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SIMARD History
THE SIMARDS OF OLD FRANCE
"I, Suzanne Durant, widow of Pierre Simard, being from this town of Angoulesme, with the grace of God,
being of a whole mind and
with understanding, considering that
there is nothing more certain than death nor nothing more uncertain than the hour of its coming, have
caused this my last will and testament
to be made in the form and manner which ensues."
Taken from the Registry of Micheau,
at the Archives,
Department of the Charente,
dated 27 October 1666.
THE TIMES
At the end of 16th century times were difficult in
France. The 17th Century started with a stable France under Henry IV. His victory in the French Wars of Religion gave him
the authority that had eluded the likes of Charles IX and Henry III. Henri IV gave the kingdom a twelve
year respite of peace after the war.
During the spring of 1610
a citizen of Angoulême named Ravaillac, a druggist by profession, was moved by a somber
plan and left his town in the direction of Paris. His purpose was more
than to vainly solicit an audience with the king to advise him renounce
further war.
Some historians say
Ravaillac could not have been a sane man. However, it seemed completely fitting that he
had come from Angoulême. Since a Count from Angoulême had become the
King of France,
under the name of Francois Ist, the province of Angoumois had become an
area of special interest for those interested in the crown. Additionally, Henri IV,
who was the grandson of the famous sister of Francois Ist, Marguerite, was
also born in
Angoulême
This was an era that, in
wanting to avoid another foul military expedition, a dubiously enlightened druggist
could plunge the regency of France into the political instability
contained in a palace of intrigues. Richelieu arrived about fifteen years later to subdue the
elements of turmoil, but there would immediately be new struggles in which
France would be launched. In 1625 he declared the interior of the kingdom
to be at war with the Huguenots and ten years later he intervened with a
full war lasting 30 years. From then on France would not know peace until
after bringing down the powerful House of Austria in 1659. Once again
there would be a very short respite before the exhausting campaigns of
Louis XIV.
The simple recall of these
major events is sufficient to evoke the deep warlike and uneasy
character of this era. It was in this ambiance, across the always shocking
and sudden changes of fortune, or misfortune, that the people of France
during the 16th and 17th centuries found the means to establishing a New
France.
The previous ages had been
scarcely quieter. The Wars of Religion, to which Henri IV had put end by
the edict of Nantes in 1598, had lasted for forty years. The peace of
Cateau-Cambrésis, that ended the long wars with Italy that had raged
since 1492, had
just been signed in 1559. Through unceasing resistance, royalty had
finished consolidating its domination over the feudal princes and repaired the disasters accumulated over the course the One Hundred Years
War (1339-1439). These wars had so completely dominated the existence of the
poor French people, that they could not be self sufficient in cultivating
the soil. They had also destroyed much of the forests and swamps by the
requirements of
constructing castle fortresses.
Gabriel Hanoteaux,
in inspiring specialized works, gives a rather engaging description of
1614 France after the good efforts of Henri IV: "This France,
smaller, was also rougher. To the soaring bird, it appears
--
like it is
shown in the naive maps of the time
--
again covered with thick forests,
bristling with bell-towers, crenels and mills. Life was perched higher
than it is today. It clung to the slopes of the mountains, hills and steep
coasts. In the plains region it was settled on some "clods"
elevated by the hand of man."
For some centuries the
already struggling descendants of the Gaulle, Celts, Roman and Visigoth
invaders, feeling the pain of these exploited regions, sought the more
lenient earth and homelands that they soon adopted. However, the shaky
Church of the long middle ages, with all diligence, had not finished
providing a comfortable and restful establishment for these people.
It was, however, only after
the course of these difficult centuries that France founded a New France
for herself on the banks of the Saint Lawrence. While Francois Ist fought
against the emperor Charles-Quint, it was in his name that Jacques Cartier
disembarked at Gaspé and took possession of Canada. Additionally, it was
Henri IV who sustained Samuel of Champlain in the founding of Arcadia and
Quebec. But it was necessary to wait for Richelieu and the diligent
Colbert in order to see the French colonization of America take on the
importance that it deserved.
