The house of Maillé (vide Lord Mahon's Life of Condé) contributed to the Crusades one of its bravest champions. Can any of your numerous contributors give me information as to the name and achievements of the Crusader?
Claire Clémence de Maillé, daughter of the Maréchal Duke de Brezé, and niece of Richelieu, was married in 1641 to the Duc d'Enghien, afterwards the Great Condé; and Lord Mahon, somewhere in his life of the hero, makes mention of the princess as the "last of her family."
Claire Clémence had an only brother, who held the exalted post of High Admiral of France, and in 1646 he commanded a French fleet which disembarked 8000 men in the marshes of Sienna, and himself shortly afterwards fell at the siege of Orbitello. The admiral having died unmarried, the Brezé estates became the property of the princess, who transmitted them to her descendants, the last of whom was the unfortunate Duc d'Enghien, who perished at Vincennes.
Thus much is patent; but I think it probable his lordship was not aware that a branch of the family was exiled, and with the La Touches, La Bertouches, &c., settled in the sister kingdom, most likely at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Their descendants subsequently passed over into this country, and have contributed to the lists of the legal and medical professions. Up to the present century a gentleman bearing the slightly altered name of Mallié held a commission in the British army. Even now, the family is not extinct, and the writer being lately on a visit to a lady, probably the sole representative in name of this once powerful house, noticed in her possession a series of four small engravings, representing the Great Condé; his mother, a princess of Montmorency, pronounced to be the "handsomest woman in Europe;" the old Maréchal de Maillé Brezé; and his daughter, Claire Clémence.
Our Pall Mall is, I believe, derived from Pailée Maillé, a game somewhat analogous to cricket, and imported from France in the reign of the second Charles: it was formerly played in St. James's Park, and in the exercise of the sport a small hammer or mallet was used to strike the ball. I think it worth noting that the Mallié crest is a mailed arm and hand, the latter grasping a mallet.
Be it understood that the writer has no pretensions to a knowledge of heraldic terms and devices; so, without pinning any argument on the coincidence, he thought it not without interest. He is aware that the mere fact of a similarity between surnames and crests is not without its parallel in English families.
A New Subscriber.
Birmingham, April 22. 1851.