Note 454 — Chapter VII
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Footnote 454:
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"Laurens-Cornille Baldran, sieur de Graff, lieutenant du roi en l'isle de Saint Domingue, capitaine de frégate légère, chevalier de Saint Louis"—so he was styled after entering the service of the French king (Vaissière, op cit., p. 70, note). According to Charlevoix he was a native of Holland, became a gunner in the Spanish navy, and for his skill and bravery was advanced to the post of commander of a vessel. He was sent to American waters, captured by the buccaneers, and joined their ranks. Such was the terror inspired by his name throughout all the Spanish coasts that in the public prayers in the churches Heaven was invoked to shield the inhabitants from his fury. Divorced from his first wife, whom he had married at Teneriffe in 1674, he was married again in March 1693 to a Norman or Breton woman named Marie-Anne Dieu-le-veult, the widow of one of the first inhabitants of Tortuga (ibid.). The story goes that Marie-Anne, thinking one day that she had been grievously insulted by Laurens, went in search of the buccaneer, pistol in hand, to demand an apology for the outrage. De Graff, judging this Amazon to be worthy of him, turned about and married her (Ducéré, op. cit., p. 113, note). In October 1698 Laurens de Graff, in company with Iberville, sailed from Rochefort with two ships, and in Mobile and at the mouths of the Mississippi laid the foundations of Louisiana (Duro, op. cit., v. p. 306). De Graff died in May 1704. Cf. also Bibl. Nat., Nouv. Acq., 9325 f. 311.