Crossing the Atlantic
Crossing the Atlantic
Before the separation of 1679, before the court case of 1697, there was a baptism in Rouen and a notary's study in Québec. Between them lie thirty years and an ocean — and far fewer records than the story has sometimes been given.
Louise Senécal never signed a document. Everything known about her was written down by someone else: a priest in Rouen, a notary in Québec, a census taker, a court clerk. This part of her story follows those records from her birth to her wedding, and says plainly where they stop.
Rouen
Louise Senécal was baptised on 15 February 1637 in the parish of Saint-Éloi in Rouen, the daughter of Pierre Senécal and Françoise Campion. According to the Fichier Origine, her parents had married at Saint-Éloi on 5 June 1632, after banns read in the neighbouring parish of Saint-Cande-le-Vieil.
She had an older brother, François, baptised in February 1636, and a younger brother, Pierre, baptised in April 1640, who was buried in October 1642. Her mother died on 27 December 1645 and was buried at Saint-Éloi the next day. Louise was eight.
Louise Senécal — baptised 15 February 1637, Saint-Éloi, Rouen; daughter of Pierre Senécal and Françoise Campion; married 6 October 1667, Notre-Dame-de-Québec, Pierre Guilbault.
PRDH-IGD, individual no. 30657; Fichier Origine, no. 17After her mother's burial, the records gathered for this study are silent for twenty-two years. No marriage, no contract, no later entry naming Louise has yet been found in Rouen. That is not the same as proof that none exists: the registers of Saint-Éloi and the notarial records of Rouen for her adult years have not yet been searched for her.
Whether her father was living, where and how she supported herself, and how she came to be chosen for New France — the records gathered so far do not say, and this story does not guess.
The Voyage
Between 1663 and 1673 the French Crown sent several hundred young women to New France at royal expense, to marry the colony's settlers and soldiers. They have come to be called the Filles du Roi, the King's Daughters. Louise Senécal is counted among them in the two standard compilations — by Yves Landry and by Silvio Dumas.
Accounts of the Filles du Roi place Louise among the women who sailed in 1667 aboard the Saint-Louis de Dieppe, which reached Québec late that September. The secondary literature also describes the ship's departure from Dieppe, a stop at La Rochelle, the numbers aboard, the hardships of the passage, and an acte de protestation against conditions on board signed at Dieppe by a group of the young women.
Those accounts do not all agree — on the dates, on how many passengers the ship carried, or on who they were — and none of those details has yet been traced, for this study, to a document that names Louise Senécal. Until they are, they belong to the history of the Filles du Roi in general rather than to her story in particular.
What is certain is where the voyage ended. By the last day of September 1667, Louise Senécal was in Québec, standing in a notary's study with the man she would marry.
The Man She Married
Pierre Guilbault came from Aunis, the country around La Rochelle. The acts that name his parish do not agree: two say Saint-Xandre, a village just outside the town, and two say Saint-Barthélemy, inside it. His parents were François Guilbault and Marie Pignon, and by 1667 both were dead. The ages set down for him over the years put his birth between about 1641 and 1647.
By July 1667 he was already a habitant of Charlesbourg, in the Jesuits' seigneury behind Québec.
Louise was not the first woman he had contracted to marry. On 8 November 1665, before the notary Michel Fillion, he had signed — or rather, declared he could not sign — a marriage contract with Marie Le Moyne, in the house of the widow of a former commandant of the colony. On 10 July 1667, before Gilles Rageot, he had contracted to marry Marie Lorteau, in the presence of the governor, Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle, and the intendant, Jean Talon. Neither contract was followed by a marriage. Why, neither document says.
One man appears beside Pierre again and again in these years. Adrien Michelon was present at the Le Moyne contract in 1665 and the Lorteau contract in July 1667 — and in September he would sign Louise's.
The Contract
30 September 1667. Québec.
In the study of the royal notary Pierre Duquet, the clerk wrote out the parties: Pierre Guillebault, fils de deffuncts François Guillebault et Marie Pignonne… natif de St Sandre proche La Rochelle, and Louise Senegal, fille de Pierre Senegal et — he began another name, struck it, and wrote Françoise above — La Campionne… natifve de la ville de Rouen, paroisse St Eloy.
Then he wrote lesquelles parties et ez la présence de — "the said parties, and in the presence of" — and left the rest of the space empty. No kin of either party were ever named. At the foot of the contract, beside the witnesses, R. Parent and Adrien Michelon signed anyway.
The Terms
The contract followed the Coutume de Paris: community of all goods; each party's earlier debts their own; and, if there were no children, a mutual gift of everything to the one who survived. Pierre settled on Louise a douaire préfix of 200 livres tournois — the provision she would have as his widow. And the notary recorded that Louise brought 100 livres of her own into the community. Where that money came from, the contract does not say.
