Very little is known about the Viard family. Despite many years of posting the name in the GRD and other name lists, we have never had any responses.
Prior to marrying Jean Baptiste Jaunay, Marie Louise Viard was married to Louis Brunet, an employee of the His Serene Highness the Prince of Conde in the position of porter or baggage carrier for the childen of the Prince of Conde and subsequently a warden or keeper of the buildings (Portefoix Des Enfants De SAS Msr Le Prince De Cond� and batimeus SAS Prince de Cond�). The Viards, like the Jaunays and Brunets, would seem to have worked in the Conde family retinue for quite a long time.
As Madame Brunet, Marie Louise had a son named Jean Louis Philogène Brunet who in his adult life was known simply as Louis Brunet. This man was François Marie Jaunay's half brother and was instrumental in François going to London.
Jean Louis Philogène was born on 11 Apr 1758 on the rue de Condé in the parish of St Sulpice, Paris and baptised the same day. Members of the Conde retinue feature at the baptism ceremony with the witnesses being Jean Travers chef d�office of his Serene Highnessand Louise Charlotte Genevi�ve Philogene Cecile daughter of the late Joseph Cecile, controller of the Bouche of his Serene Highness. Like his father, who died while he was a young boy, Louis was to join the household of the Louis Joseph de Bourbon Prince de Condé and work himself up to a high position of trust. Shortly after his father's death his mother remarried Jean Baptiste Jaunay who was also in the employ of the Prince.
The Jaunays and Brunets lived in very turbulent times in France. The general populace was becoming quite discontented with the king and his foreign queen who looked down on the French with disdain. This antagonism was soon to degenerate into the French Revolution and the beginning of the end of the monarchy in France. The Prince de Condé supported the royalist side and became the mouth-piece for royalist sympathies. With the guillotine working overtime, this campaign had to be conducted from beyond the French borders. The close association with the Prince enjoyed by the Jaunay/Brunet family forced the family to leave the country!
Brunet profited from his support of the Prince in exile and accumulated enough funds to establish his hotel in London. Initially François Jaunay went his own way, firstly as a partner with Richard Mandry at the Sablonière Hôtel in Leicester Square and then as a free-lance cook while he lived at 33 Conduit Street. When his half brother chose to retire in 1815, François, now married to Ann Howell with two young daughters, was offered the successful business which he gladly took-over. Louis returned to his home town, Chantilly, with the Condés.