Charles Marais (1638 Plessis-Marly -1689 Simondium, Drakenstein) French Huguenot refugee.
s/o Jean Marais & Rachelle Milleseau
x 24 Aug 1659, Rouillon, Dourdon France, Catherine Taboureux (c 1640 - 1729) (d/o Jeanne Crosnier & Claude Tabourdeux)

• Claude b1662
• Jacques b1664
• Charles (1668 - 17 May 1711)
• Isaac b c1670
• Marie-Madeleine (1682 -7 Jul 1716)

Arrived at Cape 26.4.1688 on the 'Voorschoten'
Farmed at "Plessis Marle" in Simondium, Drakenstein
Charles was murdered less than a year later on 3rd April 1689
Haplogroup R-M269 (R1b1a2)

SA Progenitors: Charles Marais & Catherine Tabourdeaux THEIR STORY

Charles and his family came from the Hurepoix region of the Ile-de- France, south of Paris, and were members of the congregation worshipping at Le Plessis-Marly near Longvilliers.

Historic Provinces of France, by Spedona

The Story of Longvilliers and Le Plessis-Marly

In 1559 , Philippe de Mornay (the Protestant champion in the troubled times of Henri IV) became lord of Plessis in Longvilliers in Yvelines. He inherited the Plessis-Marly estate from his maternal great-aunt through his mother Francoise, daughter of Charles du Bec-Crespin, vice-admiral of France. Formerly owned by her maternal aunt, Jeanne de Beauvilliers, the property was acquired by Francoise in June 1561.

The Château Plessis-Mornay, formerly Plessis-Marly belonged to Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, diplomat, Calvinist theologian, governor of Saumur."

In 1601 worship was established in Plessis by Philippe and his wife Charlotte Arbalesque, in accordance with the clause of the Edict of Nantes authorising two temples per bailiwick. The church was chosen in 1601 by the royal commissioners Francois d’ Angennes and Pierre Jeannin to serve the Calvinists of the Montfort-l’ Amaury bailiwick, replacing an earlier place of worship at Garancières-en-Beauce to the south-west. The temple could have been built from this date.The Paris temple had been sited in the Hurepoix before 1606, first at Grigny and later, in 1599 at Ablon-sur-Seine, both south of the capital, but with the removal of Charenton, Le Plessis-Marly and la Norville alone served the region.
The Mornays made personal provision in 1606 for the salary of the minister and for the support of the poor. The church was included in the Beauce colony of the synodal province for the north-east of France and had close connections with the seigneurial church of the La Norville in the Hurepoix, sharing the same pastor, Maurice de Laubèron de Montigny, for a number of years after 1626. There was also a cemetery.

From 1665 to 1685, between Longvilliers and nearby villages there were up to 50 families who opted for the “True religion”, or around 200 to 300 people.That is a significant fraction of the population of Longvilliers which will be estimated, a century later, at 73 families (290 to 360 inhabitants). Le Plessis-Marly remained a Protestant domain until the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Maurice de Lauberan, Jacques Rondeau, Joseph Hammer were the pastors of the parish. 50 families, or 200 to 250 people, both from Plessis and the surrounding hamlets and villages, Bouc-Etourdy , Saint Arnoult , Sermaise , Orcemont , Dourdan. This rural community seems to have maintained good relations with its Catholic neighbours.
There are also gentlemen, including from 1664 the Chartier-Le Faucheux - new owners and lords of the estate, their farmer, merchants, winegrowers, a gunsmith, but above all for more than a third, silk workers. It was the activity of the nearby town of Dourdan which benefited from a privilege granted by Colbert for the making of stockings. Colbert had installed at the Château de Madrid (in Neuilly) a silkworm farm and a silk stocking factory where several Dourdan masters were trained.

Persecutions

• The 1598 Edict of Nantes signed by King Henry IV had granted the minority Calvinist Protestants of France, also known as Huguenots, substantial rights in the nation, which was predominantly Catholic. While upholding Catholicism as the established religion, and requiring the re-establishment of Catholic worship in places it had lapsed,  it granted religious toleration to the Protestant Huguenots, who had been waging a long and bloody struggle for their rights in France. The edict treated some Protestants with tolerance and opened a path for secularism. It offered many specific concessions to the Protestants, such as amnesty and the reinstatement of their civil rights, including the rights to work in any field, including for the state.

