The revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove three quarters of a million of Protestants out of France.  A great number settled in London, where they established the arts of silk-weaving in Spitalfields and of fancy jewellery in St. Giles’s.  About 6,000 fled to Ireland, of whom many settled in Dublin, where they commenced the silk manufacture, and where one of them, La Touche, opened the first banking establishment.  Wherever they settled they were missionaries of industry, and examples of perseverance and success in skilled labour, as well as integrity in commerce.  Many of those exiles settled in Lisburn, and the colony was subsequently joined by Louis Crommelin, a native of Armandcourt near St. Quentin, where for several centuries his forefathers had carried on the flaxen manufacture on their own extensive possessions in the province of Picardy.  Foreseeing the storm of persecution, the family had removed to Holland, and, at the personal request of the Prince of Orange, Louis came over to take charge of the colonies of his countrymen, which had been established in different parts of Ireland.  The linen trade had flourished in this country from the earliest times.  Linen formed, down to the reign of Elizabeth, almost the only dress of the population, from the king down—­saffron-coloured, and worn in immense flowing robes, occasionally wrapped in various forms round the body.  Lord Stafford had exerted himself strenuously to improve the fabric by the forcible introduction of better looms; but little had been done in this direction till the Huguenots came and brought their own looms, suited for the manufacture of fine fabrics.  Mark Dupre, Nicholas de la Cherois, Obre, Rochet, Bouchoir, St. Clair, and others, whose ashes lie beside the Lisburn Cathedral and in the neighbouring churchyards, and many of whose descendants still survive among the gentry and manufacturers of Down and Antrim, were, with Crommelin, the chief promoters of the linen trade which has wrought such wonders in the province of Ulster.  Lord Conway granted the Lisburn colonists a site for a place of worship, which was known as the French Church, and stood on the ground now occupied by the Court-house in Castle Street.  The Government paid 60 l. a year to their first minister, Charles de la Valade, who was succeeded by his relative, the Rev. Saumarez du Bourdieu, distinguished as a divine and a historian.  His father was chaplain to the famous Schomberg, and when he fell from his horse mortally wounded the reverend gentleman carried him in his arms to the spot on which he died a short time after.  Talent was hereditary in this family, the Rev. John du Bourdieu, rector of Annahilt, was author of the Statistical Surveys of Down and Antrim, published by the Royal Dublin Society.  Referring to his ancestors he says that his father had been fifty-six years minister of the French Church in Lisburn.  Mr. M’Call states that, for some time before his death in 1812, he held the living of Lambeg, the members of the French Church having by that time merged into union with the congregation of the Lisburn Cathedral.  A similar process took place in Dublin, Portarlington, and elsewhere, the descendants of the Huguenots becoming zealous members of the Established Church.