. Mary), on 5th April 1690. As his successor was installed on 5th August 1736, we may say that the Rev. Prebendary Debia enjoyed this preferment for forty-six years, and died at the age of eighty-four.