148 THE FRENCH BLOOD IN AMERICA 



His Views 



Memorial 

 Tablet 



they had sanctioned, he says : "I am a born layman of 

 France, natui-alized Euglisli, which I hold a greater 

 honour than all the riches of France, because the English 

 laity are not, like the laity of France, slav^es of the clergy 

 and hackneys of the Pope ; wherefore rather than submit 

 to this I abandoned my country, my fortune, and my 

 friends, in order to become a citizen under the English 

 government." And because of his staunch belief in the 

 rights of the laity he found Rhode Island a more congenial 

 place of residence than Massachusetts, with its ecclesias- 

 tical hierarchy, which smacked too much of the intoler- 

 ance of Catholicism in France to meet with his entire ap- 

 proval. 



He died in 1736, at the age of ninety-one, and was 

 buried under St. John's Church, Providence, with every 

 token of public respect. A tablet in the church bears 

 the following inscription : 



In Memory of Gabriel Bernon, Son of Andr6 and Suzanne Beruon, 

 Born at La Eochelle, France, April 6, A. D. 1644. A Huguenot. 

 After two years' imprisonment for his Religious Faith. Previous to the 

 revocation of the Edict of Nantes, He took refuge in England, and 

 came to America A. D. 1688. Here he continued steadfast in promot- 

 ing The Honour of the Church And the Glory of God. It is recorded 

 in the History of Rhode Island, that " To the persevering piety and un- 

 tiring zeal of Gabriel Bernon the first three Episcopal Churches in 

 Rhode Island owed their orgiu," King's, now St. John's Church, Provi- 

 dence, Founded A. D. 1722, being one of them. He died in the Faith 

 once delivered to the Saints, Feb. 1, A. D. 1736, A 92, And is 

 buried beneath this Church. " 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 in- 

 herit eternal lite."— St. Matt. 



Bernon's De- 

 scendants 



IV 



Bernon's first wife was Esther Le Roy, daughter of a 

 wealthy Huguenot merchant of La Rochelle. She ac- 

 companied her husband to America and died in Newport 

 in 1710, at the age of fifty-six. The children by this 



