INTRODUCTION. 



Five or six years before the deaths of Cardinal 

 Richeheu and his sovereign, Louis XIII — that is, 

 about the year 1637-38^Francois Leguat appears 

 to have been born in Bresse, a small province (re- 

 presented at the present day by the department of 

 Ain, on the Savoyard frontier) between the con- 

 flaent streams of the Rhone and Saone rivers. Our 

 author's ancestor, Pierre le Guat, is mentioned as 

 the Seigneur of la Fougere, in the Histoire de 

 Bresse et de Bugey, by Samuel Guichenon.^ Of his 

 early days little is known ; but, according to his 

 own account, when over fifty years of age, he was 

 driven into exile, in consequence of the revocation 

 of the Edict of Nantes (1685), and with many 

 others took refuge in Holland in the year 1689. 

 At this time the Marquis Henri du Quesne, son of 

 the celebrated naval commander of that name, was 

 projecting, under the sanction of the States-General 

 and the directors of the Dutch East India Company, 



1 The arms of le guat fougere are given in the Indice 

 Armoi'ial, as : " d'azur a une fasce d'or, a un Lyon passant de 

 mesnie en chef, & 3 estoiles aussi d'or, en pointe." Guichenon 

 writes : " Je n'ay point veu de plus ancien Seigneur de la Fougere 

 que Pierre le Guat, Secretaire de Charles Due de Savoye vivant 

 en I'an 1511 & 1534, qui fit bastir la maison & en acquit le 

 fief." (Vide Histoire de Bresse et de Bugey, par Samuel Guichenon, 

 Seigneur de Painesuyt, Lyon, 1650, p. 54.) 



h 