The Edict of Nantes was signed in April 1598 by King Henry IV

• In 1681, the Dragonnades - a French government policy instituted by King Louis XIV to intimidate Huguenot families into converting to Catholicism involved the billeting of ill-disciplined dragoons in Protestant households with implied permission to abuse the inhabitants and destroy or steal their possessions. The soldiers employed in this role were satirized as "missionary dragoons".

An Episode from the Dragonnades, painting by Jules Girardet

• In Plessis Marle, the first persecutions struck in 1683 when the pastor's income was given to the Hôtel Dieu in Dourdan, the supervised consistory.
• The 22 October 1685 Edict of Fontainebleau issued by King Louis XIV (the grandson of Henry IV) revoked the Edict of Nantes. Although Protestants had lost their independence in places of refuge under Cardinal Richelieu on account of their supposed insubordination, they had continued to live in comparative security and political contentment. From the outset, religious toleration in France had been a royal, rather than popular, policy, and now the lack of universal adherence to his religion did not sit well with Louis XIV's vision of perfected autocracy. Louis XIV ordered the destruction of Huguenot churches as well as the closing of Protestant schools. The edict made official the policy of persecution that was already enforced since the dragonnades that he had created in 1681 to intimidate Huguenots into converting to Catholicism. As a result of the officially-sanctioned persecution by the dragoons, who were billeted upon prominent Huguenots, many Protestants, estimates ranging from 210,000 to 900,000, left France over the next two decades.

The 1685 Edict of Fontainebleau - also known as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes -issued by King Louis XIV, the grandson of Henry IV

• On October 24, 1685, on the orders of Bazin de Bezon, intendant of the generality of Orléans, the Plessis Marle temple is demolished and the cemetery destroyed. Charles Marais and his family are forced to convert.
• In November, 52 people,will recant collectively, mainly women and their children. In Plessis, as elsewhere, you stay or you go into exile . The Trinité, Lucas, Noue, Hatons and Lenoir families remained and persisted in their faith. The cult continued in the Desert.

Thousands of Huguenots fled from France, the majority of them found refuge and a new existence in the Netherlands. The anti-Calvinist drive mounted by Louis XIV (1685) drove the pastor Jacques Rondeau of Le Plessis-Marly to England, and from 1686-1687, 15 families went to England as refugees: the Jigu, Hattons, Tabourdeux, Pantonnier, Vian - silk weavers, the gunsmith Daniel Renault , the Poitevins , the Paillards , the Valtemans . They settled in Canterbury and London. The farmer from Plessis, Hector Valteman, travelled to England in 1696; on this occasion his nephew Hector Henry was baptised in the church on Threadneedle Street.
Some of the Huguenots settling in the Cape of Good Hope were Francois Villion (Viljoen) in 1671, Jean de Long (de Lange) and his family the next year, as well as Guillaume and Francois du Toit.

Charles Marais

Birth date:1638
Birth Place: Le Plessis Mornay in the village of Longvilliers, near Dourdan in the Hurepoix, Isle de France, France {Plessis Mornay aka Plessis Marle, Plessis Merle, Plessis Marly}

The Marais family were from Bouc-Etourdi in Longvilliers,the Hurepoix region of the Ile-de-France, south south west of Paris. Charles and his family were members of the congregation worshipping at Le Plessis-Marlè near Longvilliers, a village north-west of Dourdan towards the Rombouillet forest. Charles Marais was married to Catherine Tabourdeux.Their ante nuptial contract shows that his parents were Jean Marais and Rachelle Milleseau. His father was a well known shoemaker in France.The witnesses signing of the contract were Pierre Anceaume, a tradesman from Dourdan, an uncle from Charles’s father and Hierosme Legrand, a cousin from his father’s side. Other members of his family had emigrated to London and lived there in extreme poverty. Charles Marais owned a farm called ‘Orange' in PlessisMornay (Originally Plessis-Marly) near Longvilliers, a district of Paris.

Catherine Tabourdeaux

The Tabourdeux were a family of silk weavers based in Bouc Etourdi. (This activity benefited from a privilege granted by Colbert for the making of stockings. Colbert had installed at the Château de Madrid (in Neuilly) a silkworm farm and a silk stocking factory where several masters from Dourdan were trained.) Catherine's parents worked in the weaving industry in France. On her antenuptial contract they are named as Jeanne Crosnier and Claude Tabourdeux, a hosier from Rouillon, Dourdan. Claude was a chaussetier - a person dealing in woven goods. The witnesses from Catherine’s side on the antenuptial contract were two brothers, Jean and Jacques.

