Magdalene de Vergèze d'Aubussargues, the wife of Théophilus Desbrisay, came from a Huguenot family that has a rather uncertain history, difficult to piece together from the available sources. Probably the most reliable account is that given in the 1911 volume of the Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français, and this is what I follow here.

The first of this family who became a Protestant was Antoine de Vergèze. His son Claude, married in 1570 to Domergue de Joanis, had a son Nicholas, who, in 1621, was in charge of the fort of Sainte-Anastasie, overlooking the Gardon river (and thus, interestingly, close to Castelnau. Aubussargues is almost exactly halfway between Castelnau and Uzès).

Jean d'Aubussargues, the son of Nicholas, married Bonne de Barjac in 1638, and had a number of children, two of whom, Jacques, the elder, and Jean, are known to have fled France at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. It's difficult to know what they did abroad, as they were both usually just called Daubussargues, or Daubessargue, and only sometimes do we also find any other identifying name.

Upon leaving France, Jacques succeeded the Vicomte de Saint-Bonnet as the commander of the Grand Musketeers, in Brandenburg, where he also commanded the Horse Grenadiers, an elite corps formed by the Grand Elector at the same time as the Grand Musketeers, that admitted only those of honourable birth or proven valour. However, by 1698 Jacques was in Ireland, a Colonel in Galway's regiment. He died in Dublin in 1720.

When he left France, Jacques left behind his wife, Madeleine Gasc (the daughter of the co-seigneur de Sanilhac and the consul of Uzès in 1636), and his ten children, to protect their inheritance. She raised their children, who inherited the family wealth, her husband having fled, and finally rejoined her husband in Dublin, in about 1702, where she died sometime after 1714. Apparently, she called herself Madon de Gas. One of the ten children she raised by herself in France was another Jacques, while two of the girls were called Madeleine and Jeanne. I know nothing about any others. It's likely that this younger Jacques was a Captain in Galway's regiment in 1698, the same regiment where his father was a Colonel, although his name isn't given.

Finally, it is this younger Jacques who was, according to family tradition, the father of Magdalene, who married Théophilus Desbrisay. This is, let me emphasise, only tradition, not genealogy. Historically, there is essentially no doubt of the connection between our Madeleine and the other de Vergèze d'Aubussargues; genealogically, there is no specific proof, and is thus technically unacceptable.

Just to add to the confusion, there were at least three Madeleine de Vergèze d'Aubussargues in Dublin at various times. One was the wife of Colonel Jacques, who signed herself Madon de Gas. Another was the Madeleine who married Théophilus Desbrisay, while the third was the wife of Jean de Vergèze d'Aubussargues, the brother of Colonel Jacques. Jean and his wife lived in Dublin for a time, before moving to Switzerland, where they remained for the rest of their lives.

The d'Aubussargues coat-of-arms was De sinople à un lévrier courant à fasce d'argent accolé de gueules bordé d'or accompagné de 4 roses d'argent boutonnées. That is, a dark green background, with a silver running greyhound, collared in red and bordered in gold, surrounded by four silver roses. Very stylish.

He was baptised Samuel Theophile, and born in London, possibly in Threadneedle St. There is some confusion over his place of birth, which is often taken to be Dublin. However, as Richard Sturt explains:

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“There is no doubt that Samuel-Théophile was born in London, possibly Threadneedle Street, in 1694. There is also no doubt that he was entered at Trinity College, Dublin (as “Delacour, Theophilus, Pen. (Mr. [Rev Jacques Fontaine] Fountain, Dublin) Jan 13, 1712-13, aged 12 [18]; s. of Theophilus Desbayley [sic] Dux; b. Dublin.” The reference to birth in Dublin is a red herring as it was customary to enter the place of residence of the father at the time entry and this was assumed by registrars to be the place of birth. The same error appears many times in Alumni Oxonienses and other works, as does the error in the age.

What is a bit more difficult is that Samuel-T does not seem to have stayed up for more than two terms or so before receiving his commission, since he became a godfather in October 1713 and was described as "Théophile Samuel Desbrisay, écuyer, cap[itai]ne, dans les halebardiers d'Ireland,". This commission was no doubt acquired for him through his father, who was already well established as an army agent. The description of écuyer is confirmation that the family were of some status, as are other descriptions of his father as “Sieur”. It is also clear from “Regimental Agency in the British Standing Army 1715-63” that both father and son were agents together, until the War Office order that no one should be both a serving officer and an agent. I have made an assumption that Samuel-T concentrated on his military duties after 1721, until he was put on half-pay in 1732. I think that by that time his father would have retired, as he would be about 70 and the son took over.”

“Having discovered that more than one military agent had invested other people’s money in the South Sea Company and made a lot of money for themselves, I suspect that T2 had his fingers in the till. I have ordered four of the letters in the Wilmot collection and will see whether they yield anything. The potted summaries you can read in the Derbyshire Catalogue reek of prevarication. There are a number of Dublin newspapers which are not online, but have been preserved. They might tell us more about when and where T1 died. I have not found any references that can be ascribed to T1 after about 1745, nor a will. Nor have I managed to find the date of his death but it will surely be in the newspapers in Dublin.

