Jeanne Juin
A King's Daughter from Paris
On 3 August 1672 the ship La Nativité reached Québec carrying emigrants from France. Among them was a young woman of about seventeen named Jeanne Juin — though colonial scribes would record her name in a dozen forms: Jouan, Jouay, Jouin, Jahan, Johan, Joain. She had come from the parish of Saint-Laurent in Paris to a country she had never seen.
Jeanne was one of the Filles du Roi, the King's Daughters sent to New France between 1663 and 1673 under royal sponsorship. Unlike earlier immigrants who came as indentured servants or with their families, the Filles du Roi received passage paid by the King, provisions, and in most cases a dowry. Jeanne could not sign her name. What survives of her hand is a single cross, drawn on her marriage contract eight months after she landed.
Within those eight months she was married to a Norman shoemaker named Bernard Dumouchel dit Laroche. Together they raised six children who lived to marry, and moved across the colony — from Champlain to Trois-Rivières, to Montréal, to the home farm of the seigneury of Longueuil — without ever, so far as the record shows, owning any of it.
A note on descendant numbers: the Genealogy of French in North America database (Denis Beauregard) estimates that Jeanne Juin and Bernard Dumouchel have between 420,000 and 840,000 descendants in Québec today, traced through 12 generations and 1,212 documented marriages. That figure is an estimate produced by a database model, not a count, and is repeated here as such.
| Name as indexed | Jeanne JOUIN |
|---|---|
| Status | Immigrant |
| Father | François Jouin |
| Mother | Anne Charlotte [surname not given] |
| Birth | Vers 1655 — St-Laurent, ville et archévêché de Paris, Île-de-France |
| First marriage | 17 April 1673, lieu indéterminé (au Québec), with Bernard Dumouchel Laroche, son of Pierre Dumouchel and Marie Lebret |
| Death | No entry |
Paris: A City of Contrasts
Jeanne Juin was born about 1655 in the parish of Saint-Laurent in Paris. The year is a reconstruction, not a record: her age is given as 26 in the 1681 census, and the marriage contract calls her the daughter of François Jouay and Anne Charlotte, of the parish of Saint-Laurent at Paris. Her mother's surname is nowhere stated — the notary who drew the contract simply left it out, and PRDH notes the omission on its own card. The parish registers of Paris were largely destroyed in 1871, so no baptism will be found.
The genealogist Cyprien Tanguay listed her parents as Pierre and Marie-Jeanne Beaujean of Champlain. That is wrong, and later researchers have corrected it; the contract of 1673 is the authority and it names François and Anne Charlotte.
Saint-Laurent lay in the northern part of Paris, outside the old walls. In Jeanne's childhood Paris was the largest city in Europe, its population approaching half a million — a city of magnificent churches and crowded tenements in the same streets. She was born during the minority of Louis XIV, in the unsettled years after the Fronde.
The Filles du Roi Programme
The programme was born of demographic necessity. By the early 1660s New France had far more men than women, and without married households the colony could not grow. Louis XIV and his minister Colbert responded by sponsoring the passage of marriageable young women. Between 1663 and 1673 roughly 770 made the voyage, many recruited in Paris, including from the Hôpital général de la Salpêtrière, and others from Normandy and the western provinces.
Jeanne arrived on 3 August 1672, in the programme's final year. By then the system was routine: the women were lodged with religious communities or established families until marriages could be arranged, usually within weeks or months of landing.
| Date and place | 17 April 1673, lieu indéterminé (au Québec) |
|---|---|
| 01 — Bernard Dumouchel Laroche | Spouse of 02. Residence: Champlain. Origin: Archévêché de Rouen |
| 02 — Jeanne Jouin | Spouse of 01. Origin: St-Laurent, Paris |
| 03 — Pierre Dumouchel | Father of 01, spouse of 04 |
| 04 — Marie Lebret | Mother of 01, spouse of 03 |
| 05 — François Jouin | Father of 02, spouse of 06 |
| 06 — Anne Charlotte | Mother of 02, spouse of 05 |
| 07 — Guillaume Larue | Occupation: notaire |
| Database note | « Le nom de famille de la mère de l'épouse a été omis » — the surname of the bride's mother has been omitted |
The Contract of 17 April 1673
On 17 April 1673, in the afternoon, at Champlain, Jeanne Juin and Bernard Dumouchel dit Laroche came before Guillaume de Larue, notary in the jurisdiction and seigneury of La Touche-Champlain, and made their marriage contract. The religious act has not been found; the contract is what survives, and it survives in Larue's own minute-book.
Bernard had been baptised on 13 September 1648 at Notre-Dame-de-la-Ronde in Rouen. He was the son of Pierre Dumouchel and Marie Lebret. Research in the Fichier Origine has identified nine siblings baptised in Rouen parishes: Pierre (1645) and Nicolas (1646) at Notre-Dame-de-la-Ronde; Geneviève (1650), Nicolas (1652), Louis (1654), Marie (1656), Thomas (1658), Jean (1659) and Pierre (1660) at Saint-Jean. His sister Magdeleine married Louis Duquesne at Rouen in 1669.
