André du Pont

The colonist referred to is the former merchant Jacques de Savoye who, with his second wife Marie-Madeleine le Clercq, his mother-in-law Antoinette Carnoy, his children Marguerite-Thereseand Barbe-Therese by his first marriage and a baby Jacques, reached the Cape in 1688 aboard the Oosterland. Savoye was sent out with a warm encomium from the Rotterdam chamber of the Dutch East India Company as a staunch Calvinist who had suffered for his beliefs. Jacques de Savoye was born at Ath in Hainaut in 1636, the son of a father of the same name and his wife Jeanne van der Zee.

Not therefore a Frenchman by birth, but a native of the Spanish Netherlands, he came of a family which perhaps had its roots in the Cambresis, where the name was known in the sixteenth century. Savoye evidently prospered in Ath, where he lived for many years. When he left the town he possessed houses, land and investments there, the management of which he placed in the hands of a fellow-merchant Jean Henrichant. It was probably at Ath that he married his first wife Christine du Pont, whose family came from that town. Savoye was accompanied to the Cape by the Nourtiers of the Calaisis as his servants. Was there also a family connection through Christine du Pont?

From Ath, Jacques de Savoye moved to Ghent and it seems likely that, in company with many others from the small towns and villages of the Spanish Netherlands, he took refuge in the city from Turenne’s advancing troops in 1667, when the War of Devolution secured for France a number of towns beyond the border, Ath, Courtrai, Tournai and Oude- narde among them. A daughter Jeanne would seem to have been born to the Savoyes before they settled in the Flemish city and her marriage to Andre du Pont further cemented the alliance between these families.

Savoye remained in Ghent until at least the end of 1685. From neither a social nor an economic point of view was this an easy period for a Calvinist merchant. The days of the Protestant ascendancy in the city were long past and the religious orders of the Catholic church were flourishing. The closure of the Scheldt estuary, French incursions into the southern Netherlands and the occupation of Ghent itself did nothing to stimulate business. Some expansion had taken place in the linen industry and certain luxury trades had been established, but the economic situation in the seventeenth century was precarious and Ghent as a commercial centre had declined greatly since medieval times.

Although the Calvinists of Ghent were compelled to make use of Catholic churches for baptisms, marriages and interments, the reformed church “recueillie sous Id croix” and watched over by the Dutch church authorities was by no means moribund. Its itinerant pastors preached regularly and administered communion whenever the opportunity presented itself. Savoye was known to one of them, Francois Simon, evidently of a Rouen family, who considered the Ghent merchant a devout worshipper and a man of courage who did not hesitate to allow his house to be used for Calvinist services. From other Ghent sources - the merchant Martin de Lecourt, the consul Christiaan Craye-nest and a friend Jacques des Obry (De Zobry, perhaps) - it is evident that Savoye’s zealous defence of his beliefs earned him the hostility of the Catholics and particularly of the Jesuits among them. According to Crayenest and Des Obry the virulence of the persecution he endured made him even fear for his life.

These testimonials to his religious fervour were produced at the time of his quarrel with Simond and went hand in hand with favourable comment on his business probity. However, it was rumoured at the Cape that Savoye had become insolvent in Ghent. This was a matter for church censure and the former merchant was called upon to vindicate himself, an invitation he ignored. Was there in fact any truth in the allegation? It is evident that Savoye worked with his son-in-law Andre du Pont in the linen trade and although Lecourt does not associate the Cape emigrant with Du Pont’s business affairs, he notes that Savoye’s departure from Ghent coincided with his son-in-law’s insolvency. Du Pont moved to Leyden with his wife, became a successful bookseller there and died in 1699.

• Boucher.M (1981). French speakers at the Cape: The European Background. Pretoria, UNISA. CHAPTER NINE Cape settlers V: from Flanders to Alsace on the turbulent frontier pp265-9