Marriage and Children of Charles & Catherine

Marriage: 24 Aug 1659, Rouillon, France

Children
1.Claude born 1662
2.?Jacques born 1664
3.Charles born 1668
4.Isaac born 1677
5.Marie-Madeleine born 1681

Charles & Catherine Flee from France

Charles, Catherine and their children Claude, Charles, Isaac and Marie-Madeleine made their way to the United Provinces where they rejected their forced conversion of October 1685 at the Walloon church in Hague on September 14, 1687. (Some sources suggest that there was a second son, Jacques, who chose not to leave with them, but stayed behind in Paris.)

In the 1600s the Walloon community used the Hofkapel in the Binnenhof of The Hague for their church.

Tradition also has it that Claude served as an officer in the French army and that the family occupied a higher social position than most other Cape refugees. However, apart from the fact that it was to the more aristocratic congregation of Hague that they were attached in the United Provinces, nothing has been discovered to substantiate the claim.

Did economic hardship play any part in deciding the Marais to quit France? The peasantry of the Hurepoix, essentially a region geared to the production of cereals and wine for the Paris market, suffered a long period of growing pauperization in the seventeenth century. The crisis reached its peak in 1652 during the military operations of the Fronde, with widespread famine and general misery.
1652 Episode of the Fronde at the Faubourg Saint-Antoine by the Walls of the Bastille - when Charles was 14

A subsequent increase in land appropriation, in which the Paris bourgeoisie played a conspicuous part, subjected the humble rural population to further degradation. We do not know the circumstances of Charles Marais' daily life, but it is possible that, even without religious persecution, his position was becoming intolerable. The Hurepoix, unlike some other agricultural regions of France, did not generally offer alternative means of remunerative employment, apart from the usual run of village crafts. Those who normally made a living from land could often turn elsewhere to small-scale textile manufacture. However it was virtually only in the stocking industry of Dourdan that such an opportunity existed in this part of the country. But were opportunities for immigrant agricultural workers much greater in the United Provinces? It is to be doubted.

In the 1680s, the governor of the Cape Colony, Simon van der Stel insisted that the East India Company be provided with expert wine growers and olive specialists in order to cultivate lands rich in alluvial deposits. Because the settlement at the Cape required extra manpower to provide for the growing demand for fresh products by the settlers and the ships of the Company, the company accepted his request and on December 31, 1687, the first ship carrying Huguenot refugees of French origin left Holland for Cape Town. The plan was that the number of French settlers would limited, and would be dispersed amongst the Dutch farmers in the Drakenstein area, where they would be expected to learn to speak Dutch and integrate into the established population of the colony. The company offered them a loan and land to cultivate for a minimum of 5 years. The trip was free, provided you did not bring any luggage. The Marais family were on the first ship.

These are the conditions that The Council of Seventeen, representing the Dutch East India Company (VOC), stipulated:
De Raad van Zeventien, representerende de Nederlandshe Oost Indische Compagnie (VOC), het in 1687 besluit om eenbeperkt getal Hugenoten als imigranten naar de Kaap over te brengen, onder de volgende voorwaardes: i. De Hugenoten worden na de eed van getrouwheid aan de Compagnie afgelegd te hebben kosteloos overgebracht naar de Kaap. ii. Alleen Kleederen en het noodige voor de reis is vergund mede te nemen uitgezonderd geld, die kan elk mede nemen zoo veel hy wil. iii. De Hugenoten verbinden zich, om voor den tyd van vyf jaren aan de Kaap te blyven wonen en in de boerdery te werken of een ambacht te dryven. iv. Aan diegenen die in de boerdery willen werken zal zoo veel land gegeven worden als zy instaat zyn te bebouwen. Ook zal saad en gereedschap aan hun geleend worden. v. Wie na afloop van vyf jaren wil terug gaan naar Europa betaald zelf zyn pasagie. Men zegt zelf dat er reeds in 1684 voor de herroeping van den Edict van Nantes, eenige vamilien aan gekome waren.

i. After taking the oath of loyalty to the Company, the Huguenots are transferred to the Cape free of charge. ii. Only clothing and the necessary items for the journey are allowed to be taken with you, with the exception of money, which everyone can take with them as much as they wish. iii. The Huguenots undertake to remain at the Cape for a period of five years and to work on the farm or to practice a craft. iv. Those who want to work in the farm will be given as much land as they are able to cultivate. Seed and tools will also be lent to them. v. Anyone who wants to return to Europe after five years must pay their own ticket. It is said that already in 1684, before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, some families had arrived.”