| Opening | « Pardevant guillaume de larue nottaire en la jurisdiction [et] seigneurie de la touche champlain furent présents en leurs personnes Bernar dumouchel dit laroche demeurant en ce dit lieu »Before Guillaume de Larue, notary in the jurisdiction and seigneury of La Touche-Champlain, were present in person Bernard Dumouchel dit Laroche, dwelling in this said place… |
|---|---|
| Groom's parentage | « fils de pierre dumouchel et de marie lebret », of a parish of Rouen — the parish name is written but has not been read with certainty from this copy |
| Bride | « Jeanne Jouay fille de françois Jouay et de anne charlotte de la paroisse de St Laurant a paris ». Her mother is given a forename only — no surname anywhere in the act |
| Present for the groom | Pierre Dizy, sieur de Monplaisir, and Madeleine Drouillard his wife |
| Present for the bride | François Ch[ou]et[?], sieur de Saint-Romain, and dame Anne Aubuchon his wife — she signs the act « Marie anne obuchon », he signs simply « St Romain » |
| Property regime | « uns [et] communs en tous biens meubles et immeubles acquets et conquests » — community of goods |
| Douaire | Douaire coutumier de Paris — the customary dower, with no fixed sum named |
| If the marriage dissolves without children | She may take back her « bagues, joyaux, ling[e] et hardes » ahead of all creditors, and may renounce the community even if she had bound herself to its debts |
| Donation mutuelle | Failing children of the marriage, husband and wife make each other a mutual gift of all their goods, to be enjoyed by the survivor |
| Date and place | « fait et passé au dit Champlain après midy ce jour d'huy dix-septiesme jour d'avril mil six cens soixante et treize » |
| Witnesses | Pierre Pinel, sieur de Lapoelle[?], habitant of Sainte-Anne, and Nicolas Lemozin[?] |
| Marks and signatures | Marks (a cross): Bernard Dumouchel; Jeanne Jouay; Marie Madeleine Drouillard. Mark (a monogram « PP »): Pierre Pinel. Signed: Pierre Dizy; St Romain; Marie Anne Aubuchon; De Larue, notaire |
Corrections carried by this act
Three statements that have circulated about this contract do not survive contact with it. The witnesses are Pierre Pinel and Nicolas Lemozin[?], not “Pierre Yinet” and “Nicolas Laureux”; the persons assembled on either side are named and are not witnesses in the technical sense. The groom's parents are not “of the parish of Seine Maritime” — Seine-Maritime is a French department created in 1790 and cannot appear in a 1673 act; the word in the manuscript is a parish of Rouen. And the act runs to images 374–375 of the Larue greffe, not pages 393–395.
Neither Bernard nor Jeanne could write. Each drew a cross, and beside each cross the notary wrote whose it was: « marque de Bernar Dumouchel » and « marque de Jeanne Jouay ». That cross is the only mark Jeanne Juin is known to have made on any surviving document.
A note on Bernard's earlier contract
Bernard Dumouchel had entered into a marriage contract on 22 November 1672 with another Fille du Roi, Marguerite Levaigneur. It was annulled before any marriage took place — not an uncommon outcome in New France, where an agreement made within weeks of a ship's arrival was sometimes reconsidered. By April 1673 he had made a new match.
Land Gained and Land Lost
Bernard Dumouchel bought land in 1676 and was granted sixty arpents in 1689. In 1697 he swore before a notary that he and Jeanne had owned nothing at all, and had owed two hundred livres, when she died. In 1699 he handed the sixty arpents back to the seigneur and took nothing for ten years of clearing. All of it is true, and the distance between the statements is the shape of their life.
In between come the leases: a farm on shares from Louis Guertin, two cows on shares from other men, the entire home farm of the seigneury of Longueuil. Across twenty-four years the couple hold land twice and work other men's land the rest of the time.
Champlain and the Prairies Marsolet, 1673–1686
Two months after the contract, on 25 June 1673, Bernard took a bail à ferme on a habitation at l'Arbre-à-la-Croix before the notary of Champlain. It did not go well. Four years later he was in court over it, and the judgment gives the clearest picture we have of the couple's first years.
| Date | « ce jourd'huy premier de may l'an mil six Centz soixante et saize », before noon, at Cap-de-la-Madeleine in the notary's study |
|---|---|
| Notary | Jean Cusson, notaire royal résidant au Cap-de-la-Madeleine |
| Vendor | Martin Foisy, « habitant de l'arbre a la Croix » |
| Purchaser | Bernard Dumouchel dit la Roche, « aussy dud[it] lieu de l'arbre a la Croix » — of the same place. He is not styled habitant and not styled cordonnier |
| Property | A concession of eight[?] arpents of frontage on the great river St Lawrence by forty deep, in the fief Marsolet, bounded on one side by Foisy himself and on the other by Mathieu Brunel[?]; about two arpents of felled woodland, the rest standing timber and meadow |
| Title recited | Foisy held it by grant from the sieur Marsolet, by contract before Me Séverin Ameau, notaire royal aux Trois-Rivières; he affirms it has not since been sold, pledged or mortgaged |
| Price | 100 livres in four equal instalments at the purchaser's option, and until paid an annual rente of five minots of good wheat at Notre-Dame de mars, abating pro rata as the principal is paid |
| Jeanne | Not named. The only woman in the act is the vendor's wife, Marye Magd[elai]ne[?] Boudouy[?], who makes her mark at the foot — releasing her own interest in the land sold |
| Marks and signatures | « led[it] acheteur a declaré ne sçavoir escrire ni signer et de ce enquis suivant l'ordonnance, a faict sa marque » — Bernard's cross again. The vendor signed. Witnesses Maurise Rivé[?] and Jean Fafard dit La Framboise |
| Plaintiff | « Bernard du Mouchel dit la Roche habitant des prairies de Marsolet », assisted by Pierre Loyseau dit Francoeur, his procureur, appearing in person |
|---|---|
| Defendant | Jacques Aubert, habitant of Batiscan, assisted by Me Antoine Adhémar, royal notary in the jurisdiction, his procureur |
| Claim | That Aubert be held to let him enjoy a habitation leased to him à ferme at l'Arbre-à-la-Croix, by act passed before the notary of Champlain 25 June 1673, notwithstanding any alleged settlements |
| Defence | Aubert offers to let him enjoy the lease, but says that since 1673 he was no longer in a state to work the land; that there had been settlement proposals, on the strength of which he sold his effects and livestock in March 1674; that no sowing was done in 1675; and that seeing this he was obliged to lease the land to Martin Foisy for his lifetime |
| Counterclaim | That the obligation passed before the notary of Champlain 20 May 1674 be declared executory — 64 livres 10 sols, with minots of wheat, seven minots of peas, two of oats and two more of peas |
| Reply | Dumouchel would have stood by the proposed settlement, namely to quit the land on payment of 25 livres |
| Judgment | « Parties ouyes Nous les avons mis hors de Cour et de procez en payant par led. du Mouchel la somme de vingt cinq livres et aux despens » — the parties put out of court, Dumouchel paying 25 livres and costs |
| Jeanne | Not named. No woman is named in the entry |
The 1681 census caught them in the Prairies Marsolet: “Bernard Dumouchel (dit Laroche), cordonnier, 30; Jeanne Jouin (Juin), sa femme, 26; enfants: Jeanne 8, Marie 4, Françoise 1; 5 arpents en valeur.” Bernard is a shoemaker; the family has five arpents in cultivation.