In the Western provinces,
along the Atlantic coast, interest and curiosity had been awakened about
the new lands the kingdom of France had acquired beyond the seas. While
Brittany and Normandy heard of and echoed the discoveries of Cartier, it
was at Saintonge, Aunis, Angoumois and the Poitou where they waited for
the return of Champlain. Then a swarming movement started. Everywhere they
were starting to speak of the new country. The young listened and dreamed
of far away emigration. Starting with Champlain, recruiters sought
colonists. Then, throughout the Western regions, departures left from the
ports of La Rochelle, Saint-Malo and Honfleur and farewell scenes became
familiar.
Nearly every Saintonge,
Angevine or Normandy family had its history of departure, which filled
lengthy evening discussions. Without receiving more news about a son,
cousin or friend over there, they looked to the establishment. Were they
doing well after their departure? Who was right, those who stayed in the
country or those who went off and left it if far behind to begin a new
life? Certainly, it was a rough life, but was it worse in the forests of
the New World? What verdict would the future render on the risks assumed
by the stout hearted colonists?
One thing was for sure.
From
the perspective of this New France mystery, which loomed like an aurora on the line of
the maritime horizon, the lives, dreams and longings of the poor people
had already been transformed. This migration caused a great deal of unrest.
A new type of man
emerged from the peasant spirit of the kingdom, based on his decision to
leave for New France. Between the ones who left and the ones who stayed at
home, there could be no common measurement, for they no longer lived in
the same universe.
THE PLACES
There is scarcely a
family in French Canada that doesn't hold some fragments of history about
its background. Several possess long and complete genealogies that reattach
them to France. Without too much effort, one can discover from which province
and town their ancestors came. That perspective quickly changes, however,
if one looks to present day France for some trace of the modest peasant living among the people of the
16th and 17th centuries.
In France while rivers are modest they are also
more numerous. That makes them so powerful, that one refers to
them in the masculine.
Once, La Rochelle was the
capital of the Aunis, Saintes, Saintonge, Angoulême and Angoumois. In
turning toward the North, one finds the old provinces of Poitou, Anjou,
Touraine, Maine, Brittany and Normandy. These were the provinces that
provided New France with its most generous contingent of colonists.
This entire region was
peopled during the prehistoric ages and numerous artifacts, as interesting
as the men who lived in the stone and bronze ages, have been discovered
here. It is indeed in these regions that we find the underground caves of
the Cro-Magnon, Moustier and the Madeleine which gave their names to the
prehistoric races where their bones were discovered. Around Angoulême,
one can visit the underground cave of Chaffaud and throughout Périgord, a
little more to the South, Eysies, the one that the paleontologists readily
call "the capital of
prehistoric times."
Before the Roman conquest
of Gaule by Caesar, the Charentes was the territory of a Celtic tribe
called the Santons. Saintonge was the collective region of these provinces known as
Aunis, Saintonge and Angoumois. Rome, in dominating these populations, did
not greatly transform them. As Rome found, they had already been settled for
several centuries as farmlands that had been cultivated and managed according
to Celtic ways and customs.
At the same time that the
Roman civilization established its settlements, some of the Latin elements
mixed with that of the natives. The language of the conquered was absorbed
little by little with Gallic. Christianity, in its time, came to
definitively mark the life of the people. This part of the Gallic-Roman
province carried the name of Aquitaine, a name which was given after the
invasions of the barbarians under the Mêrovingiens and the Carolingians.
With the Visigoths to the North and Sarrasins in the middle, the Normands
and English successively conquered the country until the kings of France
finally succeeded in integrating its natural frontiers. The regions of the
Aunis and Saintonge were not made a part the kingdom, by the sword of Joan
of Arc, until after three centuries of English occupation (1154-1429). It
was then, however, that England fell under the influence of France.
