Diary of Samuel Pepys — Complete 1660 N.S. Samuel Pepys

family. After the marriage, Alexander St. Michel and his wife having raised some fifteen hundred pounds, started, for France in the hope of recovering some part of the family property. They were unfortunate in all their movements, and on their journey to France were taken prisoners by the Dunkirkers, who stripped them of all their property. They now settled at Bideford in Devonshire, and here or near by were born Elizabeth and the rest of the family. At a later period St. Michel served against the Spaniards at the taking of Dunkirk and Arras, and settled at Paris. He was an unfortunate man throughout life, and his son Balthasar says of him: "My father at last grew full of whimsies and propositions of perpetual motion, &c., to kings, princes and others, which soaked his pocket, and brought all our family so low by his not minding anything else, spending all he had got and getting no other employment to bring in more." While he was away from Paris, some "deluding papists" and "pretended devouts" persuaded Madame St. Michel to place her daughter in the nunnery of the Ursulines. When the father heard of this, he hurried back, and managed to get Elizabeth out of the nunnery after she had been there twelve days. Thinking that France was a dangerous place to live in, he removed his family to England, where soon afterwards his daughter was married, although, as Lord Braybrooke remarks, we are not told how she became acquainted with Pepys. St. Michel was greatly pleased that his daughter had become the wife of a true Protestant, and she herself said to him, kissing his eyes: "Dear father, though in my tender years I was by my low fortune in this world deluded to popery, by the fond dictates thereof I have now (joined with my riper years, which give me some understanding) a man to my husband too wise and one too religious to the Protestant religion to suffer my thoughts to bend that way any more."

      [These particulars are obtained from an interesting letter from

       Balthasar St. Michel to Pepys, dated "Deal, Feb. 8, 1673–4," and

       printed in "Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys,"

       1841, vol. i., pp. 146–53.]

      Alexander St. Michel kept up his character for fecklessness through life, and took out patents for curing smoking chimneys, purifying water, and moulding bricks. In 1667 he petitioned the king, asserting that he had discovered King Solomon's gold and silver mines, and the Diary of the same date contains a curious commentary upon these visions of wealth:—

      "March 29, 1667. 4s. a week which his (Balty St. Michel's) father

       receives of the French church is all the subsistence his father and

       mother have, and about; £20 a year maintains them."

      As already noted, Pepys was married on December 1st, 1655. This date is given on the authority of the Registers of St. Margaret's Church, Westminster,

      [The late Mr. T. C. Noble kindly communicated to me a copy of the

       original marriage certificate, which is as follows: "Samuell Peps

       of this parish Gent. & Elizabeth De Snt. Michell of Martins in the

       fields, Spinster. Published October 19tn, 22nd, 29th 1655, and

       were married by Richard Sherwin Esqr one of the justices of the

       Peace of the Cittie and Lyberties of Westm. December 1st. (Signed)

       Ri. Sherwin."]

      but strangely enough Pepys himself supposed his wedding day to have been October 10th. Lord Braybrooke remarks on this,

      "It is notorious that the registers in those times were very ill

       kept, of which we have here a striking instance. … Surely a

       man who kept a diary could not have made such a blunder."

      What is even more strange than Pepys's conviction that he was married on October 10th is Mrs. Pepys's agreement with him: On October 10th, 1666, we read,

      "So home to supper, and to bed, it being my wedding night, but how

       many years I cannot tell; but my wife says ten."

      Here Mrs. Pepys was wrong, as it was eleven years; so she may have been wrong in the day also. In spite of the high authority of Mr. and Mrs. Pepys on a question so interesting to them both, we must accept the register as conclusive on this point until further evidence of its incorrectness is forthcoming.

      Sir Edward Montage (afterwards Earl of Sandwich), who was Pepys's first cousin one remove (Pepys's grandfather and Montage's mother being brother and sister), was a true friend to his poor kinsman, and he at once held out a helping hand to the imprudent couple, allowing them to live in his house. John Pepys does not appear to have been in sufficiently good circumstances to pay for the education of his son, and it seems probable that Samuel went to the university under his influential cousin's patronage. At all events he owed his success in life primarily to Montage, to whom he appears to have acted as a sort of agent.

      On March 26th, 1658, he underwent a successful operation for the stone, and we find him celebrating each anniversary of this important event of his life with thanksgiving. He went through life with little trouble on this score, but when he died at the age of seventy a nest of seven stones was found in his left kidney.

      ["June 10th, 1669. I went this evening to London, to carry Mr.

       Pepys to my brother Richard, now exceedingly afflicted with the

       stone, who had been successfully cut, and carried the stone, as big

       as a tennis ball, to show him and encourage his resolution to go

       thro' the operation."—Evelyn's Diary.]

      In June, 1659, Pepys accompanied Sir Edward Montage in the "Naseby," when the Admiral of the Baltic Fleet and Algernon Sidney went to the Sound as joint commissioners. It was then that Montage corresponded with Charles II., but he had to be very secret in his movements on account of the suspicions of Sidney. Pepys knew nothing of what was going on, as he confesses in the Diary:

      "I do from this raise an opinion of him, to be one of the most

       secret men in the world, which I was not so convinced of before."

      On Pepys's return to England he obtained an appointment in the office of Mr., afterwards Sir George Downing, who was one of the Four Tellers of the Receipt of the Exchequer. He was clerk to Downing when he commenced his diary on January 1st, 1660, and then lived in Axe Yard, close by King Street, Westminster, a place on the site of which was built Fludyer Street. This, too, was swept away for the Government offices in 1864–65. His salary was £50 a year. Downing invited Pepys to accompany him to Holland, but he does not appear to have been very pressing, and a few days later in this same January he got him appointed one of the Clerks of the Council, but the recipient of the favour does not appear to have been very grateful. A great change was now about to take place in Pepys's fortunes, for in the following March he was made secretary to Sir Edward Montage in his expedition to bring about the Restoration of Charles II., and on the 23rd he went on board the "Swiftsure" with Montage. On the 30th they transferred themselves to the "Naseby." Owing to this appointment of Pepys we have in the Diary a very full account of the daily movements of the fleet until, events having followed their natural course, Montage had the honour of bringing Charles II. to Dover, where the King was received with great rejoicing. Several of the ships in the fleet had names which were obnoxious to Royalists, and on the 23rd May the King came on board the "Naseby" and altered there—the "Naseby" to the "Charles," the "Richard" to the "Royal James," the "Speaker" to the "Mary," the "Winsby" to the "Happy Return," the "Wakefield" to the "Richmond," the "Lambert" to the "Henrietta," the "Cheriton" to the "Speedwell," and the "Bradford" to the "Success." This portion of the Diary is of particular interest, and the various excursions in Holland which the Diarist made are described in a very amusing manner.

      When Montagu and Pepys had both returned to London, the former told the latter that he had obtained the promise of the office of Clerk of the Acts for him. Many difficulties occurred before Pepys actually secured the place, so that at times he was inclined to accept the offers which were made to him to give it up. General Monk was anxious to get the office for Mr. Turner, who was Chief Clerk in the Navy Office, but in the end Montagu's influence secured it for Pepys. Then Thomas Barlow, who had been appointed Clerk of