The move to Montréal, spring 1687
Three acts before the Montréal notary Bénigne Basset date the family's move almost to the week. On 6 March 1687 Bernard is still « habitant demeurant aux Trois Rivieres, de present en cette Ville » — of Trois-Rivières, presently in Montréal — when he takes a five-year bail à moitié from Louis Guertin. By 2 May he is simply « y demeurant », dwelling there; by 13 October he is « habitant y demeurant ». The family had moved.
| 6 March 1687, before noon Act no. 1753 | Bail à moitié from Louis Guertin, acting also as tutor of the minor children of the late Élizabeth Camus his former wife, to Bernard Du Mouchel. Two arpents of frontage by eight deep on the great river, with house, stable and barn, for five years from Easter. Rent: half of all grain sown, fixed at 30 minots a year — 24 of wheat, 6 of peas — delivered half at Christmas and half at Easter. He may take firewood for his use plus about 15 cords a year to sell; must deliver 4 cords a year in town; must pay the Seigneurs 15 sols a year, half the cens. Witnesses François Bailly and Jean Quesneville. Both parties declared they could neither write nor sign. |
|---|---|
| 2 May 1687, afternoon Act no. 1773B | Cheptel from Jean Vincent Philippe, écuyer, sieur de Hautmesnil: one red cow of five years, which Dumouchel says he already has in his possession, for five years. Loss through his fault or bad keeping, he pays the just value; loss by natural death or unforeseen accident is shared between them. Increase divided half and half at the end; the original beast returned in kind or 40 livres, her agreed value. Plus nine livres of good butter a year, delivered at the lessor's house in town, first due at Michaelmas. Witnesses Jean Petit and Jean Quesneville, praticien. Dumouchel declared he could neither write nor sign. |
| 13 October 1687, before noon Act no. 1801 | Bail à moitié et cheptel from Sieur Jean Petit, huissier royal and bourgeois of Montréal: one brown cow in calf and in milk, eight or nine years old, named Flamande, for five years from All Saints. Same fault clause, 40 livres her value; if she dies naturally he is discharged on producing a sufficient certificate of the natural death. Increase divided half and half; ten livres of butter a year at Michaelmas. Witnesses Claude de la S[e]ré[?] and Pierre Prudhomme. Dumouchel declared he could neither write nor sign. |
Two Documents Before the Move
Two acts fix the family in the middle 1680s, and one of them puts Bernard at a deathbed.
| Date and place | « ce Jourdhuy vingtiesme Jour du mois de febvrier mil six cens quatre vingtz six avant midy », at Trois-Rivières, in the notary's study |
|---|---|
| Notary | Séverin Ameau, notaire royal en la juridiction des Trois-Rivières, résidant en ladite ville |
| Declarants | « S[ieu]r Louis pinard maistre Chirurgien demeurant a Champlain, et Bernard du Mouchel dit la Roche demeurant aux trois rivieres ». Pinard gets Sieur and a trade; Bernard gets a residence and nothing else |
| What they declare | What they heard Jeanne Bouchard, first wife of Martin Foisy, say on her deathbed — « estant au lit malade et saine de Jugement et entendement », sick in bed but sound of judgement and understanding, as appeared to them. She was then living in the fief de la Pinaudière |
| To whom she spoke | « Messire Germain Morin prestre faisant pour lors les fonctions Curialles en l'eglise de Champlain » — and, the act says, « n'y ayant point de Nottaire », there being no notary there. That clause is the whole reason this instrument exists |
| The bequest | « une pistolle de rente annuelle et perpetuelle » to the church of Champlain — and, should a chapel ever be built on the fief de la Pinaudière, payable to that chapel instead — to have a low mass said for her on the anniversary of her death. Charged on the habitation in the fief de la Pinaudière belonging to Foisy and to the deceased |
| Marks and signatures | « led[it] du Mouchel a declaré ne sçavoir escrire ny signer apres lecture a luy faicte suyvant l'ordonnance » — and beside his cross the notary wrote « marq[ue] ✚ dud[it] du Mouchel ». Louis Pinard signed in his own hand. Two further subscriptions are effaced beyond reading |
Bernard is one of only two men brought before a royal notary to attest a dying woman's last words. He had bought land from her husband ten years earlier and had litigated against her husband's tenant in between; he was close enough to that household to be at the bedside. And in February 1686 he was living in the town of Trois-Rivières — a residence fix that sits squarely between the Marsolet holding and the move to Montréal a year later.
25 February 1689: two concessions in one day
On 25 February 1689, before the Montréal notary Claude Maugue, Charles Le Moyne granted sixty arpents in his seigneury of Longueuil to Bernard Dumouchel (act no. 2166) and, in a separate act of the same morning and on identical terms, sixty arpents to Pierre Biron (act no. 2167) — Bernard's son-in-law, who had married Marie Jeanne Dumouchel in 1686.