The Voyage of the Voorschoten

The Voorschoten was a flyboat with 3 masts and a rounded hull. It had been built in 1684 for the Chamber of Delft at the VOC ship yard in Delftshaven, Zeeland, and was in use until 1706 when it was dismantled in Batavia. It was 130 Dutch feet long, by 30 ft wide and 13.75ft deep. With a loading capacity of 558 tons, it was capable of carrying 150 people, including a crew of 155-172 men. It flew the flag of the Chamber of Delft.

Model of a Fluyt ship

The Voorschotten was the first ship to leave Holland with French refugees - part of the autumnal fleet. Other ships sailing with this ship were Borssenburg, Oosterland, De Schelde, Berg China, Zuid-Beveland and Wapen van Alkmaar. Special provision had been made for the spiritual needs of the immigrants. The ship carried two new quarto French Bibles and ten books of the psalms of Marot and Bèze, and for the edification of the refugees on the voyage, the sermons of the former Caen pastors Pierre du Bosc and Jean Guillebert. The ship, however, was small and dirty and the settlers only had the bare essentials.

Passenger List for Huguenot Ship Voorschotten to South Africa 1687

• Charles Marais (1640-1689) from Ile-de-France x Catherine Taboureux (1642-1729) from Ile-de-France
  • Claude Marais (1662-1729) from Ile-de-France (24)
  • Charles Marais (1668-1711) from Ile-de-France (19)
  • Isaac Marais (born 1677) from Ile-de-France (10)
  • Marié-Madeleine Marais (1682-1716) from Ile-de-France (6)
• Philippe Fouché (1657-1708) from Orleanais x Anne Souchay (1659-1708) from Orleanais
  • Anne Fouché (1681-1713) from Orleanais (6)
  • Esther Fouché (1683-1689) from Orleanais (5)
  • Jacques Fouché (1685-1689) from Orleanais (3)
• Gaspard Fouché (1667-1688) from Orleanais, died on board
• Jacques Pinard (1665-1712) from Ile-de-France (23) x Esther Fouché (1668-1697) from Orleanais (21)
• Gidéon Malherbe (1663-1713) from Normandië (25) x Marié Grillon (1670-1735) from Orleanais
• Estienne Bruere (1665-1759) from Orleanais (23)
• Gabriël le Roux (1669-1711) from Orleanais (17)
• Jean le Roux (1667-1711) from Orleanais (21)
• Pierre Sabatier (born 1665) from Mezieres, Champagne. (23) Returned to Europe after 1700.
• Jean Machepaste (1662-1689) from Belois, Mer, Orleanais
• Paul Godefroy (1665-1699) from Bazoche-en-Dunois, Orleanais (22)
• Marguerite Basché Bruere (1665 - ) from Aunay, Mer, Orleanais (23)

They left from Goeree on 31 December 1687 under the captaincy of Frans Villierius, and, after a journey of more than 3 months, arrived in Saldanha Bay on 13 April 1688 with 192 people on board, landing there due to damage caused to the ship by a severe storm. A 'hottentot' messenger was send to Table Bay to inform Simon van der Stel ,who sent the cutter, “Jupiter”, to fetch the immigrants to arrive at the fort on 28 April 1688

Arriving in the Cape

M. Whiting Spilhaus.

The "Spierdyk" and the "Oosterland" had already arrived by the time the Voorschoten docked in Cape Town, followed later by more ships carrying Huguenots. (After January 1689 various smaller groups of Hugenots still arrived at the Cape. Eventually approximately 175 Hugenots settled in the Cape of Good Hope between 1688 and 1689 as part of the official colonization of the Dutch East India Company.) On their arrival the Huguenots got dried peas, salted meat and ship's biscuits to eat, which was the same as they had eaten during their sea voyage. They received wood and tools to build a shelter, and were taken to their new home about 70 km inland.

