We do not know exactly where in France our family comes from. One family legend has it that Pierre’s father was a ministre – a church minister, perhaps? – and lived in a large country mansion outside Paris. When he suddenly saw his home surrounded by soldiers, he took his young wife and fled through the garden, putting her on a donkey, and fortunately escaped with her to Mittelmark-Brandenburg, where she shortly thereafter gave birth to their son. But we know none of this for certain.
Everything we really know about Pierre’s childhood comes from the Testimonium, the “testimonial” or eulogy that was read aloud at his funeral and is reproduced on page 16. According to this document, Pierre was born on 22 February 1716 in the small market town of Köpenick, today a southeastern district of Berlin in the German state of Brandenburg. According to the eulogy, Pierre’s father was named Dornumville de Lacour and his mother Marie Foziehac. Eight months after Pierre was born, his parents went back to France, and since Pierre was not strong enough to survive such a trip, he was left with his mother’s parents, who lived in the town of Halle in Sachsen, presumably having fled from France a few years previously.
However, repeated attempts to find traces of Pierre in Köpenick have come to nothing. Neither he nor any other Lacours are registered in the town’s Protestant church records. Köpenick was quite a small town, and only about 50 Huguenots lived there in the 1720s. If Pierre was born in Köpenick, then he had to have been baptised in the Köpenick Palace chapel, which was built at the end of the 1670s.
Pierre grew up in the care of his maternal grandparents in Halle, and they taught him arithmetic and writing. When he was seven years old, he was sent to grammar school* for four years. In 1728, when he was eleven, and in the fourth level at school, his grandparents took him with them when they moved to Leipzig. There is no mention of him having attended school there, only that he received instruction in arithmetic, writing and music. When his grandparents moved to Berlin in 1730, he was sent to grammar school again, but never graduated: just as he was to start in the fifth form, he was called to Denmark.
It was Christiane Dorthea von Rhedern, the widow of Major Henrik de Lasson, who brought the 16-year-old to her home at the Aakær manor in eastern Jutland so he could teach French to her six-year-old son Wenzel Frederik de Lasson. We do not know how the de Lasson family knew Pierre’s grandparents. The de Lassons were a family who had been raised to the aristocracy by the king having granted them a so-called “patent of nobility”. The family name was originally “Lassen”, but after being ennobled, family members were permitted to call themselves “de Lasson”. Christiane Dorthea von Rhedern was married to Henrik Lassen (1701–32), a major and a son of titular councillor of state Bendix Lassen. Both were ennobled in 1732, the same year that Pierre arrived. Henrik de Lasson died in 1732, which might have been why Christiane found it necessary to hire a teacher for her son.
Pierre was at Aakær for four years, and then, with a recommendation from Madame von Rhedern, moved to Ørslevkloster manor to teach French to Lieutenant Colonel Berregaard’s twelve-year-old son Frederik. Frederik’s mother, Marie Berregaard, was born de Lasson and was thus related to Christiane’s late husband. Ørslevkloster was an old convent that, after the Reformation, had been taken over by the Crown and over the years been enfeoffed to various noblemen (given to them in return for their pledged service to the king). The three wings of the main building combine with the chapel to make a four-winged farm. Much of the premises had their origins as far back as the Middle Ages, but there had been some major renovation projects since then: e.g. one in the 1700s under the direction of Danish architect Nicolaus Hinrich Rieman. Also, the barn buildings burnt down in 1749 but were rebuilt in 1750.
The father of the twelve-year-old boy, Frederik, whom Pierre was brought to Ørstedkloster to teach, was deceased, but his name was also Frederik, and he had been a lieutenant colonel who served with distinction during the War of the Spanish Succession and the Great Northern War. The elder Frederik purchased the Ørslevkloster and Strandet manors in 1724, and his wife was pregnant with their second and sole surviving child when he died: Frederik was born not quite four months after his father’s death. The younger Frederik Berregaard was an unusually intelligent and quick-witted young man. As early as his seventeenth year, at the beginning of 1742, he was appointed to the rank class of counsellor. Afterwards, he went on a grand tour of Europe (an upper-class educational tradition) together with Tycho de Hofman, who served as Frederik’s butler. The tour lasted about five years, during which time both men matriculated from the Leiden Law School, in 1744. In the meantime, Pierre left Ørslevkloster in 1743 to work as a language tutor at Bjørnsholm manor (which had previously been and is again today Vitskøl Abbey), which was owned by Marie Berregaard’s brother, Mathias de Lasson.