| Date and place | « L'an m vjc quatre vingt neuf le vingt cinq[uiesm]e Jour de febvrier », before noon, at Montréal in the house of the sieur de Longueuil |
|---|---|
| Grantor | « noble homme Charles Le Moyne escuyer Seigneur de Longueuil ». No military title in 1689 |
| Grantee | « Bernard Du Mouchel », with « accep[tan]t » interlined — and nothing else. No dit name, no trade, not habitant, no residence, no wife. Thereafter only « ledit preneur » |
| Property | Sixty arpents of standing timber, three arpents of frontage by twenty deep, fronting « le long de La grande riviere et fleuve St Laurens » |
| Neighbours | South-west (« du costé du sorois »), the concession of Laurens Renaud; north-east, Champigny; one end the grand chemin, the other « aux terres non concedées » |
| The road | « au grand chemin qui est de trente six piedz de Large », which he binds himself to clear « en Sorte que les charrois y puissent passer » |
| Charges | One sol tournois per arpent, « qui sont trois livres »; a live capon « bon et vallable » for each arpent of frontage — three; a further small cens for the whole (figure written over an erasure); all at the seigneurial house of Longueuil at Saint-Martin, as unredeemable seigneurial rent carrying lods et ventes, saisines and amendes under the Coutume de Paris |
| Obligations | To work it without ceasing, put it in cultivation and hold feu et lieu; to grind at the seigneur's mills on pain of confiscation and arbitrary fine; to suffer such highways as the seigneur judges necessary; to leave the oaks fit for shipbuilding, the seigneur free to take any timber needed for public use without payment |
| Droit de commune | On the frontage of his concession, from the alignment of the sieur de Varane[?] to the seigneur's domain and thence to the alignment of the Reverend Jesuit Fathers, with eighty arpents of wood or meadow « s'il s'y trouvent », for fifteen sols a year at the same feast |
| Restraint and reversion | He may not sell or alienate before a building stands on it or two arpents are under the hoe. On failure of the conditions he « descheoira du benefice de Lad. concession », which returns to the seigneur of full right, without formality of suit and without payment for any improvements |
| Jeanne | Not named. Bernard takes alone, singular throughout |
| Marks and signatures | Witnesses Michel Charpentier and Pierre Cornillier, praticiens. « led. preneur declare ne Scauoir escrire ny Signer de ce enquis Suivant L'ord[onnan]ce ». Signed: De Longueuil, Charpantier, Cornillier, Maugue |
A note on the wife's absence here
Jeanne Juin was alive in February 1689 and had been a named co-lessee of the Longueuil home farm eleven months before. She is not in this act. That is not a change in her standing: a bail binds both spouses to perform, so both are named, while a concession en roture is granted to the head of the community alone. The difference is in the kind of instrument, not in the marriage.
Not contiguous
Granted the same morning, by the same seigneur, before the same notary, on identical terms — but the two lots did not touch. Bernard's neighbours are Laurens Renaud and Champigny; Biron's are “le petit La Chappelle” and Jean Sicot[?] dit Laliberté. Neither act names the other man. The common assumption that same-day family concessions lay side by side does not hold here.
1699: both men give the land back
Ten years later, on the last day of a month of 1699, Bernard Dumouchel came before the royal notaries Adhémar and Raimbault and gave his concession back to Charles Le Moyne. The act is written at the foot of the 1689 grant itself, across the notary Maugue's signature flourish — a cancellation endorsed on the original.
« est comparu… le nommé Bernard Dumouchel… demeurant en cette ville rüe St. Paul, lequel a volontairement recognu et Confessé auoir retrocedé quitté transporté et delaissé dès maintenant a Mr. Charles le Moine Escuyer Seigneur de Longueuil… Declarant qu'il n'y pretend Aucune chose… comme s'il ne luy auoit Jamais concedée »
— Retrocession of 1699, at the foot of the concession of 25 February 1689. Bernard « declaré ne Scauoir Escrire ne Signer », as he had in 1689; only the notaries signedHe is a town man now — rue Saint-Paul in Montréal, not on the land. And the surrender is retroactive in form: the parties stand as though the grant had never been made. There is no forfeiture, no proceedings, and no compensation for ten years of clearing.
Two cautions on this act
The month is cancelled. A heavy deliberate obliteration covers it; only “1699, the last day of [month], in the afternoon” can be read. Pierre Biron's retrocession, written at the foot of his concession, is dated « le dernier Jour de Mars » 1699. The two may well be the same afternoon — but Bernard's own act does not say so, and the page does not assert it.
A word after his surname is struck out — some nine or ten letters, in exactly the position a dit name or a trade would occupy. It is the one place in this whole file where Bernard Dumouchel's by-name may have stood in a Montréal land act, and it is precisely what was cancelled.
His son-in-law did the same. On 31 March 1699, Pierre Biron and his wife gave their Longueuil land back to the seigneur too:
« estoit comparude les nommez Pierre Biron M[aist]re Boulanger de cette ville et Jeanne du Mouchel Sa femme de luy bien et deuement authorizée pour l'Effect des présentes… ont reconnu et Confessé avoir retrocedé, quitté, transporté et delaissé… l'habitation cy devant concedée par mond[it] S[ieu]r de Longueuil aud[it] S[ieu]r Biron »
— Retrocession, 31 March 1699, at the foot of the Biron concession; signed by the notaries Adhémar and Raimbault alone, « led[it] S[ieu]r Biron et sa femme ont declaré ne savoir escrire ne signer »The formula is the one her mother's lease used eleven years before, word for word in its essentials: a married woman bien et dûment autorisée pour l'effet des présentes, and so a party in her own right. Marie Jeanne could no more write than her mother could. Both of them are in the record because the law required their consent to give away what was held in common.
10 March 1688: Jeanne Juin Signs a Lease
On 10 March 1688, before noon, in the house of the widow Le Moyne at Montréal, Charles Le Moyne, écuyer, sieur de Longueuil leased the home farm of his seigneury — the manor lands, the ground floor of the manor house itself, part of the loft, the stables, barns and pigsties — for five years, for half of all the grain.
He leased it to three people, jointly and severally. The second of them is Jeanne.
« A Bernard Dumouchel demeurant de present en cette d[i]te Ville, et a Jeanne Jouan sa femme qu'il authorise pour l'effet des présentes, a ce presens preneurs… »
— Bail à moitié, 10 March 1688, greffe de Bénigne Basset, act no. 1826That phrase is the whole point. Under the Coutume de Paris a married woman could not bind herself without her husband's authorisation; when a notary records that he authorises her for the purposes of the present act, she becomes a contracting party in her own right, liable with him. The notary began to write her in as a separate grantee, struck the words out, and recast the sentence to make her a co-taker. Their son-in-law Pierre Biron was added in the margin as the third.