The town of Angoulême,
along with Saintes, is of Gallic foundation. Its name was once Iculisma
and later became Engolisma. Built on a promontory completely surrounded by
ramparts, that modern town planners have transformed into terraces and
walks, it spontaneously brings to mind the familiar Canadian view of the
silhouette of Quebec. Champlain, to whom the town of Angoulême was surely
known, could not have failed to be impressed by the imposing mass of the
Diamant headland. Probably without thinking, or in his dreams, the founder
revealed to himself the advance aspects of the town to be established on
the rocks of Quebec, even more splendidly than the one of Angoulême. It
is worthy of note that this is a monument to that which seems to represent
the heart of Quebec. Illuminated from behind a low promontory, it is not a
brave prairie or the pretty Charente; but it is the complete country that
it opened and the imposing Saint Lawrence that leads to the world.
Angouleme underwent
multiple vandalizations during to the course of its long history by the
Barbarians, the Sarrasins and the Normands; it was also occupied by the
English during the course of the Hundred Years War, when they held all
of Southwest France, otherwise called the Guyenne. However, it was the wars of
religion that caused most of the devastation in Angouleme. Wars that had
hardly ended during the period when our story begins.
This town paid dearly for
its attachment to the Catholic religion due to its neighbors, like La
Rochelle, where there were strong positions of Protestantism. During some terrible years
in the aftermath, it had a decimated
population, ruined establishments and uncontrolled pestilence that was nearly endemic. In 1613,
historians say the town was pursued for debts and it didn't have the
necessary money to buy an open cart to remove garbage. But one report, however, states that during the same time, "the
middle class supports a proud people of good spirit, holding their
reputations high, good with their hands and willingly giving of
themselves. With little else to offer in trade, for the most part their
living is returned by
providing pheasants for gentlemen. They like
literature, are hospitable, polite and enjoy new things."
Today Angoulême is proud
once again. Proud of its cathedral of Saint Peter, the monument most
representative of Roman style, restored with taste by Abadie. Proud of
its terraces that run along the ramparts and the industrious
activity in the trade of luxury stationery, earthenware and stone cutting.
Hidden by forest, Angoulême
cannot
be seen for hundreds of miles, but remember that in the 15th century the
area was only brush woods, bogs and wetlands.
Here, in the very middle of
this agglomeration, is a small church of stone that dominates a place near
some shady lindens. The front is indicative of a Roman porch. There is not
a resident priest for Puymoyen.
The nave can accommodate a hundred people and does not possess much luxury
with its whitened walls and an apse that is not covered with a pretty
dome. A stem of iron goes from one wall to the other, above the
choir, to maintain them in position and mars the simplicity of the
whole place with its indiscreet utility. The baptismal stand is in the shape
of an octagon and is covered with geometric drawings. This is as a result
of, like so
many other monuments of the era and region, a Moorish influence. They are
from the 17th century and confirm the traditions used in the construction
of the church itself until the 16th century. A restoration took place
in 1598, at the end of the religious wars, and in 1676 when they installed the
bell that still rings today.
It was in this modest
church that generations of Simards came to
receive the sacraments and accomplish their religious duties for perhaps
eight centuries. Once, the cemetery where they were interred, was surrounded
by the church. Today there is a new cemetery, at the corner of the road,
containing their remains.
The former Simard family
household is only a
short distance further to the left. As described in the 1950s, it was indistinctive amongst the group of
buildings and, moreover, well hidden behind a courtyard wall. A dwelling without
a second floor, made of limestone and mortar. It had greenery
trailing a short grapevine on the front of two doors entering a well kept
lodging. The common exterior of the building was shared with barns and a
stable, as this was routinely the case when working in such agriculturally
dry regions. A small garden of flowers decorates the front window of the
dwelling and the entire area is surrounded by a thick wall the height of a
man.
It was the master of the
house himself who greatly knew how to honor
the place with those he again calls his cousins from Canada. In providing
several previous tours, Mr. René Simard had conducting other Simards to all corners of his dear native
village. First to the ancestral house, from which he detached a piece of
stone and offered it to them like a centennial relic. He then proceeded to the church, cemetery
and communal wash-house. Everything happened so
genially in 1951 when he displayed everything for the several different
visitors he received
at the old family sanctuary, welcoming them as he would relatives. He
created the emotion in a way that the visitor had the impression of coming
from the same place, with the same domestic lineage.
