[These particulars are obtained from an interesting letter from Balthasar St. Michel to Pepys, dated “Deal, Feb. 8, 1673-4,” and printed in “Life, Journals, and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys,” 1841, vol. i., pp. 146-53.]

Alexander St. Michel kept up his character for fecklessness through life, and took out patents for curing smoking chimneys, purifying water, and moulding bricks.  In 1667 he petitioned the king, asserting that he had discovered King Solomon’s gold and silver mines, and the Diary of the same date contains a curious commentary upon these visions of wealth:—­

     “March 29, 1667. 4s. a week which his (Balty St. Michel’s) father
     receives of the French church is all the subsistence his father and
     mother have, and about; L20 a year maintains them.”

As already noted, Pepys was married on December 1st, 1655.  This date is given on the authority of the Registers of St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster,

[The late Mr. T. C. Noble kindly communicated to me a copy of the original marriage certificate, which is as follows:  “Samuell Peps of this parish Gent. & Elizabeth De Snt.  Michell of Martins in the fields, Spinster.  Published October 19tn, 22nd, 29th 1655, and were married by Richard Sherwin Esqr one of the justices of the Peace of the Cittie and Lyberties of Westm.  December 1st. (Signed) Ri.  Sherwin.”]

but strangely enough Pepys himself supposed his wedding day to have been October 10th.  Lord Braybrooke remarks on this,

     “It is notorious that the registers in those times were very ill
     kept, of which we have here a striking instance . . . .  Surely a
     man who kept a diary could not have made such a blunder.”

What is even more strange than Pepys’s conviction that he was married on October 10th is Mrs. Pepys’s agreement with him:  On October 10th, 1666, we read,

     “So home to supper, and to bed, it being my wedding night, but how
     many years I cannot tell; but my wife says ten.”

Here Mrs. Pepys was wrong, as it was eleven years; so she may have been wrong in the day also.  In spite of the high authority of Mr. and Mrs. Pepys on a question so interesting to them both, we must accept the register as conclusive on this point until further evidence of its incorrectness is forthcoming.

Sir Edward Montage (afterwards Earl of Sandwich), who was Pepys’s first cousin one remove (Pepys’s grandfather and Montage’s mother being brother and sister), was a true friend to his poor kinsman, and he at once held out a helping hand to the imprudent couple, allowing them to live in his house.  John Pepys does not appear to have been in sufficiently good circumstances to pay for the education of his son, and it seems probable that Samuel went to the university under his influential cousin’s patronage.  At all events he owed his success in life primarily to Montage, to whom he appears to have acted as a sort of agent.