It is the only document in which Jeanne Juin acts. Everywhere else she is a wife named in someone else's transaction, or not named at all.
| Docket | « 1688 / Du 10.e Mars / Bail a moitié / par / Mons.r de Longueuil / & / Bernard Dumouchel sa femme et [P.] Biron l[eu]r gendre » |
|---|---|
| Lessor | Charles Le Moyne, écuyer, sieur de Longueuil, ordinarily residing in his seigneury, at present in Montréal |
| Lessees | Bernard Dumouchel, presently dwelling in Montréal; Jeanne Jouan his wife, whom he authorises for the purposes of the act; and Pierre Biron their son-in-law — bound solidairement |
| Property | All the lands of the principal manor and seigneury of Longueuil, in cultivation and to be brought into cultivation, fronting on the St Lawrence and running back to the uncleared lands; bounded by the land of André Bo[n]pellier[?], miller, and that of Charles[?] Pratneufve[?]. With the ground-floor storey of the manor house, part of the loft, the stables, barns and pigsties |
| Term | Five years from the feast of Notre-Dame de mars (25 March 1688) |
| Rent | Half of all grain harvested, carried at the lessees' expense to the manor granary as soon as threshed. No money rent |
| Stock supplied | 14 milk cows with their calves; 6 plough oxen; 2 bulls; 6 large pigs and 6 young; 50 hens and 5 cocks; 6 turkey hens and a turkey cock; 16 ewes, 10 lambs and a ram |
| Due yearly | 150[?] livres of butter; eight dozen fowl and ten capons at Martinmas; twelve young turkeys at Martinmas; hay and straw to winter the lessor's horse; grain weekly for his pigeons |
| Advance | 100[?] minots of wheat advanced for their food, repayable over the first three years |
| Break clause | Either side may dissolve after three years on three months' notice, without costs, damages or process |
| Witnesses | Sieur Jacques Le Ber fils and Antoine Pascaud, merchants — who signed, with the lessor |
| Marks and signatures | « lesd. preneurs apres [avoir] declaré ne Sçavoir escrire ny Signer de ce enquis suivant l'ord[onnan]ce » — all three lessees, Jeanne among them, declared they could neither write nor sign. Signed: De Longueüil, Le Ber de Senneville, Pascaud, Basset notaire royal |
In May of the following year their last child was baptised at Longueuil, and the register describes them in the terms the lease had created: fermiers de Monsieur de Longueuil.
The Children of Bernard and Jeanne
Six children lived to marry. Their baptisms track the family across the colony — Champlain, Trois-Rivières, Montréal, Longueuil.
| Child | Birth / Baptism | Marriage | Spouse |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marie Jeanne | c. 1673 (age 8 in the 1681 census) | 11 Feb 1686, Trois-Rivières | Pierre Biron |
| Marie Madeleine | c. 1677, Prairies Marsolet (age 4 in 1681, as “Marie”) | 18 May 1699, Montréal | Claude Maurice dit Lafantaisie |
| Marie Françoise * | 18 Jan 1681; bapt. 22 Jan, Champlain (Notre-Dame-de-la-Visitation) | 30 Aug 1706, Montréal | Jacques Croquelois dit Laviolette |
| Paul | 30 May 1684, Trois-Rivières | 24 Nov 1704, Montréal; rem. 18 Nov 1709 | Marie Jeanne Dugas; Marie Anne Tessier |
| Bernard | 26 Aug 1687, Montréal (Notre-Dame) | 27 Jan 1710, Montréal | Marie Anne Tessier Lavigne |
| Jean | b. and bapt. 30 May 1689, Saint-Antoine-de-Padoue, Longueuil (recorded at Boucherville) | — | Buried 12 June 1709, Montréal |
* Marie Françoise Dumouchel is our direct ancestral line.
The baptism of Jean Dumouchel on 30 May 1689 at Longueuil gives the family's standing in the priest's own words. Bernard and Jeanne are fermiers de Monsieur de Longueuil — the farmers of Monsieur de Longueuil, which is exactly what the lease of the previous March had made them. The godfather was André Bouteiller, « menuisier et habitant de Longueil » — a joiner, not a carpenter — and the godmother Marie Campeaux, wife of François Blot, « maistre boulenger de Montreal ». Pierre Rodolphe Guybert de la Saudrays, curé of Boucherville, Longueuil, Varennes and Saint-Michel, officiated, and signed alone.
The Death of Jeanne Juin
No burial record has been found for Jeanne Juin, and it has long been said that she died at some point in the eight-year silence between her last child's baptism in May 1689 and her husband's remarriage in October 1697.
She did not. The 1697 marriage contract says when.
« Et led[it] futur Espoux a declaré que lors du decès de lad[ite] Jeanne Juin sa deffuncte femme arrivé Il y a Environ cinq a six mois, Ilz n'avoient aucuns biens meubles ny Immeubles & qu'ilz devoient la somme de deux Centz livres a divers particuliers »
— Marriage contract of Bernard Dumouchel and Françoise Saulnier, 20 October 1697, greffe d'Antoine AdhémarFive to six months before 20 October 1697 places her death in April or May 1697. She had lived nearly eight years past the birth of her last child, and she died about five months before her husband contracted a second marriage — a short interval, but an ordinary one in a colony where a widower with minor children had pressing reasons not to wait.
René Jetté's Dictionnaire généalogique places her death “in the Montréal region” rather than at Montréal itself. The place remains unknown. Longueuil, where the family had been farming since 1688, is the obvious candidate but no record says so.
What the declaration is, and is not
This is a statement made by Bernard Dumouchel, under a notary, five or six months after the event, in a document where the precise date of his first wife's death carried no legal weight. It is first-hand, contemporary, and against his own interest in the part about the debts — but “about five to six months” is an estimate, not a date. It brackets her death to roughly April–May 1697; it does not fix a day. The burial entry, if it was ever written, has not been found.