To others, Mr. Simard shows
some additional pieces of old furniture, a china cabinet for example, that
was nearly gleaming in his Angouleme residence and which also dates back to
the 12th century. He also expresses his desire that this house definitely
remain in the hands of the Simard family, as a meeting place for domestic
pilgrimages, a sanctuary, as he enjoys saying, to where descendants will
be drawn for the spiritual source of continuity that makes races strong.
Unfortunately, when I, in the company of 2 brothers, tried to visit this home in the mid 1990s, we found it was now occupied by new owners that were in no way related to the Simard lineage. They advised us that they had purchased the home and completely had renovated it for their personal use. It would, according to them, in no way resemble the house previously occupied by Mr. René Simard. They had no desire to allow anybody to view the house or lands behind the wall. We were not the first Simard visitors to come there in an attempt to view the property. They expressed the desire that we be the last.
We also visited the cemetery and found the final resting place of Mr. René Simard. To the best of my knowledge, Mr. René Simard was probably the last of the Simard line that had remained in that area after almost 350 years.
Puymoyen, Angouleme and the
Charente are a part of the old France which still exists like a testimony across
the centuries. It was from there, during the uneventfully modest and discrete
spring of 1657, a young man of twenty years, in the company of his father,
left these familiar places forever and went off toward the great mystery
of America.
THE ANCESTORS
The antiquity of the
ancestral house of the Simards in Puymoyen confirms the traditions which
recognize the honest native origin of the family. Steadily established in
Charente since the Middle Ages, it belongs to the oldest foundations of
the former Gaule and Celtic races.
Indeed, this dwelling
consisting of a number of city buildings, constituted the very body of the
little hamlet of Puymoyen. It is therefore all the less probable that they
date from the same era as the church, for a parochial church always
supposes the existence of a parish already organized by a group of
established Christians in the area. This is also affirmed elsewhere, in
that the parochial church belonged to the high medieval era and was
constructed from the first through the last years of the 13th century.
This additionally makes it appear even more likely, since the baptismal
stand was finished in the 12th century. Thus, it is not unsound to affirm
that, based on the age of the church, Puymoyen existed with rustic houses
during the 10th and 11th centuries. A single roof covered the family house,
the barns and stables. In the kitchen the old fireplace was beaten into the
soil, stood at the center of all activity, sometimes being functional
other times sacred. Its fire cooking the meals at the same time that it
radiated on the monogram of Christ.
It well appears that the
Simard family had always lived in Puymoyen. The name itself testifies to a
deep rooting in this area. All research to discover its origin and
convergent significance indeed leads toward an explanatory hypothesis that
makes its character highly regional.
It is probably the more works of linguist Albert Dauzat
can best serve as a guide in this study. Although one may point out
that there are scarcely any decisive enlightenments, to properly explain
the source of the primitive roots of the word SIMARD, it is necessary to
consider a large amount of general data he provided to discern the
evolution of the family name.
SEV_,
sea, lake (or See), rare enough. Composed: SEV_HARD_ Sevard, Sivard. SIG_,
victory (or Sieg), well represented at the beginning of compounds:
SIGI_BALD_, Sébaud, _aux; SIGI_BERHT, Sibert, Sébert: SIG_HARD_, Sicard;
SIG_HART_, Séguier; SIG_HRAMM_, Sigrand; SIG_WALD_, Sigaud; SIG_WIN_, Séquin;
for mostly southern names (this formation is very much in favor of the
Visigoths).
The name Simard seems well
suited to this last root, even though the author does not mention it among
those linkings; indeed, in a subsequent
work one does finds this precision:
SIMAR, generally changed to
SIMARD; variations: SEMARD, SEYMARD, southern names: name of Germanic
baptism. SIG_MAR, (sig_, victory; mar_, famous).
