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Thursday 6 October 2011

Jacques Dubourdieu - A Red Herring!

The sister of the pastor of Lisburn, Charles de la Valade, had been married to Jacques Dubourdieu who was killed in France at the time of the Revocation. This was the woman who had escaped from France disguised as a peasant carrying her infant son, Jean, with her.

I've repeatedly said that this Jacques Dubourdieu had been living in Blaye north of Bordeaux at the time of his death but I think William J. Dubourdieu, who wrote the definitive book on the Dubourdieu family, may have been mistaken here.  He was using information from the Ulster Journal of 1854, which had wrongly interpreted information from the 3rd Synod of Charenton, reading Jacques' parish church incorrectly as, firstly 'Blangar', then, secondly, as 'Blangee', neither of which actually exist. William Dubourdieu then surmised that this was actually a reference to 'Blaye'.

However, thanks to the internet, the original information is now online. I scrolled through 'Tous Les Synodes Nationaux de l'Eglise Réformée de France, Volume 2' to take a good look at the entry for the Third Synod of Charenton (which took place in 1644) and this is the entry which caused all the confusion....
    'Pour la Province de Bas Languedoc, les Sieurs Jean de Croi, Pasteur de l'Eglise de Beziers;  Abraham de Lare, Pasteur de l'Eglise de Canvisson;  Messire Marc Dardouin, Seigneur de la Calmette, Ancien de l'Eglise de Nimes; & Messire Jacques de Brueis, Seigneur de Bourdie, Ancien de l'Eglise de Blanzac.'

Furthermore, although Jacques de Brueis, seigneur de Bourdie sounds as if it's an archaic spelling of Jacques Dubourdieu, it seems that this is a completely different individual altogether!

I browsed through 'Dictionnaire de la Noblesse' by Aubert de la Chesnaye-Desbois and Francois Alexandre, 1699 - 1784,  and read the following:
  'Jean de Banne, seigneur de Montgros, sole heir if his mother in 1632, and of his father in 1636. He made his will on 18th February 1654, wished to be buried in the Protestant cemetery, and died at BLAUZAC on the 24th of February 1654.  He married, firstly, Suzanne de Rosel, who died without children; and, secondly, on the 14th of August 1649, Gabrielle de Chabas, the daughter of the nobleman, Daniel, and of his wife, Diane de Brueis.'

Blauzac can be found just north of the Provencal town of Nimes, and the records show the name 'de Brueis' to be plentiful there.
The genealogy of the de Brueis family can be seen in 'Pieces Fugitives Pour Servir a l'Histoire de France' which also shines a spotlight on Jacques de Brueis himself.
   'Denis de Brueis, Sgr de BOURDIC, married Alexandrine Borde, and they had Jacques de Brueis, Seigneur de Bourdic.'

The town of Bourdic - which had been misspelled as 'Bourdie' in the synod records - is 3kms away from Blauzac,  the town which had caused so much confusion.

I also stumbled across the same Jacques de Brueis, along with one of the de Chievres de la Valade family, living in Holland and participating in one of the Protestant Walloon churches there following the Revocation of 1685.   Did I write down the name of the book I discovered this information in?  Eh, no....

Sadly, this all means that there is no reference to our Jacques Dubourdieu, nor to the area he was living in at the time of his death in the 1680s.
We do, however, know a lot about his sister, Andree le Valet, who had been born circa 1622 to Isaac Duboudieu and his first wide,  and who married Jean Boybellaud (or Boisbellaud) on 7th August 1672 in the Temple of Charenton, the same town near Paris where the Protestants had held several of their synods.   The marriage promises had been made a few months earlier on 14th June 1672,  by the couple at La Rochelle. 
Following their wedding, the couple returned to Jean Boybellaud's property at Ozillac north of Bordeaux, where Jean had to borrow money to tide them over.  Andree's first husband, Jean Vachon, sieur de la Barauderie, had been a bankrupt, so she had no dowry to bring to the marriage.  Jean Boybellaud had also experienced severe financial problems following the drainage of bog on his lands.

Interesting, both the name 'Le Valet' and the town of La Berauderie which was associated with Andree's first husband, Jean Vachon, are found in Normandy.  Was Isaac Dubourdieu's first wife a member of the Le Valet family of Normandy, and did they raise their granddaughter following the death of their daughter?  Anyone any ideas on this one?

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