“They had no goods, movable or immovable”
The same sentence carries the other half of the finding. At Jeanne's death the couple owned nothing and owed 200 livres to various people; Bernard still owned nothing and still owed it. And he did not simply assert this — the contract records that it was attested and certified true by his own children and friends, « pour en avoir une parfaicte Cog[noissan]ce », for having perfect knowledge of it.
Those who certified it were his son-in-law Pierre Biron; his daughters Magdeleine and Françoise Dumouchel; Vincent Dugast; Jacques Hobiduard[?] Lemareçhau[?]; and Guillaume Roussel dit Sans-Souci.
It explains why no inventory of the first community was ever required, and it is the reason twenty-four years of leases and cattle contracts never became a deed.
Bernard's Second Marriage, and After
On 20 October 1697, in the afternoon, in the bride's own house at Ville-Marie, Bernard Dumouchel dit Laroche, cordonnier, widower of Jeanne Juin, contracted marriage with Françoise Saulnier, widow of Thomas Marteſaigne[?]. They married two days later at Notre-Dame de Montréal.
| Date and place | 20 October 1697, afternoon, at Ville-Marie, « Maison de lad[ite] future Epouse » |
|---|---|
| Groom | Bernard Dumouchel dit LaRoche, cordonnier, dwelling at Ville-Marie, widower of Jeanne Juin, for himself and in his own name. No age, no parentage given in the contract |
| Bride | Françoise Saulnier, widow of Thomas Marteſaigne[?], also dwelling at Ville-Marie. No age, no parentage given. The name Duverdier appears nowhere in this act |
| Present for the groom | Pierre Bi[r]on[?] his son-in-law; Magdeleine and Françoise Dumouchel his daughters; Vincent Dugast; Jacques Hobiduard[?] Lemareçhau[?]; Guillaume Roussel dit Sans-Souci |
| Present for the bride | Jeanne and Françoise Lorrain[?] her daughters, wives of Nicolas and Jacques Boyvin[?]; [A]d[u]rey[?] Betourné Laviolette[?] and his wife; Sieur Pierre Cabazié; Jean Baptiste Jarris[?] — all of Ville-Marie |
| Régime | Community of movables and acquests, under the Coutume de la prévôté et vicomté de Paris; pre-marital debts of each remain separate |
| Bride's contribution | 455 livres 15 sols in furniture and clothing, appraised and inventoried, stipulated propre to her and her line |
| Groom's declaration | At Jeanne Juin's death, about five to six months past, they had no goods at all and owed 200 livres; he still has none and still owes it — attested and certified true by the relatives and friends named |
| Douaire | 300 livres préfix, or the douaire coutumier at the bride's election |
| Préciput | 200 livres to the survivor, in movables at inventory price without increase, or in cash, at the survivor's choice |
| The minor children | « Bernard & Fr[ançoi]s[?] Dumouchel Enfans mineurs » of the groom and the late Jeanne Juin, to be fed and instructed in the Catholic religion at the expense of the community, until they reach seventeen, working to the best of their ability without wages or salary |
| Annexed | An « Estat ou Inventaire faict ce jour » of the bride's goods, said to remain annexed to the minute. Not located |
| Witnesses | Sieur George Bruneau, huissier royal, and Sieur Dominique [N]affrongoux[?], chirurgien |
| Marks and signatures | Mark (a cross): « marque du ✚ futur Espoux » — Bernard again. Signed: Françoise Sau[n]ier in her own unpractised hand; Cabazié; [A]d[u]rey[?] Betourné; Vincent Dugast; Bruneau; Adhemar, notaire. The groom and the named relatives « ont declaré Ne sçavoir Escrire ny signer de ce Interpellez suivant l'ordonnance » |
An open question: which two sons?
The contract provides for two minor sons and names them « Bernard & Fr[ançoi]s[?] ». In October 1697 the sons known from the registers were Paul (13), Bernard (10) and Jean (8) — all three still minors, and no son named François is known. The second name is not a secure reading and does not match the register evidence. It is carried here as it stands, unresolved, pending re-examination of the original; it should not be used to add a son to this family, nor silently corrected to “Jean”.
Bernard's death
Bernard Dumouchel dit Laroche died between 30 August 1706, when he was present at his daughter Françoise's wedding, and 12 June 1709, when his son Jean's burial names him as deceased. His second wife entered into an obligation in November 1706 before notary François Genaple at Québec, where she is cited as his wife and not his widow, so he was presumably still alive then. No burial has been positively identified as his. He may have died at the Hôtel-Dieu of Montréal, whose records were largely lost to fire. Françoise Saulnier bore him no children.
The Family After Her
Two later records show the household Jeanne left behind, and both need care in the citing.
| The appeal | Louis Lecomte, sieur Dupré, merchant of Montréal, appealing a sentence of the Juridiction royale de Montréal of 5 January, against Jean-Baptiste Ménard, procureur and économe of the poor of the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal |
|---|---|
| The matter | The balance due on the board of a man called Laperche at the Hôtel-Dieu, under an act passed before notary Lepailleur on 20 July of the preceding year |
| The Dumouchels | « le Bernard Desmouchel de la Roche cordonnier aud[it] Montreal faisant pour Paul et Bernard Dumouchel ses Enfans » — acting for Paul and Bernard Dumouchel, his children. Also named: Raimond Am[y]ou[l]t[?], merchant of Montréal, and a Bellegarde |
| Disposition | « bien jugé, mal et sans grief appelé » — the appeal dismissed, the sentence to have its entire effect, the appellant condemned in costs and in the fine |
Her son signs his name
On 28 July 1704, before noon, in Antoine Adhémar's study at Ville-Marie, about sixty men put their names to a single collective engagement to go west for the Compagnie de la Colonie de Canada. One of them was Paul Dumouchel, Jeanne's fourth child, then twenty.