The witnesses were Nicolas Durand and Jacques Guiet. Of the couple, the notary wrote: ont déclaré ne sçavoir escrire ny signer. A single cross stands beneath.
The Wedding
6 October 1667. Notre-Dame-de-Québec.
Six days after the contract, Henri de Bernières, curé of Notre-Dame-de-Québec, married them. The banns had been published twice; the bishop had dispensed the third. The priest entered Pierre as the son of François and Marie Pignon of Saint-Barthélemy in La Rochelle, and Louise as the daughter of Pierre and Françoise Campion of Saint-Éloi in Rouen. The witnesses were Pierre Chamarre and Pierre Corier, habitants of the parish. Pierre Chamarre had been in the room for Pierre's first contract, two years before.
The register gives no ages and records no signatures.
Twenty-Four, or Thirty?
The census of 1667 lists the new household at the Côte de Notre-Dame-des-Anges: Pierre Guillebaud, 26; Louise Senécal, 24, with two arpents under cultivation.
By her baptism, Louise was thirty. Fourteen years later the census of 1681 would give her age as forty, when she was forty-four. Both enumerations run her young, by six years and then by four. Who gave the census taker those ages is not recorded, so the discrepancy cannot fairly be laid at Louise's door.
What Came Next
Louise and Pierre settled at Charlesbourg and had four children, all baptised at Notre-Dame-de-Québec: Marie in 1668, Joseph Olivier in 1672, Étienne in 1675 and Elisabeth in 1679.
At Elisabeth's baptism in December 1679, the priest recorded that Louise was separated from her husband — duquel elle est séparée. At the census of 1681 they were enumerated in one household at la Petite Auvergne, with thirty arpents under cultivation, eight cattle, two horses and one gun.
Louise died after that census and before 13 April 1693, when a notary first called Pierre her widower. Her burial has not been found. Four years later her children took Pierre before the seigneurial court of Notre-Dame-des-Anges over the estate she had left, and a judge wrote down a word for what stood between them: aversion.
Continue the story in Part 2: The Hidden Years.
The court case over her estate is told in Part 3: The Aversion.
Sources
Primary Sources
- Marriage contract: Pierre Guillebault and Louise Sénécal, 30 September 1667, greffe of Pierre Duquet de la Chesnaye. Archives nationales à Québec, Fonds Cour supérieure, District judiciaire de Québec, Greffes de notaires (03Q,CN301,S95).
- Earlier marriage contracts of Pierre Guilbault: with Marie Le Moyne, 8 November 1665, greffe of Michel Fillion; with Marie Lorteau, 10 July 1667, greffe of Gilles Rageot. Archives nationales à Québec.
- Marriage register: Pierre Guilbaut and Louise Senecal, 6 October 1667, Notre-Dame-de-Québec.
- 1667 Census of New France: Pierre Guillebaud and Louise Senécal household. Library and Archives Canada, Recensement du Canada, 1667, MG1-G1, volume 460, microfilm C-2477.
- 1681 Census of New France: Pierre Guilbault household, Petite Auvergne. Library and Archives Canada.
- Baptism of Elisabeth Guilbault, 17 December 1679, Notre-Dame-de-Québec.
- Clôture of the inventory, 1 February 1697, bailliage of Notre-Dame-des-Anges. Archives nationales à Québec, Collection Pièces judiciaires et notariales (03Q,TL5,D2769-113).
Compiled and Secondary Sources
- PRDH-IGD, Programme de recherche en démographie historique, Université de Montréal — individual no. 30657 (Louise Senécal).
- Fichier Origine, no. 17 — the Rouen baptisms, marriage and burials of the Senécal family, as compiled in Denis Beauregard, Genealogy of the French in North America, family 4356.
- Landry, Yves. Orphelines en France, pionnières au Canada: les Filles du roi au XVIIe siècle — Louise Senécal, no. 371.
- Dumas, Silvio. Les Filles du roi en Nouvelle-France — Louise Senécal, no. 334.
- Gagné, Peter J. King's Daughters and Founding Mothers: The Filles du Roi, 1663–1673, Volume 2. Pawtucket, RI: Quintin Publications, 2001.
- Runyan, Aimie Kathleen. "Daughters of the King and Founders of a Nation: Les Filles du Roi in New France." Master's thesis, University of North Texas, 2010.
Denis Beauregard's Genealogy of the French in North America estimates Louise Senécal's descendants at between 210,000 and 630,000 Quebecers. The full sources for her story, and what has not yet been found, are set out in the case study methodology.
This is part of an ongoing series documenting the lives of Filles du Roi through primary sources. If you're researching your own Fille du Roi ancestor and have questions about accessing 17th-century Quebec records, reach out — I'm happy to help.
Document Gallery
The records behind the narrative above. Click any image to view the original at full resolution.
Crossing the Atlantic
From Rouen to New France — Louise's journey begins.
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