📜 Document #1

Marie Lorgueil's Baptism Record

📷 INSERT IMAGE: MARIE'S BAPTISM RECORD

Baptism record from Parish of Saint-Éloi, Rouen, France
February 15, 1637
Shows Marie's actual birth date, proving age discrepancy at 1667 marriage

Why This Document Matters:
This baptism record establishes Marie's actual birth year as 1637 (not 1643 as stated in her marriage record). When she married Toussaint Hunault in 1667, she claimed to be 24 years old—but was actually 30. This age discrepancy reveals Marie's strategic thinking: at 30, she was approaching the end of "marriageable age" in colonial society. By claiming to be 24, she improved her prospects in a marriage market that favored younger women.

📜 Document #2

Marie & Toussaint's Marriage Record

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Marriage record from Notre-Dame-de-Montréal
November 23, 1654
Shows Marie's stated age as 24 (actually 30)

Why This Document Matters:
This marriage record begins a 36-year partnership that produced 10 children and ended only with Toussaint's murder in 1690. The age discrepancy Marie claimed here (stating 24 when actually 30) reveals her understanding of colonial marriage markets and strategic self-presentation. She knew what she needed to say to secure a husband and a future in New France.

📜 Document #3

Debt Obligation to Son André

📷 INSERT IMAGE: 1683 NOTARIAL DEBT DOCUMENT

Notarial obligation document
November 15, 1683
Toussaint & Marie owe 307 livres to their son André

Why This Document Matters:
This debt obligation proves that Marie and Toussaint were already struggling financially seven years before the murder. They owed their own son 307 livres—a substantial sum (roughly 1-2 years of wages). When Toussaint was murdered in 1690, Marie didn't just inherit a legal claim—she inherited debts. This document explains why the 1691 settlement's debt forgiveness component was so valuable to Marie.

📷 INSERT IMAGE: 1691 WIDOW'S SETTLEMENT DOCUMENT

The notarial document transferring all of Marie's legal rights
to Charles de Couagne for 520 livres + debt forgiveness
This is the document that defines Marie's story

Why This Is The Most Important Document:

This single document transforms Marie's story from tragedy to agency. Yes, her husband was murdered. Yes, she was in debt. Yes, she faced impossible odds. But she didn't passively accept defeat. She filed suit. She negotiated. She made a strategic choice.

The widow's settlement reveals how colonial justice actually worked: legal rights were commodities that could be bought and sold. Marie had rights on paper—but exercising them required money she didn't have. So she sold those rights for immediate survival. 520 livres kept her family alive. That's not failure. That's survival.

This document is the key to understanding not just Marie's story, but how power, class, gender, and economics intersected in 1690s New France. It's the centerpiece of 40+ hours of research because it reveals everything.

📜 Document #5

Marie's Death Record

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Death and burial record from Varennes
November 29, 1700
Final document in Marie's 66-year life

Why This Document Matters:
Marie's death record closes the circle. She was baptized in Rouen, France in 1637. She married in Montreal in 1654. She buried children, survived her daughter's murder, lost her husband to a nobleman's sword, sold her legal rights for 520 livres, and lived another ten years. She died at 66 in Varennes, surrounded by the family she fought so hard to preserve. The death record proves she survived—and that survival is her legacy.