If one observes that the
first spelling of the word was CYMARD and that the hermit Cybard, who
would have been the first to have carried this baptism name from which we
would later derive SIMARD, lived the era of the Visigoth invasions and
apparently belonged to a family of Germanic origin, one finds the various
elements that allow the same stroke of satisfying certainty to establish
the genesis of the family name of SIMARD.
Additionally, the same
scholar indicates that family names were not written in any official
documents and consequently take on any official character with definitive
spelling until the XVth century. It was following a synod held in 1406
that, on the orders of the bishops, the vicars of France began to maintain
some registry of baptisms. The first known register was only started in
1411 and one can only guess at the large number of these first registers
that were destroyed, especially during the era of the Revolution. In 1539,
king Francois 1st, by an order called Villiers-Cotteret, imposed the
custom of registering all the civilian inhabitants of his kingdom.
Starting from this era, one notes that family names became fixed and
established.
The first public record in
which one finds a Simard goes back to 1556, less than twenty years after
the royal order. It reports that Leonard CYMARD, ploughman, buys, for the
total price of ten pounds , from Jeanne CYMARD, wife of Pierre Desrhues,
stationer staying at Puymoyen, a quarter of a journal of land to be held
as an annuity for a subject cathedral in Angouleme.
Therefore, the name has
existed into the present era, but more often under a different form than
the one in use today and moreover continues, with some adaptations, into
the next century. Certainly, one can say it existed in its present oral
form for a long time, although Dauzat is careful to warn that "the most ancient family names did not last into this era,"
speaking of the 11th and 12th centuries.
In effect, "the
family names, lost during the attacks of large invasions, were themselves
restored through another basis when the feudal system found its place, to
definitively fix them after
royal power had been securely established." And he also adds:
"The triumph of Christianity
had the result of upsetting the anthropogeny of pagan Rome.
"
These observations
regarding the general history of family names and the spelling of Simard
in particular, orientates the research toward some additionally more
inviting tracks.
Dauzat assigns family names
four possible backgrounds: they are former baptism names wherein the
origin of the name is evoked from the original family location, the race
in which some names are of professions, state or relationship and finally
some were nicknames. The impossibility of recovering a name of place in
the Simard word, of profession or simply a nickname imposes attention to
the first hypotheses: Simard would come from a baptism name. Moreover,
this is the most current process of forming new designations for some
families, the process which remains the convention in our time. Dauzat
stated that the individual first name of an ancestor is often thus linked
to his descendants with a like family name and he provides a concrete
observation as an example for this:
"I
said that heredity of an individual nickname is explained by the fact that
this name is characterized by the house and that the sons are normally
designated by the name of the father. I saw a case in my childhood wherein
one individual's recumbent nickname was given to the wife and children in
the domestic circle. A person had abridged the husband's first name,
Victor, to Vic. This had hypothetically pleased the individual and soon
the man's wife was familiarly
known as Mary Vic and the children as the Vic kids, and the whole family
as the Vics."
Who does not know of
similar phenomenon, especially in old Canadian parishes, like that of
Charlevoix in particular, where large numbers of descendants carrying the
same family name can spontaneously reveal their ancestral habitat by the
father's name. Likewise take Tremblay, from which comes Mathias, Jacomac,
Baptiste and Kessis (Alexis).
Similarly, could not there
have been someone with an ancestor from the Puymoyen area who answered to
the name of Cymard as did his children after him, the next Cymard being
Pierre of Cymard, Jacques of Cymard?
This hypothesis is
apparently not free of negatives when one notes that such a surname does
not contain anything extraordinary regarding the area of Charente and that
it is only formed on the basis of a very popular name, Cybard. For Cybard
was the name of one of the country's holiest leaders. The memory of Saint
Cybard, still through this day, remains vivacious in the entire region of
Angoulême where he is honored in many ways. At the famous church at
Angoulême, on the first of July each year, the feast of this leader
shares honors of a regional following with Saint Ausone. A complete
district of the town has always been named Saint-Cybard Suburb, as has a
bridge crossing the Charente at this location. On the side of the town
sign one can still find the underground cave where, at the beginning of
the Christian era, the holy hermit who was named Cybard lived. Within
twenty kilometers of Angoulême toward the west, a township can be found
named Saint-Cybardeaux, after the apparent transformation of Saint-Cybard.