Charles was given a 60 morgan farm on the slopes of the Simonsberg, in Groot Drakenstein, nearby a 'Hottentot' kraal, so that they could develop vine cultivation there. Olifantshoek valley was renamed Franschhoek (literally “the corner of the French”). Charles named the farm "Plessis les Marle" after the small village they came from, but he only farmed there for about 6 months before he was murdered

Death of Charles Marais: 3 April 1689 aged 51 years
A short year after he had docked in the Cape, Charles was murdered by a man from the "Hotentot' kraal called Edessah, nicknamed "Dikkop". (VOC mapping of the settlement customarily locates Khoekhoen kraals on the margins and outside of areas occupied by European settlement. Incidents like this murder, and complaints by the settlers that Hottentot cattle were trampling their vineyards indicate that there was an alternate viewpoint of land use). Together with two friends, Edessah had demanded to be given a watermelon growing on the farm (possibly from the seeds Charles had received on landing from the VOC; although a local variety of wild watermelon Makataan does grow in South Africa, and was prized as a water source in dry areas by the Khoi.) Charles refused, saying (in what language?) that the watermelon was still green. Dikkop admitted to spitting the inedible fruit at Charles and then stoning him - hitting him at least twice in the groin and left side. Four days' later - on the 3 April 1689 - Charles died from internal bleeding. (This may be the first murder that took place on a 'White' man's farm in South Africa.)

The day after his death, the 62 year old French doctor - Jean Prieur du Plessis - conducted the autopsy. It is likely that Charles was the first person on whom a documented autopsy would have been performed in the Cape. According to Charles’s death certificate, the autopsy was attended by the Landdrost, Jan Mostert, and two Heemerade, Dirk Coetse and Jacques de Savoye. The post-mortem papers can be seen in the Cape archives. Jacques de Savoye, who was Charles's neighbour, was fluent in Afrikaans (Flemish) because he had lived in Flanders for many years and could translate the report word for word. The report, translated here into English, apparently reads as follows:

I have been in Drakenstein and have examined Charles Marais, who died after being struck in the left groin by two stones thrown by a Hottentot on 29th March. I opened the wound in the presence of Monsieur de Landrost Jan Mostert, Hendrik de Coche and Jacques de Savoye as previously Council of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein. I found a great inward and outward contusion and the heart artery suspended, which together bled a great deal and overwhelmed the heart and caused death. In token of the truth hereof I have signed it, J. Prieur du Plessis.

The following comes from the diary of Simon van der Stel: 1689, 5 April:
Tegens de middag wordt hier door den Hottentots-kaptein Thomas een zijner Hottentotten in hecthenis gebracht, dewijl hij een der Franse vlugtelingen woonagtig aan Drakenstein, moordadig om het leven heeft gebracht. 21 April - Is de gevangen Hottentot, over een manslag aan een Fransman door hem gedaan, deze morgen door de Raad van Justitie de dood aangeseid. 23 April - Heden is de gevangen Hottentot ter dood gebracht in Conformiteit van de volgende Sententie: "Also de Hottentot Edescha, bijenaamd Dikkop, resorterende onder het kraal van zijn overleden Kaptein Thomas, altans 's hierdie gevangene meer dan 25 jaren oud, aan de Ed. Achtb. Raad van Justitie aan deze plaats, buiten pijn en dwang van ijzeren banden of te enige dreigementen van dien, vrijwillig heeft beleden en bekend, en zulks genoeg zijnde gebleken, dat hij (gevangene) niet heeft ontzien, op de 29 ste Maart laasleden, 's middags omtrent een uur voor zonsondergang te komen, benewens twee andere Hottentotte van 't zelfde kraal, in de tuin van de Franse landbouer Charles Marré, wonende aan Drakenstein, en denzelfe op een onbeleefde manier en met wrange woorden watermeloenen af te vragen, en tot antwoord van de voornoemde Marré gekregen hebbende, geen van die rijp te zijn, - dat hij (gevangene) onderstaan hadde op zijn eigen autoriteit een derzelve af te plukken, en die niet bekwaam om gegeten te worden bevinde, dat hij dezelwe naar 't hoofd van die gezeide Charles Marré heeft geworpen, zonder hem nochtans te raken, dat hij (gevangene) ook niet geschroomd heeft uit enkele baldadigheid tot twee verscheiden malen klei of klipstenen op te rapen, en daarmede de gemelde Marré diermate in zijn linkerzijde of lies te treffen, dat dezelve daardoor genoodzaakt was hem naar huis te begeven en zich aldaar te bergen.Dat hij (gevangene) zich vervolgens naar zijn voorzeide kraal vervoegd, en aldaar verstaan hebbende, dat Charles Marré na verloop van vier dagen, en sedert dat hij hem geworpen hadde, was komen te overlijden, hij zich versteken hadde, en landvluchtig geworden was, totdat hem zijn eigen volk en landraad achterhaald, en in handen van Justitie overgeleverd hebben.

