Scipio Le Brun, of Castellane, a Provençal gentleman, and lord of the manors of Caille and of Rougon, in 1655 married a young lady called Judith le Gouche. As is common in France, and also in certain parts of Britain, this local squire was best known by the name of his estates, and was commonly termed the Sieur de Caille. Both he and his wife belonged to the strictest sect of the Calvinists, who were by no means favourites in the country. Their usual residence was at Manosque, a little village in Provence, and there five children were born to them, of whom three were sons and two were daughters. The two youngest sons died at an early age, and Isaac, the eldest, after living to the age of thirty-two, died also.
When this Isaac, who has just been mentioned, was a lad of fifteen, his mother died, and in her will constituted him her heir, at the same time bequeathing legacies to her daughters, and granting the life interest of all her property to her husband. The King having revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the Sieur de Caille quitted the kingdom with his family, which then consisted of his mother, his son Isaac, and his two daughters. The fugitives made their home in Lausanne, in Switzerland. In 1689 the French king, in the zeal of his Catholicism, issued a decree, by which he bestowed the property of the Calvinist fugitives upon their relations. The possessions of the Sieur de Caille were therefore divided between Anne de Gouche, his wife's sister, who had married M. Rolland, the _Avocat-Général_ of the Supreme Court of Dauphiné, and Madame Tardivi, a relation on his own side.
Meantime Isaac, the son of the Sieur de Caille, who was by courtesy styled the Sieur de Rougon, assiduously applied himself to his studies, and, as the result of over-work, fell into a consumption, of which he died at Vevay on the 15th of February 1696.
In March 1699, Pierre Mêge, a marine, presented himself before M. de Vauvray, the intendant of marines at Toulon, and informed him that he was the son of M. de Caille, at the same time telling the following story. He said that he had had the misfortune to be an object of aversion to his father because of his dislike to study, and because of his ill-concealed attachment to the Catholic religion; that his father had always exhibited his antipathy to him, and, while he was at Lausanne, had frequently maltreated him; that rather than submit to the paternal violence he had often run away from home, but had been brought back again by officious friends, who met him in his flight; that he had at last succeeded in making his escape, by the aid of a servant, in December 1690; that, in order to avoid recapture, and to satisfy his own desire to become a member of the Catholic Church, he had formed the design of returning into Provence; that on his homeward way he had been stopped by the Savoyard troops, who compelled him to enlist in their ranks; and that he had subsequently been captured by some French soldiers. He added that M. de Catinat, who commanded this part of the French army, and to whom he had presented himself as the son of M. de Caille, had given him a free pass; that he had arrived at Nice, and had enlisted in the Provençal militia; and that having been on duty one day at the residence of the governor, he had seen a silver goblet carried past him which bore arms of his family, and which he recognised as a portion of the plate which his father had sold in order to procure the means to fly into Switzerland. The sight of this vessel stirred up old recollections, and he burst into such a violent paroxysm of grief that the attention of his comrades was attracted, and they demanded the cause of his tears, whereupon he told them his story, and pointed out the same arms impressed on his _cachet_. This tale came to the ears of the Chevalier de la Fare, who then commanded at Nice, and after a hasty investigation he treated his subordinate with excessive courtesy, evidently believing him to be the man whom he represented himself to be.