Françoise Baiselat: Wife of a Carignan-Salières
Françoise Baiselat
The Enamel Maker's Daughter
Françoise Baiselat was born about 1646 in the Rue Saint-Sauveur, in the parish of the same name in Paris—the daughter of Benjamin Baiselat, a master enamel maker, and Claude Prou. She grew up in one of the most crowded quarters of the French capital, a dense network of narrow streets near the ancient church of Saint-Sauveur along the Rue Saint-Denis.
After her father's death, the young woman of about twenty-two left everything she knew. In 1668, Françoise departed for Canada as a Fille du roi—one of the "King's Daughters" sponsored by Louis XIV to populate New France. She brought with her goods valued at an estimated 300 livres for her dowry: evidence both of her father's modest prosperity and of her determination to begin a new life on her own terms.
What followed was a life shaped by the rhythms of the colony—three marriages, twelve children across two families, and a quarter century at Pointe-aux-Trembles on Montreal Island. Two of her husbands were soldiers of the Carignan-Salières Regiment, the military force that transformed New France from a vulnerable outpost into a permanent settlement. Françoise herself died in childbirth in 1694 at about age forty-eight, leaving behind a legacy woven into the fabric of French Canada. Today, between 1.1 and 1.5 million Quebecers descend from Pierre Marsan dit Lapierre through Françoise alone, and between 1.2 and 1.7 million through her first husband Laurent Cambin's line.
Origins: Rue Saint-Sauveur, Paris
In the 1640s, the Rue Saint-Sauveur was a bustling and somewhat notorious street in the heart of Paris. Part of the neighborhoods surrounding the Cour des Miracles, it was characterized by dense, labyrinthine narrow streets where artisans, tradespeople, and the city's poorest residents lived in close quarters. The Church of Saint-Sauveur, a prominent religious landmark at the corner of Rue Saint-Sauveur and Rue Saint-Denis, gave the parish its name.
Into this world Françoise was born—the daughter of a skilled craftsman. Benjamin Baiselat was a maître émailleur, a master enamel maker, part of the artisan class that formed the productive backbone of Parisian commercial life. Her mother, Claude Prou, appears in the records only through her children's sacramental documents. The surname itself appears in numerous variations across the records: Baiselat, Baisela, Bizelan, Baisla, Baiselot, and Beselat—a common phenomenon in an era when spelling followed pronunciation rather than standardization.
The PRDH database records Françoise's birth as "vers 1651" based on reconstructed estimates, while the 1681 census of New France lists her age as 35—placing her birth about 1646. Yves Landry, in his authoritative study of the Filles du roi, uses the census-derived date of approximately 1646. The Filles du Roi biographical dictionary similarly records her birth about 1646 in the Rue Saint-Sauveur.
When Benjamin died—the date is unrecorded—Françoise found herself without the economic protection that a father's household provided. In 17th-century Paris, an unmarried woman of the artisan class without a living father faced sharply limited options. The Filles du roi program, launched by Louis XIV in 1663 to address the colony's severe shortage of marriageable women, offered an alternative: passage to New France, a modest royal dowry, and the near-certainty of marriage upon arrival.
1668: Crossing the Atlantic
Françoise left for Canada in 1668 at about age twenty-two, carrying goods worth an estimated 300 livres for her dowry. This sum—substantial for an artisan's daughter—suggests that either Benjamin's estate or the Crown's support provided her with a meaningful foundation for her new life.
The Filles du roi who sailed in 1668 were part of the program's peak years. Between 1663 and 1673, approximately 770 women made the crossing under royal sponsorship, transforming the demographic balance of New France. These were not aristocrats—they were primarily daughters of artisans, minor officials, and laborers from the Paris region and northwestern France. What they shared was the willingness to leave everything familiar and cross an ocean to a colony that, even after sixty years of settlement, remained raw, cold, and often dangerous.
Upon arrival at Québec, Françoise would have been received by religious authorities—likely the Ursulines or the sisters of the Hôtel-Dieu—who provided temporary housing for the Filles du roi while marriages were arranged. The process moved quickly. Within weeks, most women were matched with prospective husbands. In Françoise's case, the match came with a soldier.
First Marriage: Laurent Cambin dit Larivière
On 16 August 1668, Françoise married Laurent Cambin dit Larivière at Notre-Dame de Québec. She had signed the marriage contract two days earlier, on 14 August, before notary Lecomte—but her husband could not sign his name. The marriage record identifies Laurent's origins in the parish of Saint-Agricol in Avignon, in the Comtat-Venaissin, the son of master woodworker Denis Cambin and his second wife, Pierrette Caillot (also spelled Caillaud).