Pierre remained there for four years, until 1747, when his former pupil Frederik Berregaard – who had returned to Demark in 1746 and was that same year appointed to the rank of chamberlain – called Pierre to Copenhagen to be his assistant. Also in 1746, Frederik’s mother, Marie Berregaard, died at Ørslevkloster, and Frederik inherited both this manor and Strandet manor. The following year, he also took over Staarup Hovedgaard manor. All three manors are located within what used to be the district of Fjends Herred, whose northern section jutted out into the Limfjorden fiord and which was bordered by the town of Skive to the west and the Hjarbæk fiord to the northeast.
After a little over two years in Copenhagen, Frederik joined the diplomatic service in 1749 and was made an emissary to the royal court of Poland and the Electorate of Saxony. He was married the following year, on 9 April 1750, at Christiansborg Castle to Baroness Sophie Elisabeth Holck, a lady-in-waiting in the court of Denmark’s Queen Dowager Sophie Magdalene. That same year, Frederik appointed Pierre farm-bailiff of Staarup Hovedgaard manor and then, the following year, farm-bailiff of the Ørslevkloster and Strandet manors as well. At the end of 1750, Frederik and his wife Sophie left for their new residence in Dresden, the capital city of Saxony, which – together with Warsaw – was the seat of the reign of King August III of Poland, the Elector of Saxony. The Berregaard couple’s happiness in Dresden was brief: Sophie died in Dresden-Neustadt at the beginning of 1751. Frederik was not a widower for long, however: he married Countess Frederikke Henriette von Bünau the following year. Shortly thereafter, the couple moved to Warsaw, where Frederik died in 1757, just 33 years old. None of his marriages had produced any children, so his widow was completely alone in the world. The body of her late husband was sent the long way home to Denmark and laid to rest in the Berregaard chapel, which was then part of the Ørslevkloster church. This chapel no longer exists, but one can still admire the impressive cast iron latticework across what was once its entrance. Thus Pierre did not see his pupil again after Frederik left the country in 1750, but he was busy starting a family himself.
On 13 July 1751, Pierre – who was 35 years old at the time – married Margrethe Susanne Hertzberg, a woman four and a half years younger than Pierre. Her parents were Niels Jensen Hertzberg and Dorte Cathrine Harboe. Margrethe’s father was born in Vrå, Denmark, in 1693, graduated from an upper secondary school in Hjørring in 1711 and received a master’s degree in theology in 1716. In 1719, he became a stipendiary curate* at the Ejds parsonage in Nordfjord, in 1732 in the Viborg Nørresogn parish and in 1744 in Finnås in Norway. He died in Bergen, Norway, on 17 October 1764.
Margrethe was baptised in Viborg on 6 October 1737, after her father had been transferred there to work as the pastor of the Gråbrødre church. Her career presumably began as a teacher working for landed estate owner* Søren Kjærulf, whose daughter Andrea Kirstine ended up marrying a titular privy councillor by the name of Hjelmstjerne, and followed by a job working for the wife of a chamberlain named Berregaard at Ørslevkloster manor. Margrethe was reportedly highly popular with her pupils and their parents.
Nine months and ten days after the wedding, Margrethe gave birth to Pierre’s first child, Marie Sophie la Cour, most likely named after Frederik Berregaard’s mother and his first wife. The family was living on a manor called either Staarup Hovedgaard or Staarup- gaard, which is located west of Højslev and about one and a half kilometres east of Skive Fjord. The farm is surrounded by moats, and there are traces of embankments around it as well. Between the summer of 1752 and the summer of 1753, the little family moved to Ørslevkloster, where their next child, Frederik la Cour – undoubtedly named after Frederik Berregaard – was born. It was at about this same time that the beautiful ceiling paintings in the eastern wing of Ørslevkloster were produced: they are copies of paintings by famous French artists, among them Antoine Coypel’s Venus sur les Eaux, which is reproduced in the dining hall. The paintings have been described as being of higher artistic quality than was usual on farms in Jutland at the time.