Dat aan de Ed. Achtb. Raad van Justitie gebleken is, door de verklaring van de Chirurgijn van Stellenbosch, Jan du Plessis, na gewone inspektie en gedane opening van des overledens lichaam, ten overstaan van de Landdrost en heemraden in geschrifte gegeven, als dat hij (du Plessis) in de linderdije of lies van de overledene Marré een grote Contutie zowel binnen als buiten, een hartader gebroken, en 't bloed door 't lichaam samen geronnen gevonden heeft, oordelende daarop de dood gevolgd en veroorzaakt te zijn.
Dat hij (gevangene) eindelik zo voor gekommitteerden ui de Ed. Achtb. Raad van Justitie, alsmede in Judicis in 't bijwzen van de omliggende Hottentots Kapteinen openlik bekend en vrijwillig beleden heeft zijn voorzeide feit waarachtig, en daarom des doods schuldig te zijn.
... Aldus gesententieerd in 't Casteel de Goede Hoop den 20 en April 1689, nutsgaders geexecuteerd den 23 en aanvolgende.
Geteken: sterf van der Stel, Dominique De Chavonnes, Eerw. Pieter Linis, Jan Hendrik Blum, A. van Rhede, Christiaan Freser, Guilliam Hees (of Heems), J.D. du Beer.

Around noon, the Hottentot captain Thomas brought one of his Hottentots into custody here because he had murdered one of the French refugees living at Drakenstein.
April 21 - The imprisoned Hottentot was sentenced to death this morning by the Council of Justice for manslaughter of a Frenchman.
April 23 - Today the captured Hottentot was put to death in accordance with the following Sentence: "Also the Hottentot Edescha, nicknamed Dikkop, resorting under the kraal of his deceased Captain Thomas, at least the prisoner here was more than 25 years old, at the Ed. Eighth Council of Justice at this place, without pain and coercion of iron bars or any threats thereof, voluntarily confessed this enough, that he (prisoner) had not spared, on the 29th.Last March, in the afternoon about an hour before sunset, I met two other Hottentots from the same kraal, in the garden of the French farmer Charles Marré, living at Drakenstein, and the same one in a rude manner and with bitter words, asked for watermelons, and having received the answer from the aforementioned Marré, that none of them were ripe, - that he (prisoner) had suffered to pluck off one of them on his own authority, and found it unfit to be eaten, that he which we threw at the head of the said Charles Marré, without hitting him, that he (prisoner) also did not hesitate to pick up clay or cliff stones on two different occasions out of some wantonness, thereby harming the said Marré to such an extent in his left side or groin, which forced him to go home and hide there.That he (prisoner) then went to his aforementioned kraal, and having learned there that after four days, and since he had thrown at him, Charles Marré had died, he had hidden himself, and had become a fugitive, until his own people and council have overtaken him and delivered him into the hands of Justice.
That to Ed. Eightb. The Council of Justice has shown, through the statement of the Surgeon of Stellenbosch, Jan du Plessis, after normal inspection and opening of the deceased's body, in writing before the Landdrost and heemraads, that he (du Plessis) in the left thigh or groin of the deceased Marré has found a large contusion both inside and outside, a heart vein broken, and the blood throughout the body has been clotted, judging that death was followed and caused by this.
That he (prisoner) finally came before the commissioners of the Ed. Eightb. Council of Justice, as well as in Judicis in the presence of the surrounding Hottentot Captains, has openly confessed and voluntarily confessed to be true of the aforementioned fact and therefore guilty of death.
...Thus inaugurated in 't Casteel de Goede Hoop on the 20th of April 1689, executed on the 23rd and following.