Laurent Cambin was born 1 January 1636 and baptized the following day at the parish of Saint-Agricol in Avignon, the son of a master woodworker. His godparents were Laurent Léopard, innkeeper of the Trois Couronnes, and Guillemette Giraud, wife of Jean du Trueil, innkeeper of the Paon—suggesting a family embedded in Avignon's commercial networks.
Laurent had come to Canada in September 1665 as a sergeant with the Dugué Company of the Carignan-Salières Regiment. This elite military force, originally raised to fight the Ottoman Empire in Hungary, had been redirected to New France to subdue the Iroquois Confederacy. After completing his military service, Laurent chose to remain in the colony—as did many soldiers who saw opportunity in the vast, undeveloped territory.
A Brief Marriage
Laurent and Françoise settled at Montréal, where their only child, Marie-Françoise, was baptized on 13 June 1669 at Notre-Dame de Montréal. The baptism record identifies Laurent as "sergent de la compagnie de M. Duguey" and names Séraphin de la Valterie, a lieutenant in the Regiment de l'Estrade, and Marie Moyen, wife of Captain Sidrac Dugué of the Regiment de Chambly, as godparents—testimony to the military social networks that shaped colonial life.
Less than a year after their daughter's baptism, Laurent Cambin dit Larivière died on 5 May 1670 at the hospital in Montréal. He was buried the same day. He was thirty-four years old. Françoise, now a widow with an infant daughter, had been married barely two years.
Second Marriage: Pierre Marsan dit Lapierre
Widowhood in New France was rarely permanent. The colony's desperate need for intact households, combined with the economic vulnerability of women without husbands, meant that remarriage typically followed within months. On 22 September 1670—less than five months after Laurent's death—Françoise married Pierre Marsan dit Lapierre at Notre-Dame de Québec.
Pierre Marsan dit Lapierre: Soldier of the Chambly Company
Pierre Marsan (also written Mersan or Merçan) was born about 1626 in the parish of Saint-Nicolas in Rouen, Normandy, the son of the late Jean Marsan and the late Jacqueline de Vincent. Like Laurent before him, Pierre had come to New France as a soldier of the Carignan-Salières Regiment—but in a different company, the Compagnie de Chambly.
Pierre had arrived in the colony aboard the Vieux Siméon de Dunkerdam, which departed La Rochelle on 19 April 1665 and reached Québec on 19 June 1665. All the soldiers aboard were reported in good health upon arrival. On 24 August 1665, he was confirmed at Québec, his age recorded as thirty years—consistent with a birth date around 1635, though the 1681 census would later record him as age fifty-five, suggesting a birth closer to 1626.
Pierre served as a sergeant in the Chambly company, a rank that indicates both competence and authority. Some sources refer to him as Pierre-François Marsan; however, the name "François" does not appear on any original record for him and appears to derive from later genealogical compilations. The marriage record at Notre-Dame de Québec identifies him simply as "Pierre Mercan."
The marriage was celebrated by Henri de Bernières—the same priest who had married Françoise to Laurent two years earlier—in the presence of Charles Palentin dit Lapointe, Léonard Treny dit Laverdure, and Étienne Denevers dit Brantigny. Françoise was identified as the widow of the late Laurent Cambin dit Larivière, resident of Montréal. The Bishop of Pétrée had granted a dispensation from two of the three required banns.
After his discharge from the regiment, Pierre and Françoise established their household at Pointe-aux-Trembles on Montreal Island—the community where they would spend the rest of their lives together.
Family Life at Pointe-aux-Trembles: 1670–1691
Over the next twenty-one years, Françoise and Pierre raised a large family in the growing settlement of Pointe-aux-Trembles. Together they had ten children, baptized between 1671 and 1691. Of these, only two died in infancy—a survival rate that reflects both good fortune and the relative stability of the Marsan household. Including Marie-Françoise Cambin from her first marriage, Françoise was mother to eleven children.
