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69 Chapter Five Protestant and Profiteer Gabriel Bernon in the New World When he arrived in the New World, Gabriel de Bernon (1644– 1736) jettisoned the particle in his name, the “de” that designates nobility, and graphically revised the venerable family shield of the Bernon family, descended from a fourteenth-century count of Burgundy. Rather than retain the symbolic representation of his Old World lineage, Gabriel reinvented himself in a New World idiom. He did so through a cunning play on words, not in French but, significantly, in English, and even with an American accent. Gabriel Bernon’s new, self-designed shield featured a bear and a circle, or “naught”: Bar­none: Bernon. Bernon thus represented a way of being in the New World that epitomized self-fashioning in the best American frontier tradition. He knew how to assess his situation and use what he could to his advantage. He was a consummate code shifter, adroit at manipulating the vernacular of two cultures. His profiteering combined with his piety in resourceful and often unexpected ways throughout his New World experience. Because Bernon was so prominent and pervasive a presence in the American colonies, more is known about him than about virtually any other French Protestant refugee. “Everyone That Hath Forsaken Houses” Bernon, several of whose ancestors had been mayors of the great port city of La Rochelle, became a wealthy and influential merchant.1 Throughout his time in the colonies, he exemplified certain coping strategies implemented by French Protestants when they came to the New World. He adapted successfully, attaining commercial and civic prominence. He appears to have been a communicant in good standing in the Anglican Church, but retained his Reformed beliefs. Because of the force of his character, will, and diplomacy, he was on familiar terms with most of the famous men of his day in the colonies and in England , and parlayed these relationships into personal power, though he never neglected to lobby for the needs and best interests of his coreligionists. Bernon contributed significantly to the socioeconomic and political development of the towns in which he settled. Even as he pursued personal 70 • chapter five advancement, Bernon clearly also felt a responsibility for fellow believers and for those in need and showed a concern for the poor that may have derived from some contact with, and sympathy for, the persecuted and impoverished Camisards back in France.2 Bernon was frequently in London on business when the French Prophets were active, so he, like Wesley, Whitefield, and their contemporaries, would have heard their message and been influenced by aspects of it. Especially appealing would have been the Camisard emphasis on a personal and inner experience of the Holy Spirit. Similar to the Camisards, Bernon consistently upheld the importance of laypersons—such as himself—in maintaining theological orthodoxy. Also like the Camisards and other pietist groups of his day, Bernon frequently referred to God’s Providence. Uncharacteristically for a Calvinist, Bernon manifested a belief in the “openness” of revelation: believing like the Camisards that miracles could and did still occur, he asserted that God continued to provide signs to lead and succor his people.3 Further, Bernon was a staunch defender of freedom of conscience; reiterating this Camisard catchphrase, he stated that “Roger Williams and all those, that have settled in our Providence town, have been persecuted, bruised and banished out of Massachusetts government, for not submitting themselves to the arbitrary power of the Presbytery and we fear nothing more than this arbitrary power of the clergy. Power before Popery did ruin the world, and, since Popery, the arbitrary power of the clergy hath ruined Europe.”4 Notions of freedom of conscience and freedom of thought (libre pen­ sée) became part and parcel of French Protestant thought, and Camisards and Huguenots alike continued to advocate for these concepts in various ways in the New World. A Profile in Adaptation The de Bernon family “had been one of the first in La Rochelle to adopt the Reformed religion, and it was in the Bernon mansion that many of the earliest Protestant services were held.”5 After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Gabriel , having become, like his father, a merchant sea trader, refused to convert to Catholicism. He fled France in 1682 for Quebec, where he hoped not only to escape religious and political persecution, but also to profit from the lucrative fur trade in which his family had already been involved. However, hostilities ran high between...

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