I think the expression “reduced captain”, which I have come across elsewhere means “captain made redundant when the size of a regiment is reduced in peacetime, and I don’t think that there is anything sinister in T2 having this status. I am guessing that it gave him the opportunity to take over his father’s agency.”
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Samuel is listed in the 1735 Dublin Directory and was stationed at Cork Hill. He was Agent for the 2nd Regiment of Foot on the Irish Establishment also at Cork Hill, according to the "List of General and Field Officers as They Rank in the Army 1754," which is in the Library of the British Museum. In "Freeman's journal' of the 13th September 1763 issue, he appears as a Captain, crossing to Ireland by the Holyhead Packet.

By 1767 he was a debtor, and there was an Act to deal with his creditors (see the multimedia section).

In 1769, Theophilus wrote a letter to his son, Thomas, on the occasion of Thomas leaving for his assignment on Prince Edward Island.  Theophilus was in London at the time. It can be found at http://www.islandregister.com/letters/desbrisay1769.html. This letter also mentions how he was in straitened circumstances.


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There is an excellent piece on the Desbrisay family by Turtle Bunbury (it’s part of a longer article about the Corkagh House in County Dublin). It can be found at
http://www.turtlebunbury.com/history/history_houses/hist_hse_corkagh.html. Here are some paragraphs from that piece, reproduced verbatim.


Captain ‘Théophilus’ Desbrisay (1694-1772), son of Théophile and Madelaine, was born in 1694 and christened Samuel Théophile Desbrisay. In 1718, the twenty-four-year-old was married in Dublin to Magdalene de Vergèze d'Aubussargues. She is thought to have been the daughter or granddaughter of Captain Jacques de Vergéze d’Aubussargues, a former commander of both the Horse Grenadiers and the Grand Musketeers in Brandenburg who served with Lord Galway’s Regiment in Ireland and died in Portarlington in 1720.

From at least 1735 Théophilus had an office at Cork Hill, near Dublin Castle, from which he served as an Army Agent to the various Huguenot regiments, assisting their colonels in the management of accounts, as well as acting as a sort of banker to the regimental officers. In 1743, he was recorded in a deed of lease and release as the new owner of six acres at Corkagh, including Kilmatead, which he purchased from David Chaigneau. These acres appear to have been leased to Philip Chenevix, a son-in-law of one of his father’s brother-officers and a senior figure in the Irish military establishment. [cxv]

It is unclear whether Théophilus lived at Corkagh or Kilmatead, or whether he had any direct interest in the powder mills. In 1746 he gave his residential address as Frapper Lane, Oxmantown, Dublin, the same address where the abducted heir James Annesley had lived in the 1720s. Curiously, on 2nd July 1743, he also leased 140 acres in the Barony of Kilkea and Moone, County Kildare, from the Bunbury family with Thomas Bunbury, my own ancestor, and Charles Meares named as witnesses.[cxvi]

In 1754, Théophilus was Agent to the 2nd (Queen's Royal) Regiment of Foot on the Irish Establishment, which was garrisoned at Cork Hill.[cxvii] Three years later he was Agent to the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment, also at Cork Hill, retaining the position until 1763 when succeeded by William Chaigneau, a cousin of David Chaigneau of Corkagh. Théophilus was also a member of the Dublin Society for Improving Husbandry, Manufactures and other useful arts, which later evolved into the Royal Dublin Society.

Théophilus and Magdalene Desbrisay had a large family but their sons were fated to be decimated during 1759, the celebrated annus mirabilis, or ‘wonderful year’, of the British Empire. Two or possibly three sons were apparently lost during the six-month campaign to capture the French West Indian island of Guadeloupe. The reduction of Guadeloupe was precisely the sort of event the gunpowder factory at Corkagh had been working towards for the previous forty years. On 22nd January 1759 the Royal Navy began its bombardment of the town of Basse-Terre by firing bomb ketches, containing at least one mortar each, from a distance of two to three miles. These spherical shells were packed with powder, while the shell wall was designed to be extra thick to ensure the bomb did not fall to the ground with its fuse on the downward side. British gunners were instructed to cut the wax and gunpowder fuses in such a way that the bomb exploded on impact but bomb-making was still ‘an inexact science’ at this time and many exploded in mid-air. There were also ‘carcasses’, extremely volatile incendiaries used by the Navy as flares and made from a combination of wax, sulphur, nitre and gunpowder.

When Basse-Terre was captured, the Desbrisay’s eldest son Peter, a lieutenant colonel with the Royal Artillery, was instructed to hold the fort with a detachment from the 63rd Foot. Unfortunately, he was blown up and killed by an accidental explosion on 23rd March. Unconfirmed family records suggest that his brother Captain Théophilus Desbrisay also died in Guadeloupe and that another brother Lieutenant Colonel James Desbrisay also died in 1759.

Théophilus and Magdalene’s surviving sons included Thomas Desbrisay, who served for fifteen years as Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and General Jasper de Brisay [sic], who fought at Culloden in 1745 and married an aunt of Sir John Parnell.[cxviii] (See Appendix 3). One of their daughters Magdalen (c. 1720-1786) married another Huguenot, Simon Boileau of Dublin, in 1741.[cxix]

Perhaps connected to the death of his elderly father in 1767, the Irish parliament was obliged to pass a bill ‘for the relief of the creditors of Theophilus Desbrisay of the city of Dublin’ in the spring of 1768.[cxx] Théophilus died in Glasnevin on 5th July 1772 aged 79, and was interred in the Boileau tomb in Dublin’s Merrion Row Cemetery.[cxxi] The cemetery was for those who did not conform to the Church of Ireland. Magdalene died on 11th December 1788 and was buried alongside her late husband.

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