In 1753, Pierre was promised that he could become Strandet manor’s tenant farmer*, and this promise was repeated on 23 February 1758 in writing by the aforementioned Mrs Berregaard. However, the family remained at Ørslevkloster until about 1755, when they moved to Baadsgaard farm, where two more children – Henriette Frederikke and Elisabeth Cathrine – were born, in August 1756 and January 1758 respectively. The lease to Strandet was signed on 1 March 1759, and this is where the following five children were born, starting with Peter Matias in May 1759.
After Frederik Berregaard died, Ørslevkloster, Staarup Hovedgaard and Strandet were sold in 1759 to the county revenue officer in Nyborg, Bartholomæus Berthelsen de Cederfeldt, who resold them that same year, along with just under 393 hectares (about 973 acres) of tenant farms and six churches. The purchase price for all these properties totalled 78 thousand rix- dollars*, and the purchaser was the mayor of Nyborg, Jacob Lerche, who owned these properties for the rest of Pierre’s life. It was thus Jacob Lerche who leased Strandet manor to Pierre.
Pierre was granted tenancy of Strandet on favourable terms. In 1737, Niels Christensen Winchel had taken over tenancy of Strandet for an annual rent of 280 rix-dollars. In 1751, the leasehold went to Niels Quistgaard for 350 rix-dollars the first year and 300 rix-dollars for each subsequent year. The rent Pierre paid was just 200 rix-dollars, a sum that Pierre and Frederik Berregaard had presumably already agreed upon in 1753.
The first time Strandet manor appears in official records is in 1493; in 1503 it belonged to a man named Esben Juel. The original farm building burnt down in 1775, and the one that stands there today is from the 1790s. The sign over the entrance says “1794”, and the manor’s Danish name translates to “The Beach”. In Pontoppidan’s Det danske Atlas (“The Danish Atlas”, vol. 4, p. 694), which was published in 1768 – while Pierre was living at Strandet – the farm was described as “a small yet independent manor farm* named after the fact that part of its border is a beach on the Limfjord. Previously, there was a brick-built house which was demolished a long time ago. The current building is beautifully half-timbered, but with a thatched roof. Its former inhabitants have included members of the Juul, Friis and Sehested families, along with several noble families. The farm currently raises cattle for slaughter and is occupied by Peter la Cour, who has been granted a lifetime leasehold on the property. Manor charge: 19 barrels, 3 sk æ p p e r, 1 fjerdingkar and 1 album. The villein farms belonging to the manor: 208 barrels, 4 skæpper, 1 fjerdingkar, and 1 album. Mill tax: 1 barrel and 2 fjerdingkar. Tithes: 26 barrels and 4 skæpper.”
Pierre was the tenant farmer* at Strandet for the rest of his life, i.e. for the next 16-17 years, but unfortunately, of any documents or materials that we could use to get to know him better, only a scant few have been preserved. As far as we know, no letters or anything else he may have written have survived the passage of time. The Halds County probate court records contain some letters from Pierre, but they contribute little to our knowledge of the kind of person he was. We can draw a few conclusions from the catalogue of family members that Pierre left behind and Pauline Worm (no. 56) subsequently stored, and from the eulogy read aloud at his funeral. Based on the information available, however, we will try to form an impression of the conditions Pierre lived under, of the home in which he was the head of the family, and of the life that he lived there.
Pierre never lived in the buildings standing at Strandet today, but according to the above-mentioned probate court records, in Pierre’s time the manor consisted of – in addition to the practical facilities such as a kitchen, a pantry, a meat pantry, a beer cellar, a utility room, a scullery, an attic, a walk-in clothing closet, etc. – a sitting room, an office (called “the blessed man’s room” in the probate documents) a parlour, “the southern guest room”, “the northern guest room”, a master bedroom, a children’s room and a maids’ room. All the rooms were reportedly well-stocked with furniture. According to the probate documents, the sitting room contained, among other things, a jamb stove of iron, a dresser with four drawers made of oak and with turned feet, an oak writing bureau with three drawers, a double-leaf folding table, a cross-foot folding table, and a table painted blue with a drawer in which Pierre’s wife kept her outerwear. There were two chairs made of oak with canvas upholstery, one chair of suede leather, six open-back chairs and two old chairs upholstered in wool. On the walls, there were five paintings, two of them portraying Christ on the cross wearing a crown of thorns and his mother, a hanging wall shelf and, lastly, a striking mechanism in a box.