| Date and place | « l'an mil sept cent quatre le vingt huicties[me] jour de Juillet avant midy », at Ville-Marie, in the study of the notary Antoine Adhémar |
|---|---|
| Employer | Sieur François Dumontier, principal commis de Messieurs de la Compagnie de la Colonie de Canada à Montréal, acting for the Company |
| The engagés | About sixty men, named one after another. Paul stands in the roster as plain « paul Dumouchel », with no residence, age or parentage attached — unlike many of his fellows, who are given theirs |
| Destination | « le fort de pont Chartrain du lac Erié » — Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit |
| Terms | To leave Montréal at the Company's first requisition; to obey Monsieur de Louvigny; to haul and handle the Company's loaded canoes. Any who, through idleness or ill will, fail in what is commanded are to be sent home and their wages cut in proportion to the damage. None may leave the service or come back to town without written leave |
| Wages | 200 livres each for the term, paid on return in letters of exchange or in beaver of the Comptoir subject to a twelve per cent deduction; 400 livres a year for any whom Louvigny judges fit to winter at the fort, who are bound to stay |
| Equipment | Fed at the Company's expense « suivant l'usage des voiagiers ». Each man to carry a musket and an axe bought at his own cost, the musket to be brought back. No trading on their own account, going, staying or returning, on pain of forfeiting wages and goods |
| Witnesses | Sieurs Georges Bruneau and Antoine Hatanville[?], huissiers royaux of Ville-Marie |
| Marks and signatures | Seventeen men are named as signing, Paul among them, and then: « Et les autres cy devant nommez ont declaré ne scavoir Escrire ny signer, de ce Enquis, aprez lecture faite, suivant l'ord[onnan]ce ». His autograph « paul dumouchel » stands in the block in a confident, well-formed hand |
Both his parents made crosses. His brother Bernard could not sign his own curatelle six years later. Paul Dumouchel wrote his name. Somewhere between the shoemaker's household at the Prairies Marsolet and the notary's study in 1704, one of Jeanne Juin's sons learned to write.
| Date and place | 5 August 1710, four o'clock in the afternoon, at Ville-Marie, in the audience chamber |
|---|---|
| Before | Jacques Alexis Fleury Deschambault, écuyer, conseiller du Roi and lieutenant général of the Juridiction royale de Montréal. Adhémar, greffier |
| Petitioner | « bernard du mouchel cordonnier demeurant en cette ville disant qu'estant mineur Il ne peut agir vallablement en aucune de ses affaires » — a minor, who cannot act in his own affairs. No age is stated |
| The assembly | Paul Dumouchel, son frère; Jacques Croquelois, son beau-frère; and, described collectively as « tous de cette ville, amis dudit bernard »: [Jean?] Le Gras, Urbain Gervais, [Jean?] Ferroy dit Saussère[?], Noël Le Sage cordonnier, and Guillaume Herou |
| Election | Paul Dumouchel elected curateur ez causes — curator for suits — of his brother Bernard, and accepted the charge |
| Marks and signatures | Signed: Jacque Croquelois, G. Herou, Legras, urbain gervaise, Noel le Sage; then Deschambault, paul dumouchel, Adhemar. Ferroy « nous a declaré ne sçavoir escrire ny signer », and so did Bernard himself — the minor could not sign his own curatelle, while his brother Paul signed his name |
The two acts together show the shape of the family in the decade after Jeanne's death: the father acting for his sons while he lived; the elder brother standing curator to the younger once he was gone; Jacques Croquelois, who had married Marie Françoise in 1706, in the room as beau-frère; and three of the four Dumouchel men in these records unable to write their own names.
Our Connection: Through Marie Françoise Dumouchel
Our line descends through Marie Françoise Dumouchel, born 18 January 1681 at Champlain and baptised four days later at Notre-Dame-de-la-Visitation. She was sixteen when her mother died, and she is one of the daughters who stood in the bride's house that October afternoon in 1697 and certified that her father owned nothing.
On 30 August 1706, at Notre-Dame de Montréal, she married Jacques Croquelois dit Laviolette, a 37-year-old sergeant in the Compagnie de Longueuil, son of Jacques Croquelois and Madeleine Hay of the parish of Saint-Jacques in Dieppe, diocese of Rouen — making both her father and her husband natives of Normandy.
Among the witnesses were Charles Le Moyne de Longueuil et de Châteauguay, chevalier of the Order of Saint-Louis, Baron de Longueuil — the son of the man whose farm her parents had worked — along with Michel Fily, écuyer, sieur de Kérigou; Denis d'Estienne du Bourgué, sieur de Clérin, lieutenant in the troops; her father Bernard Dumouchel; and Claude Maurice, husband of her sister Marie Madeleine.
Marie Françoise was buried 23 November 1748 at Montréal, about sixty-seven years old. Through her the line continues.
Direct Lineage: Jeanne Juin to The Guilbault Line
Legacy
Jeanne Juin lived about twenty-five years in New France. She left no scandal and no achievement by the standards of her time. She crossed an ocean at seventeen, married a shoemaker with nothing, bore children in four parishes, farmed a seigneur's home farm under a lease she was party to, and died owning — in her husband's own sworn words — nothing at all.
The Filles du Roi are ancestral to the majority of French-Canadians alive today; demographic studies suggest two-thirds can trace descent from at least one of them. For Jeanne Juin and Bernard Dumouchel the Genealogy of French in North America database estimates between 420,000 and 840,000 descendants.
| Marriage | 17 April 1673, lieu indéterminé (au Québec) |
|---|---|
| Marie Jeanne | b. vers 1673-08, lieu indéterminé · m. 1686-02-11, Trois-Rivières (Immaculée-Conception), Pierre Biron · d. 1738-06-03, Montréal (Notre-Dame) |
| Marie Madeleine | b. vers 1679, lieu indéterminé · m. 1699-05-18, Montréal (Notre-Dame), Claude Maurice Lafantaisie · d. 1749-11-12, Montréal (Notre-Dame) |
| Marie Francoise | b. 1681-01-18, Champlain (Notre-Dame-de-la-Visitation) · m. 1706-08-30, Montréal (Notre-Dame), Jacques Croquelois Laviolette · d. 1748-11-23, Montréal (Notre-Dame) |
| Paul | b. 1684-05-30, Trois-Rivières (Immaculée-Conception) · m. 1704-11-24, Montréal (Notre-Dame), Marie Jeanne Dugas · d. 1719-02-13, Montréal (Notre-Dame) |
| Bernard | b. 1687-08-26, Montréal (Notre-Dame) · m. 1710-01-27, Montréal (Notre-Dame), Marie Anne Tessier Lavigne · d. 1732-10-22, Montréal (Notre-Dame) |
| Jean | b. 1689-05-30, Boucherville (Ste-Famille) · d. 1709-06-12, Montréal (Notre-Dame) |
The Filles du Roi
The programme transformed New France. In 1666 the colony's population stood at about 3,200. By 1673, when the last Filles du Roi arrived, it had nearly doubled. Within a generation the descendants of these women numbered in the tens of thousands; today they number in the millions.
