Hi all,
Here is a link to an interesting book about Pierre-Charles de Hault de Lassus de Luzières (1738-1806):
The title is A French Aristocrat in the American West: the shattered dreams of De Lassus de Luzières and the author is Carl J. Ekberg.
Ekberg writes:
Quote:
...Pierre-Charles de Hault de Lassus de Luzières was one of very few French aristocrats to emigrate to America, live out his life here, and be buried here…he, his wife, and three of their children fled Revolutionary France in the autumn of 1790. Their destination was the two-thousand-acre tract of real estate situated on the right bank of the Ohio River that de Luzières had ‘purchased’ in Paris in June 1790 from the infamous Scioto Land Company. Arriving in the Ohio Valley late that year, they quickly discovered that they had been defrauded, that de Luzières had bought nothing but meaningless paper…enterprise impelled de Luzières to move his family to Upper Louisiana and build his house on the hills overlooking the Mississippi River…for his efforts to increase the population of Upper Louisiana, which the Spanish regime desperately wished to do, de Luzières was in 1797 appointed civil and military commandant of the New Bourbon District…
His little community called Nouvelle Bourbon was located in what is today Sainte Genevieve County in the State of Missouri:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Bourbon,_Missouri
His family was originally from Hainault and I think his arms were blazoned something like per fess Azure and Argent, in chief a wren volant Or and issuant from the dexter chief a sun in its splendor Or, and in base an eagle rising, wings elevated and displayed Sable:
http://genealegrand.pagesperso-orange.fr/images/dehault_de_lassus.jpg
http://genealegrand.pagesperso-orange.fr/haspres/haspres_dehault_delassus.htm
Louis de Magny gives a similar blazon in his Science du Blason accompagnée d’un Armorial Général des Familles Nobles de l’Europe:
Rietstap also seems to give a similar blazon:
Cheers,
Another good find for Seb. Now emblazoned and up on the REAA under "Luzieres," following the biographer’s usage.
http://www.americanheraldry.org/pages/uploads/Roll/lassus.gif
