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I have read Mr. Hoadley’s posting on the Count Hoax/Fable and find it very convincing that the author of the letter cited by Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee was written by Theodore Sedwick Fay (1807 NYC-1898 Berlin, Germany). Fay was the son of Caroline Broome, who was married to Joseph Dewey Fay. From my more limited genealogical research I had concluded the story that eventually became the Latourrette count hoax originated from the Broome family lineage. See my posting “The Count Fable (Hoax) and When Did Jean Latourrette Leave Osse, Bearn?” at
http://genforum.genealogy.com/latourette/messages/400.html
It took, however, the research capabilities of an excellent genealogist (Mr. Robert Hoadley) to track the origin.
I wish to add a couple of comments and additional points of information to Mr. Hoadley’s outstanding research and presentation.
1. None of the Alleged Facts of the Fable in Lee’s Version are substantiated: Not one of the alleged facts presented in the fable/hoax critiqued by Mr. Hoadley is correct. See my postings:
“The Legend of the Count de Latourrette”
http://genforum.genealogy.com/latourette/messages/378.html
and
“The Count Fable (Hoax) and When Did Jean Latourrette Leave Osse, Bearn?”
http://genforum.genealogy.com/latourette/messages/400.html
2. Date of Fay’s letter to Lee: The original publication of Lee’s book, “The Huguenots in France and America,” was in 1843 at Cambridge, MA. In her Preface (p. xv) she indicates she had sent the manuscript to the publisher (“went out of my hands’) in August 1841. Lee also notes that there was a delay in publication which allowed her to add some comments in the Preface. Therefore, Fay’s letter was added to the Preface to the book after 1841, when the manuscript was sent to the publisher, and before 1843, when the book was published. Of course, it is likely that the Preface was added closer to the time of publication in 1843.
3. How a Fable Became a Hoax: As Mr. Hoadley indicates, Fay returned to America from Germany in 1841. Given his prominence as a writer, he likely learned of Lee’s forthcoming publication and wrote the letter one finds quoted in her book, “The Huguenots in France and America,” without attribution. The absence of a citation as to author is very curious given Fay’s prominence as a writer of fiction at the time. Perhaps, Lee thought it might be a bit of fiction. A decade later in his 1854 book, Weiss treats it with skepticism. Weiss begins his description of the tale as “almost the realty of romance” (M. Charles Weiss, “History of the French Protestant Refugees, English Translation, Volume II, p. 316). In reading the Weiss version of the fable a decade after Lee volumes, one can see the hand of Rev. James A. M. LaTourette in promoting the fable into a hoax. He was reaching across the Atlantic to influence Weiss in writing the volumes published a year earlier in French to actively promote the fable and his relationship to “Henri de La Tourette,” although it is clear he knew his ancestor who came to America was Jean Latourrette and not a Henri. This is all well-documented in the minister’s genealogy cited by Lyman Latourette in his Annals, page 50, where it is clearly indicated the ancestor was Jean, not Henri. No wonder Mrs. Verna Jacob searched in vain for many years on Staten Island to find a record of a Henri. She too was taken in by the hoax, promoted by the Rev. LaTourette and, we shall see, by others through the years down to today. (For more information on Rev. LaTourette’s role in promoting the Fay fable into a hoax, see the following posting by Mr. Hoadley on this subject.
“Origins of the La tourrette Count Hoax/Fable Part 2 – How “Henri” became a Count”
http://genforum.genealogy.com/latourette/messages/401.html )
4. The Use of de in de Latourette in Osse, Bearn
In the French language “de” can mean both “of” and “from.”
All the “de” meant in Osse, Bearn in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries was that it identified the house from which the person came. Hence, David de Latourrette or Jean de Latourrette just meant that they were “from” or “of” the house (L'ostau) of Latourrette to distinguish them from people from other houses. The house was important because the chefs de famille (heads of houses) governed the village and were also the governing heads of the Protestant consistory (parish), which made major decisions beyond the general operation of the parish by the minister, elders and deacons, like appointing a new minister. The house was the locus of the extended family which could include three or four generations living under one roof. It has nothing to do with titles and David de Latourrette (c 1625-1697) is never referred to as a count in Osse, as explained in the previous postings.
It is obvious that the creators and promoters of the Latourrette Count Hoax, like Rev. James A. M. LaTourette, never understood the use of the “de” and therefore assumed or tortured it to mean that the title of count had to precede “de” and the surname in the case of de Latourrette.
In a previous posting, I followed the suggestion of Professor Philippe Chareyre, the director of the Center for the Study of Béarnaise Protestant at Pau, France and an expert on the history of Osse, to describe the governance of Osse prior to the French Revolution:
“Even today, to many American Latourrettes the appeal of the count legend is the romantic fantasy that they are descendants from French nobility. If these descendants would ever visit the real Osse (now Osse-en-Aspe), they would quickly determine that there is (was) no Latourrette castle there. They would also learn that the Fors de Bearn, the rules which historically governed society in the Aspe valley, created a system in which the heads of the major families (les bonnes maisons) governed the villages. In other words, there was no dominant family of prestigious nobility governing Osse in 1685. (Author’s note: This is the wording suggested by Professor Philippe Chareyre, the director of the Center for the Study of Bearnais Protestantism.)”
See “The Legend of the Count de Latourrette” at
http://genforum.genealogy.com/latourette/messages/378.html
An additional explanation is given in the author’s monograph, “Jean Latourrette and Pierre Peiret, Huguenot Refugees: Their Roots in Osse, Bearn,” p.14, repeated below:
L’ostau (“house” in Bearnais) was the locus of an extended family unit which included the house and land. The name Jean de Latourrette meant that Jean lived at the ostau of the Latourrettes. The first son was the heir of the ostau. (Or the first daughter if there was no son.) The first son then became a chef de famille, the head of the family and a member of the assembly that governed the village. The heir could marry a cadette, a younger daughter, to perpetuate the ostau, but not an heiress. Cadets (younger sons), became shepherds or, among the more elite families, craftsmen. This is why Jean became a carpenter. If a cadet, like Jean, married an heiress, he took the name of her ostau. That was rare, as was the case of a cadet and a cadette marrying and establishing a new ostau. Thus, as a cadet in Osse, Jean’s economic and social opportunities were limited. With his strong faith and the King’s continuing repression, Jean’s risk to leave with Peiret may have been worth the danger. He was a cadet without an inheritance and not married at 34. It would have been difficult for him to establish a new ostau, especially in 1685.
Conclusion:
So what do we have here? It appears a prominent fiction writer, whose mother (ne. Broome)died when he was very young, later made up a romantic fable about his ancestors coming from France. The tale has absolutely no basis in fact, but was picked up by people like Rev. James A. M. LaTourette and promoted as fact. A fable with no basis in fact, unfortunately, for ego-seeking descendants is a hoax.
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