merchants in the French city of Rochelle in
1685, when Louis XIV. revoked the Edict of Nantes. The great-grandfather
of John Jay was also in large business there at that time, and so were
the ancestors of our Delanceys, Badeaus, Pells, Secors, Allaires, and
other families familiar to the ears of New Yorkers, many of them having
distinguished living representatives among us. They were of the religion
"called Reformed," as the king of France contemptuously styled it.
Reformed or not, they were among the most intelligent, enterprising, and
wealthy of the merchants of Rochelle.

How little we can conceive the effect upon their minds of the order
which came from Paris in October, 1685, which was intended to put an end
forever to the Protestant religion in France. The king meant to make
thorough work of it. He ordered all the Huguenot churches in the kingdom
to be instantly demolished. He forbade the dissenters to assemble either
in a building or out of doors, on pain of death and confiscation of all
their goods. Their clergymen were required to leave the kingdom within
fifteen days. Their schools were interdicted, and all children hereafter
born of Protestant parents were to be baptized by the Catholic
clergymen, and reared as Catholics.

These orders were enforced with reckless ferocity, particularly in the
remoter provinces and cities of the kingdom. The Faneuils, the Jays, and
the Delanceys of that renowned city saw their house of worship leveled
with the ground. Dragoons were quartered in their houses, whom they were
obliged to maintain, and to whose insolence they were obliged to submit,
for the troops were given to understand that they were the king's
enemies and had no rights which royal soldiers were bound to respect. At
the same time, the edict forbade them to depart from the kingdom, and
particular precautions were taken to prevent men of capital from doing
so.

John Jay records that the ancestor of his family made his escape by
artifice, and succeeded in taking with him a portion of his property.
Such was also the good fortune of the brothers Faneuil, who were part of
the numerous company from old Rochelle who emigrated to New York about
1690, and formed a settlement upon Long Island Sound, twelve miles from
New York, which they named, and which is still called, New Rochelle. The
old names can still be read in that region, both in the churchyards and
upon the door plates, and the village of Pelham recalls the na