| AdminHistory | Paul Dufour, an original Director, served as Treasurer of the French Hospital for twenty years from 1719. His wife Magdeline, née Mariette, came of a good French family and was the daughter of Guillaume Mariette, Sieur de la Courtoisie (pedigree in the Wagner collection). Her will shows that she had previously been married to one Etienne Jallot, who was perhaps the source of her considerable wealth; her three brothers had subscribed to provide her with a dowry, and she left the money back to them. The first marriage must have been brief, as she was remarried to Paul Dufour in Paris in 1681. In 1688 Dufour and his wife Magdalen were naturalized as English. Cf William A. Shaw, 'Letters of Denizations and Acts of Naturalization in England and Ireland, 1603-1700', Huguenot Society Quarto Series, volume 18 (London, 1911). They were registered at the French Church in Threadneedle Street on 23 April 1699, but Paul Dufour is described in his wife's will as living in the parish of St James, Westminster, to which he may have retired from the City of London.
Copies of Madame Dufour's will and codicil are among the records listed below. In the will (1730), after numerous bequests to members of the Mariette family and others, servants, and charities, she left her husband the disposal of her residuary estate, but by the codicil of 1732 (fearing perhaps that he might predecease her) she made the Governor and Directors of the French Hospital her executors, leaving (after her husband's death) £1000 to the Hospital for poor inmates and the entire residue to be distributed among poor French refugees as her executors should think fit.
Actually, Paul Dufour generously decided to waive his life interest; and the residuary estate, amounting to the then very considerable sum of £15, 400 in New South Sea Annuities, was conveyed to trustees for the Hospital shortly after his wife's death, which took place on 4 March 1734. |