The sitting room was also where the few books Pierre owned were kept: aside from a bible from 1589 (in folio format) and a copy of the Danish law of King Christian V (in octavo format) from 1750, there were only 13 or 14 books, mainly in French and German. Of these books, the three volumes that were apparently the most valuable were titled Traité de Laverette de la Religion: they were in octavo format and estimated to be worth one rix-dollar. Otherwise there were only minor philosophical and religious works (Fénélons Oeuvres Philosophiques, Le Philosophe de sanssouci, Fontenelles Oeuvres diverses, Trende Tomer [“Three Tomes”] in one volume without a title page, and Richtern’s Erkentnisz des Menschen), along with a few other volumes and a silver-clad German hymn and prayer book with a loose silver buckle. Judging by this, Pierre was not overly fond of books.
On the other hand, he apparently found pleasure in outdoor activities, not least hunting, as also indicated by the 13 shotguns that were displayed in the sitting room, in addition to several other hunting accessories. But it was not just the sitting room he decorated with what he probably considered to be the best kind of decoration a wall could have: his “blessed man’s room” was recorded as also containing firearms and other hunting items. That hunting was actually one of Pierre’s main pleasures in life was something one gains a certain melancholy impression of from a few lines in a letter he wrote to Counsellor de Lindenpalm in the penultimate year of his life, in which he complained that he had not yet completely recovered his health, “which rankles me not a little, that I am not, as I had decided, able to come to Tirsbæk this year and entertain myself by hunting once more before I die.” Aside from hunting, he also enjoyed music at times. Strandet contained no spinet – which was what people had back then like we have pianos today – while Pierre lived there, but there were two violins in the sitting room.
In addition to the above-mentioned items, Strandet’s sitting room also featured a sideboard in which the silverware and glasses were kept. This is where we would have found, among other things, two silver spoons engraved with the letters “P.L.” and the year 1751, which probably have their origins in Pierre’s marriage to his first wife. Also in the sideboard would have been six new silver spoons engraved with “P.L.M.S.H.” (the initials of Pierre Lacour and Margrethe Susanne Hertzberg) and “1762” and two old silver spoons “with name in succession and the year 1705”, a vegetable spoon, a sugar castor engraved with the letters “C.H.B.Ø.P.” and the year 1751, a silver tumbler, six teaspoons, sugar tongs and various other items. Glassware in the sideboard would have included two lidded goblets, one glass tankard with a pewter lid, sixteen different tapering glasses, five freemason glasses and quite a few other things.
If we turn to the other rooms at Strandet manor, what we find in the parlour is a footed chest of drawers painted blue with silver-plated fittings and a large footed and inlaid chest of drawers hiding a fairly ample supply of tablecloths, napkins, sheets, pillow covers and towels. The master bedroom contained a four-poster bedstead painted green, with four green homemade bed curtains and two canopies, in which there was a fur duvet, two featherbeds covered with orange-striped ticking, a pair of tow-yarn sheets and two woollen fustian main duvets. In the room was also a poster bed with homemade brown bedcurtains and a canopy.
The guest bedrooms (called “the southern and northern guest rooms” in the probate documents) also featured various different items of furniture, but all we will mention here are the paintings in the southern guest bedroom: twelve paintings of kings from the House of Oldenborg, two paintings of queens, and two paintings in gilded frames that reputedly portrayed Count Frijs and his countess. It is clear that Pierre preferred hunting weapons as wall décor rather than paintings, most of which were relegated to the guest rooms. However, this list of what was found in the various rooms of Strandet manor in Pierre’s time certainly only gives us a vague impression of the surroundings he and his household lived in.
So what was Pierre himself like, and what did he look like? This last question can only be answered to a certain extent by an oil painting of him that has survived the passage of time, in which he looks to have been a handsome man with noble features. And we have reason to believe that he was a respectable, devout and god-fearing man, as indicated by the few comments made about him in the above-mentioned catalogue of family members and by the speech held at his funeral.
