Paul le Febvre, Jr

According to Pieter Coertzen's book - comes from Chateau-Thierry in Brie (Champagne) to SA in 1696 on the ship Vosmaer - settles in Nagelegen Stellenbosch. Returns to Europe in 1705. Married to Isabeau Sezille. Has 2 sons and 1 daughter.

• Coertzen, Pieter. 1988. Die Hugenote Van Suid Afrika 1688-1988: Cape Town, Tafelberg.

  ---

le Febre, or le Febure, Paul, a surgeon of Chaurry, married firstly Elizabeth Taillefert, daughter of Jean Taillefert, apothecary at Chateau Thierry, from where Isaac Taillefert, q.v., came. Paul arrived in the service of the Dutch East India Company, and practised as a surgeon at Stellenbosch. He married secondly Elizabeth Sezille (Sisilha), and two children of this marriage were baptised at the Cape in 1699 and 1701 respectively. In 1705 with his wife and two children he returned to Europe.

• The French Refugees at the Cape by Colin Graham Botha. Published 1921 on http://debuys.blogspot.com/2011_09_01_archive.html [The problem with this is the marriage date to Elizabeth Seville given as 27/06/1694, and their son being baptised in Zeeland 6 weeks later. See Boucher below, & http://huguenots-france.org/france/refuge/afrique_sud/embarques.htm -Sharon 2016]

  ---

..from the transcription of the records of the Walloon church in the Zeeland capital we learn that the surgeon Paul Lefebvre and his wife Marie Taillefert had reached Middelburg at an earlier date and had been naturalized there on November 17, 1685. Paul Lefebvre played an important part among the Calvinists of the Chateau-Thierry election in his professional capacity. He attended the Nogentel pastor Jean Pages in his last illness and was a witness at his funeral in 1677.

The Lefebvre children who appeared at Middelburg with their parents were Paul, Pierre, Susanne and Marie. There are discrepancies here with the children whose baptisms are recorded in the surviving Nogentel registers. There we find the baptism of Jean Lefebvre on April 1, 1674, of Anne on January 12, 1676 and of Marie-Madeleine on May 16, 1677. The registers, however, do not cover a lengthy period and it is also possible that some of the children of Paul Lefebvre and Marie Taillefert died before 1685. Another daughter Marguerite was born to them in exile and christened at Middelburg on January 10, 1687.

It seems a distinct possibility that there were two surgeons named Paul Lefebvre, father and son, at the Cape, the former arriving in the service of the Dutch East India Company in 1694 and the latter two years afterwards. This hypothesis is suggested by entries in the log of the Vosmaar of Zeeland,..

The link with the Chateau-Thierry and Monneaux families is an interesting one. It would seem that Marie Taillefert was coming out to join her surgeon husband, bringing with her the children Marie and Susanne. Was her son Pierre also aboard the Vosmaar? A Paul Lefebvre, presumably the son of the Chateau-Thierry surgeon, was married at Middelburg on June 27, 1694 to Elisabeth Sezille, who bore him a child Paul less than six weeks after the ceremony. The boy was baptized in the Zeeland capital on August 4 of that year. The father and his wife Elisabeth Sezille could have been aboard the Vosmaar; they were certainly at the Cape in the last years of the seventeenth century. The name Sezille suggests a Picardy background. Sezilles at Herly were related to the Mangards there and may thus have been connected with the family of Abraham le Grand’s wife. The surname is also to be found among refugees from the Noyon district, north-east of Com-piegne. ...

• Boucher.M (1981). French speakers at the Cape: The European Background. Pretoria, UNISA (Search, using the individual Chapter Name below, to download each as a pdf):
  • CHAPTER EIGHT Cape settlers IV: from Burgundy to Picardy pp226-228