| Child | Baptism | Marriage / Death |
|---|---|---|
| Marie-Françoise Cambin | 13 June 1669, Montréal (ND) | 19 July 1688, m. Antoine Galipeau (PAT) |
| Françoise Mersan | 5 October 1671, Montréal (ND) | 26 November 1685, m. Gilles Marin (PAT) |
| Marie Renée Mersan | 14 May 1674, Montréal (ND) | 23 November 1693, m. Jean Baptiste Dufresne (PAT); rem. 8 August 1707, Joseph Larchevesque (PAT) |
| Antoinette Mersan | 18 October 1676, PAT | — |
| Anne Mersan | ~1678 (sép. 1735), PAT | 19 April 1700, m. Pierre Biroleau dit Lafleur (PAT) |
| Pierre Mersan | 27 November 1678, PAT | Died 29 November 1678, aged 8 days (PAT) |
| Jeanne Mersan Direct Ancestor | 2 January 1680, PAT | 29 May 1702, m. Pierre Cadieux (PAT) • 8th great-grandmother |
| François Mersan | 13 March 1683, PAT | 14 February 1707, m. Élisabeth Desroches (PAT) |
| Jean Mersan | 11 March 1685, PAT | 16 October 1709, m. Marie Anne Denis de Fronsac, Québec (ND) |
| Marie Catherine Mersan | 15 April 1687, PAT | Buried 24 October 1687, aged 6 months (PAT) |
| Joseph Mersan | 19 March 1689, PAT | 23 November 1711, m. Marie Foran (PAT) |
| Catherine Mersan | 28 April 1691, PAT | Buried 6 June 1691, aged 1 month (PAT) |
The family table reveals a pattern common to colonial life: children arriving every one to two years, named for saints, for family, and sometimes for each other when earlier children died. Pierre and Catherine, who each died in infancy, bear witness to the fragility of life even in a household that was, by the standards of New France, prospering.
Baptism, marriage, and burial records have been located for each child listed above. Selected records appear in the Document Gallery below; the complete set is maintained in the researcher's project files.
A Note on Names: Françoise's first daughter from her marriage with Laurent Cambin, Marie-Françoise, carries both her mother's name and the feminine form of her father's given name. In the Marsan family, the eldest daughter was also named Françoise—a naming pattern that honored the mother. The surname itself shifted between Marsan and Mersan in the parish registers, following the inconsistent spelling conventions of the era.
The 1681 Census
The census of 1681 provides a snapshot of the Marsan household at Pointe-aux-Trembles, part of the Ville de Montréal enumeration. The entry, recorded under the phonetic spelling "Mexent," captures the family at a moment of modest rural prosperity:
1681 Census — Ville de Montréal
- Pierre Mexent, 55
- Françoise Biselon, sa femme, 35
- Marie, 12 (Marie-Françoise Cambin)
- Françoise, 10
- Madeleine, 5 (likely Renée)
- Jeanne, 2
- 3 bêtes à cornes (cattle)
- 6 arpents en valeur (cleared land)
What the Census Tells Us
- Pierre's age (55) places his birth at ~1626
- Françoise's age (35) places her birth at ~1646
- Marie-Françoise Cambin included in the household
- "Madeleine" likely misrecorded for Renée
- 6 arpents (~5 acres) under cultivation
- 3 head of cattle—a solid beginning
- Antoinette (age 5) absent—possibly with relatives
The census reveals that Pierre, at roughly fifty-five, was considerably older than his wife—a common pattern in colonial marriages where experienced settlers married younger Filles du roi. The designation of six arpents under cultivation and three head of cattle represents the household of a habitant who had transitioned from soldier to farmer, working the land grant that was the standard reward for soldiers who remained in the colony.
Marie-Françoise Cambin, Françoise's daughter from her first marriage, is enumerated as part of the Marsan household at age twelve—evidence that Pierre had taken on the role of stepfather alongside his own growing family.
Pointe-aux-Trembles: A Settlement Takes Root
The community where Françoise and Pierre raised their family was one of the oldest settlements on Montreal Island. Founded in 1674, the parish of Saint-Enfant-Jésus-de-la-Pointe-aux-Trembles served as both a defensive outpost and an agricultural hub near the eastern tip of the island, where the St. Lawrence River meets the Rivière des Prairies.
The original land concessions had been granted by the Sulpician priests—the seigneurs of the Island of Montreal—starting in 1669, when M. Queylus granted sixty arpents to Jean Oury dit Lamarche with the obligation to build a windmill and a chapel. By 1671, the Sulpicians had issued fifty land concessions, laid out as the characteristic "ribbon farms" of New France: narrow strips of land ensuring every habitant had direct access to the river for transportation and water. A wooden fort was erected around 1675 to protect the settlement from Iroquois attacks.
This was the world Pierre and Françoise inhabited for twenty-four years. The parish registers of Saint-Enfant-Jésus, which began as early as 1674, recorded the baptisms of their children, the marriages of their neighbors, and the burials of those who did not survive the harsh colonial winters. By the 1680s, the settlement had grown to include a convent founded by Marguerite Bourgeoys's Congrégation de Notre-Dame in 1690, and the community served as a vital stop on the Chemin du Roy—the King's Road between Montreal and Quebec City.