The probate documents also provide us with some information about Pierre’s clothing. His festive outfit was without a doubt the one described as a violet suit consisting of a tailcoat, a waistcoat and trousers, the tailcoat lined with blue shagreen and the vest with white silk, a suit whose value was estimated to be 12 rix-dollars – which corresponded to two years’ pay for Pierre’s coachman. He also had a violet tailcoat with silk buttons that was estimated to be worth five rix-dollars. Other articles of clothing in his estate were a red dress coat with gilt buttons, a blue suit coat and vest with camel hair buttons, and a black suit coat and vest. When he travelled, he wore a green travel suit coat with a fox-fur lining or a grey travel suit coat made of homemade fabric and lined with fur. No fewer than eight wigs are listed in the probate documents, two of them with ringlets. Pierre apparently wore a cap either of velvet or another material on his head as well.
The family living at Strandet manor was obviously connected with many of the more well-to-do people of the area. Among other things, this can be seen from the people who were selected as godparents for their children. They might have entertained on a fairly large scale, and this – added to the fact that their family was a large one – might well have led to financial circumstances that were not among the best. Pierre certainly spent a great deal of money over
time on furniture and different kinds of kitchen equipment. This was not an uncommon way of doing things back then, with savings banks not yet in existence, but the fact that he regularly had to borrow money and the statement listing the assets and liabilities in his estate indicate that he struggled with various financial difficulties. Although he was raised to speak French and German, he apparently learned to speak Danish quite well and wrote it just as well as most Danes of his time, which is also clear from the above-mentioned letters he wrote.
Pierre’s first wife, Margrethe, died at Strandet manor on 24 February 1763, at an age of only 42 years, six months and four days. Her husband wrote the following in his catalogue of family members: “On 24 February of this past year [1763], a day of sadness for me, it pleased God to call my wife away at six in the morning and through blessed death receive her in his glorious kingdom, and, after a proper funeral service, her body was laid to rest on 3 March in Ørum church until her glorious resurrection; her soul, which I shall again one day behold with the help and power of Jesus, is already resting in the arms of our Lord.She gave her husband the gift of eight children: four sons and four daughters.”
Pierre married his second wife, Christiane Frederikke Nohr, on 26 August 1763 at Frisholt manor – today called Ormstrup – which is not far from Bjerringbro. Her father Bernt was born in Wismar, but because this town was part of the Swedish kingdom from 1648 to 1803 (except for 1675-79), Bernt was born a Swedish subject. As a young man, he travelled to Copenhagen, where he first married Benne (or Bente) Bentsdatter, who bore him a daughter, Engel Nohr, and then died somewhere around 1712. He then married his second wife, Ane Cathrine Olesdatter, who was Christiane’s mother. The Nohr couple moved to Jutland in 1716, where Bernt became a painter of the Frijsenborg Castle court. He died during the night of 23-24 July 1739. His widow married a painter named Hans Groesen on 19 December 1740, but then died seven years later, on 2 September 1747, at the age of 55.
We know little about Christiane. She was born in the court painter’s residence at Frijsenborg Castle and baptised in Hammel church on 29 April 1727, carried in the arms of Countess Frijs and with Count Frijs and Captain Bentzon as witnesses. When her father died, she stayed at home and remained there later. After her father died, the inventory of his estate showed assets totalling 136 rix-dollars*, 4 marks and 10 skilling and liabilities totalling 256 rix- dollars, 3 marks and 6 skilling, so there was nothing for the children to inherit. Probate proceedings on 2 October 1747, after Christiane’s mother’s death, revealed that the estate to be divided between her second husband and her daughter totalled 184 rix-dollars, 5 marks and 2 skilling, but the daughter’s half was tied up in the estate as long as the two lived together. Her stepfather did not have to pay her an allowance, but he did have to supply her with everything she needed and, in addition, as long as he lived he had to allow her to keep the things that belonged to her and were not registered and appraised, i.e. a large new wardrobe, a footed chest of drawers, a new bench, a new bed, four boxes, a small cabinet, a tea table, and a pyramid, along with two fustian duvets and two pillows, six pewter plates, five serving dishes, a couple of brass candlesticks, a small brass kettle, a tin-plated copper pot, a small tea table and an iron chafing dish. If she moved away from home, he would have to send her money as part of her inheritance.
