70 



THE FRENCH BLOOD IN AMERICA 



Denmark 

 Gains a Com- 

 mander-in- 

 Chief 



Russia Gives 

 Free Entry 



its numbers. Hamburg got in return, however, the linen 

 manufacturing industry which made it famous and greatly 

 increased its riches. 



Sweden 1681 King Christian of Sweden was among the first to offer 



asylum to banished families, promising to grant them 

 lauds and build them churches with full religious freedom. 

 One of the Huguenot ministers who went to Copenhagen 

 was Philliijpe Menard, afterwards French chaplain to 

 William III. 



The Refuge in Denmark included a few military offi- 

 cers ; one of whom was Frederic Charles de la Roche- 

 foucault, ancestor of the Irish earls of Lifford. This 

 Huguenot became grand marshal and commander-in-chief 

 of the Danish forces. But the bulk of the French settlers 

 were farmers, cultivating especially potatoes, the tobacco 

 plant, which they introduced, and wheat, which they 

 improved. 



The small settlement in Russia was singular in that the 

 Czar granted free entry and exit to any emigrants of the 

 evangelical faith who might choose to come, and also 

 religious liberty and chance for government service. It 

 is said that when Peter the Great built St. Petersburg he 

 seemed to take pleasure in outraging the prejudice of the 

 Orthodox Greek Church by giving all encouragement to 

 Lutherans and Calviuists. The imported population gave 

 a new tone to the rising capital, different in manners and 

 civilization from the rest of Russia. Thus a French society 

 grew up there, with a church built in 1723, frequented by 

 the Swiss and English as well as by the French residents. 



In Germany In the German states the Huguenots' influence was 



marked. There the French proved that gracious and 

 civilizing power which was conspicuous subsequently in 

 the society at Berlin. At Celle and Hanover French was 

 ^oken as purely as in Paris, and a refinement altogether 

 new sprang up in the German principalities. French 

 politeness softened Saxon brusqueness and made life much 

 more enjoyable. 



