Françoise Baiselat Bizelan

The Challenge

Françoise Baiselat (~1651–1694) was a Fille du Roi who arrived in New France in 1668 from the parish of Saint-Sauveur in Paris. Over twenty-six years, she married three soldiers — Laurent Cambin dit Larivière (1668), Pierre Marsan dit Lapierre (1670), and André Corbeil dit Tranchemontagne (1693) — and bore twelve children across two families.

When she died in childbirth on May 30, 1694, she left behind a staggering inheritance problem.

• First marriage: Marie Cambin (age 25), married to Antoine Galipeau — the only adult heir
• Second marriage: Seven Marsan children — Françoise (22), Marie Renée (20), Anne Antoinette (17), Jeanne (14), François (11), Jean Baptiste (9), and Joseph (5) — five still minors
• Third marriage: Newborn François Corbeil — baptized the day his mother was buried

• Laurent Cambin's French land inheritance — a concession of 60 arpents × 20 granted by the Sulpicians in 1670, plus 3,000 livres of property in France
• Pierre Marsan's Pointe-aux-Trembles habitation — six arpents of cleared land and three head of cattle at the 1681 census, plus a prairie at Ste-Anne
• Françoise's own acquisitions — land she purchased after Pierre Marsan's death on March 4, 1693

The third husband, André Corbeil — just 27 years old — had no money. He could not sign his name. And he was now responsible for resolving three estates, paying burial costs, and providing for at least one infant son and five Marsan stepchildren.

The Breakthrough

The breakthrough came through discovering a complete chain of seven legal documents spanning twelve years (1694–1706). Together, they reveal not just what happened to Françoise's estate, but how colonial New France's entire institutional infrastructure — notaries, curé, churchwarden, tuteur, and ultimately the Intendant of New France himself — mobilized to resolve one woman's legacy.

The Result

The seven documents reveal a system that was remarkably flexible and collaborative. When André Corbeil had no money, the colony accepted wheat as payment. When he needed to settle debts, he exchanged land — trading his Pointe-aux-Trembles habitation to André Archambault for 350 livres, with 300 going directly to the Marsan children. When the church demanded burial costs, it also absorbed losses — Curé Séguenot personally forgave debts and the prairie was held in trust for the minors.

• The tutelle system effectively protected minor children's interests across decades — even against challenges from adult heirs
• The church functioned as both spiritual authority and practical mediator, with the curé personally absorbing financial losses
• Even the poorest colonists could navigate complex multi-party disputes through the notarial system
• Family members who refused to cooperate (Du Fresne) were excluded from benefits — the system enforced reciprocal obligation
• The Intendant of New France himself adjudicated a family inheritance case — colonial administration reached to the household level

The case study complements the full documentary biography of Françoise Baiselat, which traces her life from Paris through three marriages and twenty-six years at Pointe-aux-Trembles. Together, the biography and case study reconstruct her complete story — from the enamel maker's daughter who crossed the Atlantic at seventeen, to the mother of twelve whose death at approximately forty-three triggered a legal saga that engaged every level of colonial authority.

Reconstructed from 32 primary sources: notarial acts before the Royal Notaries of Montréal, parish registers from Saint-Enfant-Jésus (Pointe-aux-Trembles) and Notre-Dame-de-Québec, the 1681 census, PRDH database records, BAnQ archival documents, guardianship proceedings, and the Intendant's ordonnance — spanning from Françoise's 1668 arrival in New France to the final court ruling of 1706.