On arrival in London, De Péchels proceeded to make inquiry amongst his Huguenot friends—who had by that time reached England in great numbers—for his wife, his children, his mother, and his sisters. Alas! what disappointment! He found no wife, no child, nor any relation ready to welcome him. His wife, however, was living at Geneva, with their only son; for the youngest had died at Montauban during De Péchels' exile. His daughters were still at Montauban—the eldest in a convent. His mother and youngest sister were both in prison—the one at Moissac, the other at Auvillard. A message was, however, sent to Madame de Péchels, that her husband was now in England, and longing to meet her.
It was long before the message reached Madame de Péchels; and still longer before she could join her husband in London. While at Geneva, she had maintained herself and her son by the work of her hands. On receiving the message she immediately set out, but her voyage could not fail to be one of hardship to a person in her reduced circumstances. We are not informed how she and her son contrived to travel the long distance of eight hundred miles (by way of the Rhine and Holland) from Geneva to London; but at length she reached the English capital, when she had the mortification to find that her husband was not there, but had left London for Ireland only four days before. During the absence of her husband, Madame de Péchels, whose courage never abandoned her, chose rather to stoop to the most toilsome labours than to have recourse to the charity of the government, of which many, less self-helping, or perhaps more necessitous, did not scruple to take advantage.
We must now revert to the circumstances under which De Péchels left London for Ireland. At the time when he arrived in England, the country was in the throes of a Revolution. Only a month before, William of Orange had landed at Torbay, with a large body of troops, a considerable proportion of which consisted of Huguenot officers and soldiers. There were three strong regiments of Huguenot infantry, and a complete squadron of Huguenot cavalry. Marshal Schomberg, next in command to William of Orange, was a banished Huguenot; and many of his principal officers were French.
James II. had so distinctly shown his disposition to carry back the nation to the Roman Catholic religion, that the Prince of Orange, on his landing at Torbay, was hailed as the deliverer of England. His troops advanced direct upon London. He was daily joined by fresh adherents; by the gentry, officers, and soldiers. There was scarcely a show of resistance; and when he entered London, James was getting on board a smack in the Thames, and slinking ignominiously out of his kingdom. Towards the end of June, 1689, William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of Great Britain; and they were solemnly crowned at Westminster about three months after.
But James II. had not yet been got rid of. In the spring of 1689 he landed at Kinsale, in Ireland, with substantial help obtained from the French king. Before many weeks had elapsed, forty thousand Irish stood in arms to support his cause. It was clear that William III. must fight for his throne, and that Ireland was to be the battle-field. He accordingly called his forces together again—for the greater part had been disbanded—when he prepared to take the field in person. Four Huguenot regiments were at once raised, three infantry regiments, and one cavalry regiment. The cavalry regiment was raised by Marshal Schomberg, its colonel. It was composed of French gentlemen, privates as well as officers. De Péchels was offered a commission in the regiment, which he cheerfully accepted. He assumed the name of his barony, La Boissonade, as was common in those days; and he acted as lieutenant in the company of La Fontain.
The regiment, when completed, was at once despatched to the north of Ireland to join the little army of about ten thousand Protestants, who had already laid siege to and taken the fortified town of Carrickfergus. Schomberg's regiment embarked from Chester, on Monday, the 25th of August, 1689; and on the following Saturday the squadron arrived in Belfast Lough. The troopers were landed a little to the west of Carrickfergus, and marched along the road towards Belfast, which is still known as "Troopers' Lane." Next day the Duke moved on in pursuit of the enemy. The regiment passed through Belfast, which was then a very small place. It consisted of a few streets of thatched cottages, grouped around what is now known as the High Street of Belfast. Schomberg's regiment joined the infantry and the Enniskilleners, who were encamped in a wood on the west of the town.
Next morning the little army started in pursuit of the enemy, who, though in much greater numbers, fled before them, laying waste the country. At night Schomberg's troops encamped at Lisburn; on the following day at Dromore; on the third at Brickclay (this must be Loughbrickland); and then on to Newry. All the villages they passed were either burnt or burning. At length they heard that James's Irish army was at Newry, and that the Duke of Berwick (James's natural son) was in possession of the town with a strong body of horse. But before Schomberg could reach the place the Duke of Berwick had evacuated it, leaving the town in flames. The Duke had fled with such haste that he had left some of his baggage behind him, and thrown his cannon into the river. Schomberg ordered his cavalry to advance rapidly upon Dundalk, in order to prevent the town from sharing the same fate as Newry. This forced march took the enemy by surprise. They suddenly abandoned Dundalk, without burning it, and never paused until they had reached the entrenched camp of King James.
The weather had now become cold, dreary, and rainy. Provisions were scarcely to be had. The people of Dundalk were themselves starving. Strong bodies of cavalry foraged the country, but were able to find next to nothing in the shape of food for themselves, or corn for their horses. The ships from England, laden with provisions which ought to have arrived at Belfast, were forced back by contrary winds. Thus the army was becoming rapidly famished. Disease soon made its appearance, and carried off the men by hundreds. Schomberg's camp, outside Dundalk, was situated by the side of a marsh—a most unwholesome position; but the marsh protected him from the enemy, who were not far off. The rain and snow continued; the men and the horses were perpetually drenched; and scouring winds blew across the camp. Ague, dysentery, and fever everywhere prevailed. Dalrymple has recorded that of fifteen thousand men who belonged to Schomberg's army, not less than eight thousand perished. Under these circumstances, the greatly reduced force broke up from their cantonments and went into winter quarters. Schomberg's cavalry regiment was stationed at Lurgan, then a small village, which happily had not been burnt. De Péchels was one of those who had been sick in camp, and was disabled from pursuing the campaign further. After remaining for some weeks at Lurgan, he obtained leave from the Duke of Schomberg to return to London. And there, after the lapse of four years, he found and embraced his beloved and noble wife.
De Péchels continued invalided, and was unable to rejoin the army of King William. "After some stay in London," he says, in the memoir from which the above extracts are made, "it was the King's pleasure to exempt from further service certain officers specified by name, and to assign them a pension. Through a kind Providence I was included in the number. When I had lived in London on the pension which it had pleased the king to allow those officers who were no longer in a position to serve him, until the 1st of August, 1692, I then left that city, in company with my wife and son, to remove into Ireland, whither my pension was transferred."
De Péchels accordingly arrived in Dublin, where he spent the rest of his days in peace and quiet. He lived to experience the truth of the promise "that every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." De Péchels died in 1732, at a ripe old age, in his eighty-seventh year, and was interred in the Huguenot cemetery in the neighbourhood of Dublin.