M.Boucher's 1981 'French speakers at the Cape: The European Background' challenges the idea that Charles Marais' birthplace is Plessis Mornay - as we have it; suggesting, that this was the estate belonging to the Duplessis Mornays:
The Cape settlers from this part of France [From the Loire to the Channel] came largely, but not exclusively, from the towns and villages of coastal Normandy and from a rural quadrilateral with Paris, Orleans, Blois and L'Aigle at its corners. Indeed one refugee ship brought a party of French settlers from the United Provinces whose original homes, despite indications to the contrary by C. Graham Botha 2 and J.L.M. Franken,' were all within the quadrilateral. The vessel was the Voorschooten of Delft, which sailed from Goeree on December 31, 1687 under the captaincy of Frans Villerius.... In the context of this voyage, Franken’s identification of the Cape farm Le Plessis Marie with a locality near Marie in Picardy is certainly wide of the mark. 6 It was the refugee Charles Marais who perpetuated the name of his place of origin in the designation of the farm granted to him in 1688. He and his family came from the Hurepoix region of the Ile-de- France, south and south-west of Paris, and were members of the congregation worshipping at Le Plessis-Marly near Longvilliers, a village north-west of Dourdan towards the Rambouillet forest. Le Plessis- Marly was the estate of the Duplessis-Mornays, the family which gave the statesman Philippe de Mornay to the Protestant cause in the troubled days of Henri IV."
Any thoughts?