The habitants of Pointe-aux-Trembles, like the Marsans, were required to pay cens and rent to the Sulpicians, often in the form of money or farm products like wheat. In return, they held concessions that could be passed to their children—the foundation of a new kind of stability for families who had crossed an ocean to find it.
Today, the area of Pointe-aux-Trembles forms part of the Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles borough of Montreal. The old church and presbytery, designated a heritage site, are being repurposed into a cultural, community, and recreation destination—a new chapter for one of Montreal Island's founding villages.
The Death of Pierre Marsan dit Lapierre
Pierre Marsan dit Lapierre died between 6 June 1691 and early January 1693. The date is bracketed by two documents: the burial record of his youngest daughter Catherine on 6 June 1691, in which Pierre is not listed as deceased, and the date of Françoise's third marriage on 4 January 1693. A concession act dated 4 March 1693, naming "Françoise Bizelan, veuve de Pierre Marsan dit Lapierre," confirms his death definitively.
No burial record for Pierre has been found in the parish registers of Pointe-aux-Trembles—a gap in the record that is frustrating but not unusual for the period. What the surviving documents do reveal is the administrative aftermath of his death:
Pierre left behind Françoise, now about forty-seven years old, with at least six surviving children still in her care—the youngest, Joseph, barely two years old. Once again, Françoise faced the prospect of managing a household alone in the colony.
Third Marriage and Death: 1693–1694
On 4 January 1693, Françoise married for the third time. Her new husband was André Corbeil dit Tranchemontagne, another former soldier of the Carignan-Salières Regiment—this time from the Crisafy Company. André was baptized on 28 April 1666 in the parish of Saint-Porchaire, diocese of Saintes, in Saintonge (now Charente-Maritime). The PRDH marriage record carries a notable annotation: "The wife is said 'widow in her third marriage of Pierre Mercan'"—confirmation that the curé carefully distinguished Françoise's marital history.
That all three of Françoise's husbands were connected to the Carignan-Salières Regiment speaks to the social fabric of Pointe-aux-Trembles, a community shaped by the military settlement policy. Laurent Cambin served in the Dugué Company, Pierre Marsan in the Chambly Company, and André Corbeil in the Crisafy Company—three different companies of the same regiment whose veterans formed the core population of the Montreal Island settlements.
Françoise and André remained at Pointe-aux-Trembles. Their only child, a son named François, was baptized on 30 May 1694. But the birth proved fatal. Françoise Baiselat died in childbirth and was buried the same day at the parish of Saint-Enfant-Jésus in Pointe-aux-Trembles. She was approximately forty-eight years old.
André Corbeil dit Tranchemontagne remarried on 14 February 1695, to Marie Charlotte Poudret Lavigne at Pointe-aux-Trembles, with whom he had further children. He lived until 13 October 1740, buried at Rivière-des-Prairies (St-Joseph)—nearly half a century longer than the wife he had lost in childbirth.
Historical Significance
Françoise Baiselat's life traces the arc that defined a generation of women in New France: departure from France, rapid marriage, relentless childbearing, and an early death. In twenty-six years in the colony, she bore twelve children to three husbands, raised a blended family at Pointe-aux-Trembles, and helped establish one of the foundational households of Montreal Island.
Her surviving children from the Marsan marriage—Françoise, Marie Renée, Antoinette (Anne), Jeanne, François, Jean, and Joseph—married into families across the Montreal region: the Marins, Dufresnes, Biroleaus, Cadieus, Desroches, Denis de Fronsacs, and Forans. Marie-Françoise Cambin, her daughter from her first marriage, married Antoine Galipeau in 1688, extending the family network further still.
Daughter Jeanne Marsan: The Direct Ancestor
The line of descent traced in this profile runs through Françoise's daughter Jeanne Marsan, born 2 January 1680 at Pointe-aux-Trembles—the fifth of Pierre and Françoise's ten children together. On 29 May 1702, Jeanne married Pierre Cadieux, son of Jean Baptiste Cadieux and Marie Valade, at the parish of Saint-Enfant-Jésus. The marriage record names Pierre Mersan and Françoise Bizela as the bride's parents—both deceased by that date.
Jeanne's baptism record, preserved in the registers of Saint-Enfant-Jésus, identifies Pierre Mersan as "ancien sergent du Régiment de Carignan"—a former sergeant of the Carignan Regiment. The godfather was Pierre Perthuis Lalime; the godmother, Jeanne Colet, wife of Gregoire Simon. The priest François Seguenot officiated—the same curé who would record Françoise's burial fourteen years later.