Die volgende is 'n aanhaling uit 'n artikel "Tot Afschrikt van andre": Die V.O.C.-regstelsel en geweld ten opsigte van die Khoisan aan die Kaap, 1677-1705.' pp.8-32 wat in Kronos Vol. 12 (1987) verskyn het en geskryf is deur Henry C.Bredenkamp, Universiteit van Wes-Kaapland. Na 'n bondige beskrywing van die gebeure wat aanleiding gegee het tot Charles Marais se moord, vervolg die skrywer:-
"Nadat die saak eers voor die landdros van Stellenbosch en Drakenstein gedien is, en deur die Raad van Justisie verder in die Kasteel verhoor is, is Edessha alias Dikkop, ter dood veroordeel. Die voltrekking daarvan is enkele dae vertraag weens die besopenheid van die Raad se sekretaris, M. Kemels, wat die vonnis nie behoorlik volgens prosedure kon opstel nie. Toe dit uiteindelik afgehandel is, het die Raad, soos by vorige geleenthede, die terdoodveroordeelde aan sy klan uitgelewer om "op haere wijse gestraft en met stokken geslagen te werden dat er de dood navolgt" (CJ 780, 20 April 1689, p.859; CJ 291 Getuienis van Edessha, 20 April 1689, pp.275-7) Op die motiewe vir Edessha se optrede het die V.O.C. regpleers nooit ingegaan, net op die fisiese oorsaak van die Hugenoot se dood. Anders as wat die geval met V.O.C. dienaars en koloniste was, is Edessha se saak verhoor sonder dat enigeen uit sy stand sitting by die verrigtinge van die Hof van Heemrade en Raad van Justiese geniet het." p.14 Gebasseer op wat Prof Bredenkamp aanhaal in sy artikel, het die voorlopige verhoor dus vermoedelik op Stellenbosch in die Drostdy (raadshuis) plaasgevind waar die landros en heemrade vergader het en reeds in 1687 gebou is. Die Raad van Justisie sou die saak in die Kasteel verder verhoor het. Vonnisse is in die openbaar voltrek ten aanskoue van almal, maar of dit Edessha se lot was en of sy mense hom in hul kraal gegesel het, is nie uit hierdie bron duidelik nie!

After the case was first served before the magistrate of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, and further tried by the Council of Justice in the Castle, Edessha alias Dikkop, was sentenced to death. Its execution was delayed a few days due to the drunkenness of the Council's secretary, M. Kemels, who could not draw up the sentence properly according to procedure. When it was finally settled, the Council, as on previous occasions, delivered the condemned to death to his clan to be "punished in such manner and beaten with sticks that death follows" (CJ 780, 20 April 1689, p.859 ; CJ 291 Testimony of Edessha, 20 April 1689, pp.275-7) On the motives for Edessha's actions, the V.O.C. jurists never went into, only on the physical cause of the Huguenot's death. Unlike the case with V.O.C. servants and colonists, Edessha's case was tried without anyone from his position enjoying a hearing at the proceedings of the Court of Commons and Council of Justice." p.14 Based on what Prof Bredenkamp quotes in his article, the preliminary hearing therefore presumably took place in the Drostdy (council house) where the landros and heemrade met and was built in 1687. The Council of Justice would further hear the case in the Castle. Sentences were carried out in front of everyone, but whether this was Edessha's fate or whether his people flogged him in their kraal is not clear from this source!

Charles’ widow and four children received help from the support fund. This tragic event happened just before Simon van der Stel signed the official land grant on 1 December 1693, reserving land for them in the Olifantshoek valley, renamed Franschhoek (literally “the corner of the French”) so that they could develop vine cultivation there. The 60 morgen farm they received in the Drakenstein region of the valley was close to Simondium (the area situated in the Simonsberg in Groot Drakenstein). The son, Claude, assumed responsibility for the farm.

Afterwards

Charles's murder happened just before Simon van der Stel signed the official land grant on 1 December 1693, reserving land for them. The son, Claude, assumed responsibility for the farm. The Distribution List of 1690 lists the ‘widow of Charles Marais, with four children,’ the father having been murdered by a Hottentot at Drakenstein in April 1689. They receive state aid from the Batavian Government.