An auction was held at Hinnerup Broegård farm on 3 March 1760 after Madam Kirsten Nimb’s death on 30 November 1759, and on this occasion, Christiane Nohr bought, among other things, a small sewing box with no lock on it for three marks (estimated to be worth 12 skilling), and her address was listed as Frisenvold in Ørum parish. In 1761, she carried Sergeant Rhodes’ daughter Ane Margrete to the baptismal font in Sal church, and on 1 April 1763 she carried the parish clerk’s daughter to be baptised in the same font. At that time, she most likely lived at Frisholt, working in the residence of Hans Thansen Rosborg, a son of a landed proprietor named Hans Hansen Rosborg, who at the time was well known far and wide for being very stubborn and litigating a great many court cases. As mentioned above, Pierre and Christiane Frederikke were married at Frisholt manor.
In his catalogue of family members, Pierre wrote, “On 26 August 1763 I again felt the solace of merciful God when he selected Christiane Frederica Nohr to be my wife. Our wedding was held at Friisholdt. We went home with each other on 30 August and hope, with the aid of God, to live together in peace and concord, as God can be proper and pleasant, receiving with gratitude whatever blessing God’s gracious providence will favour us with, praying to the Almighty for the patience necessary to weather any sorrow and hardship he sees fit to impose upon us.”
Christiane gave birth to Pierre’s ninth child, Bernt – named after his maternal grandfather – in June 1764, and Mrs Rosborg of Frisholt manor was Bernt’s godmother at his baptism. Pierre’s tenth and last child, Jørgen, was born a little over three years later, in October 1767. In the autumn of 1774, Pierre suffered some “partly painful attacks”. He was lucky to enjoy a few weeks of relief afterwards, but died on 14 March 1775, just twenty days after his fifty-ninth birthday.
Pierre’s estate probate documents contain details on the third parties who worked for him as a tenant farmer in the last year of his life. Doubtless the circumstances outlined in the documents were similar to his situation earlier in his tenancy as well. According to the probate files, Pierre’s family consisted of man, wife and six children living at home; the oldest child was Niels, 20 years and six months old and learning farming from his father, and the youngest was Jørgen, a boy of eight. The documents also indicated that Studiosus Curtz, who no doubt was the youngest children’s tutor, also lived at Strandet manor, along with a steward (Niels Svenningsen), a coachman (Lars Jacobsen), a cowman (Knud), a shepherd (Peder), a maid (Johanne), a cook (Dorthe) and a girl to take care of the chickens (“Little Dorthe”).
Back then, the actual work in the field and much of the other work on the farm was done by the villeins mentioned in the tenancy agreement. The pay received by some of the people working and living at Strandet was as follows: For one year, Mr Curtz received 16 rix- dollars* and the steward ten rix-dollars plus one rix-dollar and two skilling for aquavit. The coachman was paid six rix-dollars and four skilling, in addition to one rix-dollar and two skilling for aquavit. The cowman received six rix-dollars and four skilling, the shepherd (for a half-year’s work) one rix-dollar and three skilling, the maid eight rix-dollars, the cook five rix- dollars and two skilling, and the girl who took care of the chickens four rix-dollars.
As was usual at the time, Pierre’s estate was inventoried the day after his death, and meetings of creditors and beneficiaries were held on 18 and 19 April 1775, 18 November 1775, 9 May 1776, 28 April 1777, 15 and 16 July 1777, in July 1778 and on 11 December 1778, with the estate finally being wound up on 29 June 1779. The liabilities of the estate totalled 1981 rix- dollars and two marks. The estate assets added up to 2025 rix-dollars, two marks and 24 skilling, so the amount that was to be divided among the widow and the children was only 44 rix-dollars and 24 skilling – which, however, corresponded to about four years of pay for the steward. The widow received 22 rix-dollars and 12 skilling, whereas each of the five sons received three rix-dollars and 15 3/7 skilling, and each of the four daughters received one rix- dollar and 55 2/5 skilling.
After Pierre’s death, Christiane presumably remained at Strandet manor – if she was able to live there, for the farm burned down in 1775. The owner, Hans Henrik Jørgensen, allowed her to stay there free for two years (until 1 May 1777), and allowed her fuel plus grass and feed for two cows and ten sheep. She was also given about 6.5 hectares (a little over 16 acres) of rye and the same area in barley, along with a stipend of ten rix-dollars* annually and permission to cultivate part of the garden. Where she lived later on we do not know, but she spent her final days living with her youngest son in Odder, in whose home she died on 30 July 1801. The Odder parish register tells us she was 77 years old, i.e. born in 1724, which, however, must be incorrect, because, as stated above, she was baptised on 29 April 1727. She might well have been only 74 years old when she died.