Jeanne lived to seventy-five years—a remarkably long life by colonial standards—dying on 28 December 1755 and buried two days later at Rivière-des-Prairies. Through her marriage to Pierre Cadieux, the Marsan line continued through the Cadieux, Blais, Poulin Souliere, and Souliere families to the present day.
Line of Descent: The Souliere Line
9th great-grandmother ▸ Jeanne Marsan Mercan
8th ggm • 1680–1755 ▸ Marie Marguerite Cadieux
7th ggm • 1706–1757 ▸ Joseph Blais
6th ggf • 1736–1813 ▸ Marie Celeste Blais
5th ggm • 1759–1823 ▸ Marie Elisabeth Poulin Souliere
4th ggm • 1781–1852 ▸ Janvier Souliere Sr
1806–1889 ▸ Marie Marguerite Louise Souliere
1854–1945 ▸ Elisabeth Emma Guilbault Gilbert
1883–1970
By the Numbers
The Généalogie des Français d'Amérique du Nord (GFNA) database documents the scale of this legacy: Pierre Marsan dit Lapierre's descendants span twelve generations, with between 1,120,000 and 1,540,000 Quebecers connected through 3,823 documented marriages. Through Françoise's maternal line, her predicted mtDNA haplogroup is U5a1g1.
The woman who left the Rue Saint-Sauveur in Paris with 300 livres worth of goods became, through her children and their children's children, one of the founding mothers of French Canada. She is buried at Pointe-aux-Trembles, in the parish of Saint-Enfant-Jésus—the same community where she had lived for nearly a quarter century, the same church where her children were baptized and her husbands were mourned.
Document Gallery
Sources and Further Reading
Françoise Baiselat's story has been reconstructed from parish registers, notarial records, and the 1681 colonial census, supplemented by published biographical dictionaries of the Filles du roi and the soldiers of the Carignan-Salières Regiment. Key sources include:
- Peter J. Gagné, King's Daughters and Founding Mothers: The Filles du Roi, 1663–1673 — Biographical entry for Françoise Baiselat, including details of all three marriages and children.
- Yves Landry, Orphelines en France, pionnières au Canada: Les Filles du roi au XVIIe siècle (revised edition 2013) — The authoritative scholarly study of the Filles du roi program, with demographic and genealogical data.
- PRDH (Programme de recherche en démographie historique) — Individual and family records for Françoise Bizelan (#11941), Laurent Cambin, and Pierre Marsan dit Lapierre (#1596).
- GFNA (Généalogie des Français d'Amérique du Nord) — Denis Beauregard's database documenting the Bizelan-Baiselat, Marsan, and Cambin families, including descendant statistics and DNA signatures.
- Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire Généalogique des Familles Canadiennes (1887, 7 volumes) — Foundational reference for the Marsan, Cambin, and Baiselat families.
- Notre-Dame de Québec and Notre-Dame de Montréal Parish Registers — Original marriage, baptism, and burial records via FamilySearch and Généalogie Québec.
- Pointe-aux-Trembles (St-Enfant-Jésus) Parish Registers — Baptisms, marriages, and burials 1674–1694.
- BAnQ Notarial Acts Index — Concession records (Notaire Antoine Adhémar, 4 March 1693) and compromise between heirs (Notaire Bénigne Basset, 27 September 1694).
- Thomas J. Laforest, Our French-Canadian Ancestors, vol. 9 (1989), chapter 16, pp. 171–179 — Biographical sketch of Pierre Marsan dit Lapierre.
- Census of New France, 1681 — Benjamin Sulte transcription via Wikisource.
Research Note: This profile documents Françoise Baiselat as part of the Souliere Line's Founding Mothers collection. Françoise is the 9th great-grandmother of the researcher. The descent runs through her daughter Jeanne Marsan (b. 1680), who married Pierre Cadieux, and continues through the Cadieux, Blais, Poulin Souliere, and related families to the present day. A separate profile for Pierre Marsan dit Lapierre will appear on the Carignan-Salières Regiment page.
Related Case Study
The Françoise Baiselat Inheritance
Three Marriages, Three Estates, Twelve Years of Colonial Justice
What happened after Françoise's death — the guardianship petition, the funeral debt paid in wheat, and the Intendant's ordonnance that settled three estates for twelve children — is traced through seven legal documents spanning 1694 to 1706.
View Case Study →Want to Know When New Stories Are Published?
Subscribe to receive updates on new family history research—no spam, just meaningful stories when there's something worth sharing.
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTEREvery Family Has a Story Worth Telling
Whether you're just beginning your research or ready to transform years of work into a narrative your family will treasure, I'd love to help.
LET'S TALK ABOUT YOUR FAMILY