French emigres buried in St Peter Port, 1796

C. Hettier, Les Relations de la Normandie et de la Bretagne avec les Iles de la Manche pendant l'émigration, 1885.

The British extended a generous welcome to fugitive priests, regardless of their religious differences.

Many émigrés were buried in Protestant cemeteries, in a good example of religious tolerance. This tolerance did not consist simply of allowing a burial (Anglican priests were obliged to bury any baptised Christian, regardless of denomination), but went as far as to allow the Catholic priests to conduct the burial service, as freely as though they were in their own church.

Witness the following extracts from the St Peter Port Parish register:

Copy of an act of burial taken from the registers of D'Allonville's division, in the service of His Majesty.

4th April 1796, Demoiselle Marie-Aurore de Lardenoy, daughter of his lordship the Count Antoine-Philippe de Lardenoy, Baron of Termes in Champagne, colonel in the French royal army, Captain of a Company of French Gentlemen, in the division of the Count d'Allonville1 in the service of His British Majesty, and Lady Marie-Catherine-Louise-Félixe de Dunot de Saint-Maclou, Countess of Lardenoy, who died at Guernsey, on 2nd April 1796, aged 14 years and 4 months, was buried in the cemetery of the said town of Guernsey by me, Claude-Antoine Coulon, priest, vicar general of the diocese of Nevers, with the permission of the Reverend Mr Durand, Rector and Dean of the Church of St Peter in this town. In the presence of Monsieur the Count of Paviot, cousin of the deceased, Captain of Infantry in the French King's service, volunteer in D'Allonville's division; Monsieur de Chardeboeuf, Count of Pradel, brigade-general of the French King's army, aide-major of D'Allonville's division; Monsieur Hébert, marquis de Beauvoir, Infantry Colonel in the French King's service, Captain of a Company in D'Allonville's division; Monsieur Antoine D'Allonville, Knight of Malta, Captain of Cavalry in the French King's Service, adjutant-general in D'Allonville's division, who have all signed with us. Le Comte de Paviot, le comte de Pradel, le marquis de Beauvoir, le chevalier d'Allonville; Coulon, vicaire général de Nevers, prédicateur ordinaire du roi de France, aumônier de la division d'Allonville.

Autre copie d'un acte de sépulture, extraite des mêmes registres.

15th August 1796, Pierre-Philippe de Lauzon, Lord of Plibon, Sebassières and elsewhere, in Poitou, former Captain in Foix's infantry regiment, in the service of the King of France, and volunteer in D'Allonville's division, in the service of His British Majesty, aged around forty, who died in Guernsey on the 13th inst., was buried in the cemetery of this town by me, Jean Le Touzé, priest, vicar of Noyers in the diocese of Bayeux, chaplain of the above division, by permission of Monsieur Durand, Rector and Dean of St Peter Port in Guernsey, in the presence of Monsieur de Marans, Lord of Chaumont, Knight of the Royal and Military Order of St Louis, Captain of Infantry in the service of the French King, volunteer in D'Allonville's division, first cousin of the deceased; His Lordship the Count D'Allonville, brigade general of the army of the King of France, commander of his own division; Monsieur Hébert, marquis de Beauvoir, Colonel in the Infantry on the French Kings army and Captain of a Company in the above division; de Rousseau, the marquis de Fayotte (Captain of infantry in the French army), Monsieur de Brouillac, and His Lordship le Chevalier de Boynet, all three volunteers in the above division, co-signatories.

Gabriel Le Perrée, French priest, deported to Guernsey by order of the French National Assembly, also buried. [From the French. DAB]


Le Miroir Politique, 6 March 1813

Louis Joseph Gui Landry de Vaux Landry, French gentleman and emigré, has just passed away. This worthy and loyal knight breathed his last aged 83. Worn out, he could hardly have lived much longer; and so he died, in no pain, unaffected by illness. He died the death of a man who, on leaving this world, can at least console himself by saying; I have nothing to reproach myself for. [There follows an obituary, which ends with the verse:]

Ci git un CHEVALIER FIDELE [this title was bestowed upon him by Louis XVII]
Dont l'honneur fut l'unique loi.
Toujours il déploya son zele
Pour Dieu, sa partie et son roi.


La Gazette de Guernesey, January 1813

To be given to rent to the highest bidder, on the day called Monday, the 1st of next month, unless sold before by private contract, 2 small tenements; stables and garden, with sundry fruit-trees, and a pump, &c, situated at the Amballes, containing in the whole, about 27½ perches, were mostly in the occupation of the late Chevalier De Troussier,² and the property of a stranger. For particulars apply to Nathaniel Cosins of Vauvert, or James Winter, near the premises. The sale to begin at 11 0'clock. [p. 19]


1 D’Allonville was made maréchal de camp of the armée des émigrés, by king's brevet, dated from Blakembourg, on 15 November 1797, effective from 15 March 1794. With a daily pension of five shillings a day, after his troops were dismissed, d'Allonville lived in England in poverty. He is recorded in London on 12 April 1806 and died there on 24 January 1811[2]; he was buried in St Pancras' Churchyard.

² Chouan commander, took part in the ill-fated coup attempt against Napoleon of 1804. See Hettier, Relations ..., 1885, pp. 416, 434.