Catherine married Daniel des Ruelles in 1690, the year after the death of Charles. He had arrived at the Cape with his 2 daughters, Esther and Anne. Daniel's first wife, Anne Godalle had died and been buried buried at sea. After their marriage Daniel moved in at Le Plessis Marle. He died on 3 October 1726, and Catherine followed him in 1729.

1. Claude born 1662. After the death of their father, Claude assumed responsibility for the farm, Le Plessis Marlè. He would ultimately own a house in Cape Town as well as the farms Meerlust, Lekkerwyn, Le Plessis Merle and Wel-van-Pas. He was one of the first elders of the French congregation.
1st Marriage 1690, from Chateaudun, Orleanais to Maria Avice who was born in 1669 and died in ca. 1697 (1700).
Claude received the deed to the farm Wel-van-Pas (where Piet Retief was born) in the Wagenmakers Valley on 28 February 1699. On the same day his brother, Charles Junior, officially became the owner of De Fortuin, also in the Wagenmakers Valley.
2nd Marriage 13 Oct 1721 in Cape Town to Susanne Gardiol, widow of Abraham de Villiers - a well known family in the region - and the daughter of Antoine Gardiolle and Marguerite Perrotette. She was born in 1668 in La Coste, Provence in France and died in 1729 in the Cape of Good Hope.

Towards the middle of the 18th century, the farm, then owned by Claude's grandson Jacob, began to prosper in earnest and by 1764 (the year the manor house was erected) Le Plessis Marlè boasted 35 000 vines. When the domestic demand for wine increased and passing ships causing the fledging Cape wine industry to boom, Jacob's son, Pieter, built up an enviable reputation as one of Groot Drakenstein's great wine farmers. By this time the family’s fortune included 55 000 vines.

2.? Jacques (1664) the possible son who stayed behind in Paris when the rest of his family immigrated to South Africa. He became a Catholic on 4 November 1685 to save his own life and that of his wife. He was known as the ‘Lost son’.
Marie his wife, was born in 1665 and died 26 May 1706 in France.

3. Charles born 1668, married his stepsister Anna de Ruelle, daughter of Daniel in 1692. She was born on 10 October 1673 in Guiness, Calais in France and died on 7 Aug 1935. They stayed on the farm De Fortuin in the Wagenmakers Valley (in Wellington) of which he'd officially taken ownership on 28 February 1699 - the same day that his older brother, Claude, had received the deed to the farm Wel-van-Pas in Wagenmakers Valley. Charles died before 1711 in the Cape of Good Hope.

4.Isaac born 1677, never got married and died before the age of 40.

5. Marie-Madeleine born 1681, married Estienne Nel in 1700. Estienne came from Dauphine, France. He was a farmer at La Dauphine, Franschhoek, where he lived until he died. They had five children with Marie being very sick in the last few years of her life and dying on 7 July 1716 in Drakenstein at the age of 34.

Today

"The soaring peaks of Simonsberg mountains with its rolling foothills, is the setting for Plaisir de Merle, one of South Africa’s most historical and exquisite estates, where spreading vineyards have thrived, yielding harvests of exceptional quality and richness. "

PLAISIR DE MERLE - AN HISTORICAL SHOWPIECE



.....

Sources and Resources:

• http://www.stamouers.com/stamouers/k-to-m/316-marais-charles
• Coertzen, Pieter - "The Huguenots of South Africa 1688-1988", Tafelberg Publishers Limited, Cape Town, 1988
• Appendix 2 of "Hugenotebloed in ons are" by J.G. le Roux (1992; ISBN 0-7969-0566-5) \
• https://www.huguenots.fr/2012/10/le-chemin-des-huguenots-le-plessis...
• https://maraisfamily.tribalpages.com/tribe/browse?userid=maraisfami...
• M.Boucher. French speakers at the Cape: The European Background. Pretoria, UNISA (1981). (ISBN 0-86981-222-X) Ch 5.p 105-7.
• https://www.geni.com/documents/view?doc_id=6000000046081533125
• https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Duplessis-Mornay
• https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longvilliers_(Yvelines)
• https://maraisfamily.tribalpages.com/tribe/browse?userid=maraisfami...
• De Villiers/Pama
• Heese/Lombard
• Verwysingsmateriaal, Boksburg biblioteek
• Verwysingsmateriaal, Springs LDS FHC biblioteek
• Juliet Marais Louw "The Huguenot Story"
• https://www.e-family.co.za/ffy/g8/p8561.htm