Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman — John Shaqi
Memoir and Letters of Francis W. NewmanSieveking, I. Giberne (Isabel Giberne)
Religion
Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman
Sieveking, I. Giberne (Isabel Giberne)
Newman, Francis William, 1805-1897
By this marriage there were seven children. John Henry (the future
Cardinal), was the eldest. He was born 21st Feb., 1801. Charles Robert was
the second son; and Francis William, the third son, was born 27th June,
1805. Harriette Elizabeth was the eldest daughter, Jemima Charlotte the
second, and Mary Sophia, who was born in 1809, only lived to the age of
nineteen.
Francis Newman's ancestry, on his mother's side, is proved to have reached
back as far as 1575; of this one can be reasonably certain. It was then,
that Henri Fourdrinier was born at Caen, in Normandy. He was made Admiral
of France in later life, and crested Viscount. ARMS: _per bend argent and
sable, two anchors, the upper one reversed, counterchanged._ His son was
also Henri Fourdrinier. Indeed, the name "Henri" seemed like some rare
jewel which was bequeathed from father to son in never-failing regularity,
for there was always a "Henri" among the Fourdriniers from 1575 until
1766.
It was during the lifetime of this Henri Fourdrinier, the son of Admiral
Fourdrinier, that the family fled from France to Groningen, in Holland. In
all probability this flitting took place during those endless civil wars
which disturbed France at that time. Possibly at the time when the heavy
taxes imposed on the people made it almost impossible to live. The
"Fronde" was ravaging the country too, in 1648, and for four years later.
Of course it is possible that he did not leave France until 1685, when the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes took place. But at whatever date he
actually went, his reasons for going were certainly no small ones. For
more than a hundred years the Huguenots--and the Fourdriniers were noted
Huguenots--had found France more and more an impossible country to live
in. Persecutions, massacres, torturings pursued them relentlessly.
Thousands of French Huguenots emigrated to England, Holland, and Germany.
And great was the loss which their emigration caused to France. For they
were the most intelligent and hardworking part of the French population,
so that when Louis XIV drove them away, he found out, only too surely, the
truth of the old proverb, that "Curses come home to roost." Trade slowly
but surely forsook France. The emigrants taught their arts and
manufactures to the countries where they had taken refuge; and gradually
trade guided its ships in their direction, and changed their course from
France to Holland and Germany.
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