Daniel de Ruelle, SV/PROG

From Boucher's French Speakers at the Cape - Chapter 9, page 250-251 (attached)

The refugee Daniel des Ruelles reached the Cape in 1688 with his young daughters Esther and Anne. He was married on July 12, 1671 at Guines to Anne Goudalle and their daughter Esther was born in the town on November 6 of the following year. Anne's birth took place at Guines on November 10, 1673 and it is interesting to note that her godmother at her baptism two days later was Anne du Ponchel, god­ mother to Susanne Caucheteux in 1675. The Guines registers record the births of three other children to Daniel des Ruelles and Anne Gou­ dalle: Daniel, born at Guines on October 21, 1675, who only survived eight days, a second son Daniel, born in the same town on March 1, 1677, and Pierre, who was born at Guemps on February 6, 1681 and died eleven days later.
Daniel des Ruelles, the father, had a sister Esther, whose daughter Judith Mallet of Balinghem married Jacques le Dent, a master car­ penter living at Dunkirk, on November 9, 1681. Anne Goudalle was the sister of Jacques and Marie -Madeleine Goudalle. Their parents were Jean Goudalle, a gardener, who died at Guines on June 7, 1672 aged fifty-four, and Marie Vitu . The Goudalles would seem to have come originally from Richebourg in Artois, north-east of Bethune.
Daniel des Ruelles, with his wife and three surviving children, took refuge at Zierikzee in Zeeland. It seems likely therefore that the minis­ ter Pierre Simond had something to do with his decision to emigrate to the Cape. A further impulse must have been given by the penurious condition to which, like the Viviers there, he had been reduced. Relief in cash and kind was regularly bestowed upon the family from Novem­ ber 1686 until March 1688. On January 5, 1687, for example, he not only received money, but also two blankets; by March 23 of that year clothing had been distributed to each member of the family and a pair of shoes given to one of the girls; on July 13 we read that a small sum had been allocated to the father "pour un louchet et une pelle", tools doubtless needed to help him earn a living . It was a time of grief for the family, for two months earlier the boy Daniel had died. Once again Daniel des Ruelles had been forced to seek the charity of the church . On May 4 a sum of money was set aside "a l'enterrement du fils de daniel druelles" .
But if there was then one mouth less to feed, another was soon to take its place. On August 3, 1687 a daughter Marie was baptized in the Walloon church at Zierikzee, perhaps by Pierre Simond himself . There is no mention of the child's death there. Did she fail to survive the long voyage to the Cape, clearly on the Suijdbeveland? 28 Daniel des Ruelles was not a widower in 1690, as Botha describes him,29 but Anne Goudalle evidently died before the close of the seventeenth century.

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Daniel des Ruelles appears in 1700 on the list of Stellenbosch inhabitants with his wife
Catharina Taboureux (the widow of Charles Marais, q.v., who had been murdered in 1689), and he died on the 3rd October, 1726.

Arrived 1688 on "Zuid-Bevelandt" together with two daughters. His wife and one daughter died during the sea voyage. He played a leading roll in Church affairs.

He and his family belonged to the reformed church of Guines. After the Edict of Nantes was revoked the family fled to Zierikzee in the Dutch province of Zeeland, where another daughter was born. In 1688 they left Lower land aboard the South Bevelandt. His wife and baby must have died during the voyage, as only the father and two daughters reached the Cape.

In 1690 he remarried to Catherine Taboudeux, the widow of the Charles Marais who was murdered in 1689. This marriage was childless. The family settled in Valley Jos afat. He played a leading role in church affairs and worked with the Rev. Pierre Simond negotiating/pleading with Commander Simon V an der Stel for their own French town. The request was only granted in 1690 after their direct appeal to the Lords Sewentein was made. His descendants in the male line died out.

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