Jeanne Juin was one of them — a girl from Saint-Laurent in Paris who crossed an ocean, drew a cross on a contract at Champlain, and left a line that has not stopped.
Sources
Original records consulted
- Marriage contract, 17 April 1673 — Guillaume de Larue, 1664–1676, Archives nationales à Trois-Rivières, Fonds Cour supérieure, district judiciaire de Trois-Rivières, greffes de notaires (04T,CN401,S55), BAnQ numérique doc. 4065129, images 373–375.
- Dumouchel v. Aubert, 1677 — Archives nationales à Trois-Rivières, Fonds Juridiction royale des Trois-Rivières (04T,TL3,S11,P1566), BAnQ numérique doc. 3388098, ff. 137–138.
- Bail à moitié, Guertin to Dumouchel, 6 March 1687, act 1753 — Bénigne Basset dit Deslauriers, 1657–1699, Archives nationales à Montréal (06M,CN601,S17), BAnQ numérique doc. 4143992, images 749–752.
- Cheptel, Hautmesnil to Dumouchel, 2 May 1687, act 1773B — same greffe, doc. 4143992, images 828–831.
- Cheptel, Petit to Dumouchel, 13 October 1687, act 1801 — same greffe, doc. 4143993, images 1–3.
- Bail à moitié, Longueuil to Dumouchel, his wife and Pierre Biron, 10 March 1688, act 1826 — same greffe, doc. 4143993, images 109–116, with annexed Mémoire des Bestiaux.
- Marriage contract, Dumouchel and Saulnier, 20 October 1697 — Antoine Adhémar dit Saint-Martin, 1668–1714, Archives nationales à Montréal (06M,CN601,S2), BAnQ numérique doc. 4236677, images 290–293.
- Concession, Charles Le Moyne sieur de Longueuil to Bernard Dumouchel, 25 February 1689 — Claude Maugue, 1677–1696, Archives nationales à Montréal (06M,CN601,S280), act no. 2166, fol. 281 — BAnQ numérique doc. 4604881, images 787–789, with its dorsal docket at image 790 and the retrocession of 1699 written at its foot.
- Vente, Martin Foisy to Bernard Dumouchel dit la Roche, 1 May 1676 — Jean Cusson, 1666–1700, Archives nationales à Trois-Rivières (04T,CN401,S22), BAnQ numérique doc. 4076383, images 644–647.
- Déclaration de Louis Pinard et Bernard Dumouchel dit la Roche, 20 February 1686 — Séverin Ameau, 1652–1702, Archives nationales à Trois-Rivières, act no. 403; FamilySearch image group 008272732, frames 02057–02058.
- Concession, Le Moyne to Pierre Biron, 25 February 1689, act no. 2167, fol. 282, with the retrocession of 31 March 1699 by Biron and Jeanne Dumouchel his wife at its foot — Claude Maugue (06M,CN601,S280), BAnQ numérique doc. 4604881, images 791–793 (minute) and 795–797 (grosse).
- Engagement pour l'Ouest, act no. 6846, 28 July 1704 — Antoine Adhémar dit Saint-Martin (06M,CN601,S2), BAnQ numérique doc. 4236694, images 135–137.
- Arrêt du Conseil souverain, 7 July 1704 — Archives nationales à Québec, Fonds Conseil souverain (TP1,S28,P7879), BAnQ numérique doc. 3368804.
- Curatelle de Bernard Dumouchel, 5 August 1710 — Archives nationales à Montréal, Fonds Juridiction royale de Montréal (06M,TL4,S1,D1249), BAnQ numérique doc. 3378558.
- Parish registers — Champlain (Notre-Dame-de-la-Visitation); Trois-Rivières (Immaculée-Conception); Notre-Dame-de-Montréal, registres photographiés au presbytère, 1681–1694; Saint-Antoine-de-Padoue, Longueuil; Boucherville (Sainte-Famille).
- Census of 1681, Prairies Marsolet.
Derivative and reference sources
- PRDH-IGD (Programme de recherche en démographie historique), individual nos. 20476, 20477, 20478; couple no. 94534; family no. 4070; baptism no. 40855. Cited for identifiers and names only.
- Fichier Origine, record no. 241391 (Bernard Dumouchel, Rouen origins).
- René Jetté, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles du Québec.
- Peter J. Gagné, King's Daughters and Founding Mothers: The Filles du Roi, 1663–1673, pp. 316–317.
- Yves Landry, Orphelines en France, pionnières au Canada.
- Genealogy of French in North America (GFNA / FrancoGénéalogie), Denis Beauregard.
- Répertoire des engagements pour l'Ouest conservés dans les archives judiciaires de Montréal (1670–1778), data list compiled 29 December 2019 by John R. Fisher for the Vermont French Canadian Genealogical Society, from the Archives de Québec inventory. An index of the acts, not an independent witness to them.
A note on method
Every date, name and figure in the narrative above is sourced to an original act or register entry, transcribed for this page. Where a reading is not secure it carries a [?]; where a widely repeated statement could not be confirmed, it is named and left unconfirmed rather than repeated. Database cards and archival catalogue titles are cited as what they are — finding aids — and are never treated as testimony to the facts they summarise.
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