One can but only think similarly of the name of an other
township of the region, La Simarde?
Although
Saint Cybard lived in the 6th century, one understands without difficulty
that his followers spontaneously suggested his name when the custom
originated, around the 11th century, of giving children the name of a
saint and preferably the patron of the area.
The good regionalistic
character of the family name, in addition to formerly established lineage
material, therefore, allows us to believe that Simards descend from some
of the oldest races of France. Without doubt, they most probably come from
ancient Gallic foundations that held the land in that part of populated
Gaule during prehistoric ages: Celts, who Romans preferred to call Gallic,
and the tribes which shared the territory that spread between the Rhine,
Pyrenees and Alps. As previously noted, the tribe that lived on the banks
of the Charente was called the Santons, their country was named the
Saintonge, with Saintes and Angoulême already the main centers.
Roman conquest brought
Latin blood to these people, but it penetrated urban populations far more
than the peasant sphere. During the 4th century, when the barbarians
surged over the Gallic-Roman province, the Visigoths settled in all
territories South of the Loire as far as Gibraltar. The Aquitaine,
however, already converted to Christianity by Saint Ausone, better
resisted infiltration of their race by the dominant Arians. The Visigoths,
however, occupied some parts of the Santons until 507, the year when
Clovis, the king of France, having recently been baptized only a few years
earlier, beat them at Vouillé and jostled them beyond the Pyrenees before
annexing the Aquitaine to his kingdom.
In the 8th century, it
was Sarrasin expeditions that invaded the western Gallic country where,
however, they did not succeed in establishing themselves due to being
cornered in Spain by Charles Martel, following his great victory at
Poitiers in 732. A century later the Norman conquerors emerged from the
North Sea. They, however, had few establishments South of the Loire,
especially after the king of France had granted them the region watered by
the Seine which, during that time (911), was known as Normandy. Finally it
was Eléonore de Aquitaine who became queen of England in 1154 and opened
all the western area to English infiltration. The provinces of Aunis,
Saintonge and Angoumois were returned to the French crown two and a half
centuries later, thanks to Joan of Arc. However, we know that during this
time France really dominated England through the Princes of Normandy and
French provincial populations were scarcely affected by English influence,
excepting only those that underwent the devastations of the Hundred Years
War. It stands that neither the Visigoths, Sarrasins, Normands or English
modified the character, customs or populate blood of the Charente people
who stayed on the Celtic race lands throughout the up and downs of its
tinted Gallo-Roman history. Farming populations, more so than others, were
sheltered from all infiltration and this causes an affirmation that old
families of Puymoyen are true natives and have mostly Gallic and Latin
blood in their veins..
It is thus that we find
access to the Simard family's first full day of history, in about the year
1500. In fact we know very little of anything about the generation that
then lived in the already old home. The father was named Antoine and
during a first marriage with Marguerite Soulot they had a son who they
named Pierre.
This is revealed in a
notary act, dated 22 February 1588, drafted on the occasion of the
division of the father's estate after his death
. As of this date, all the children were adults, since Vincent, their
third son, was himself already a husband and father of a son and daughter.
If one takes into account that last two, Simon and Marguerite, were
married in the years 1605 and 1606, it may be deduced that their parents
had scarcely contracted marriage themselves until after 1585, which would
put the birth date of Vincent Simard at about 1565. Marsault would have
been born then in about 1563 and Pierre before 1560, since it is necessary
to place these two dates around the death of Antoine's first wife,
Marguerite Soulot, and the last marriage to Françoise Berton. These
approximate calculations enable us to put between 1520 and 1540 the birth
date of Antoine, the first Simard whose name is known.
THE PARENTS
Antoine's final resting
place would have been in
the small cemetery surrounding the parish church; It was not an easy life
for this first ancestor named Antoine. Since the country had a great
number of the protestant Huguenots, who made La Rochelle their center of resistance,
the League raised ever larger armies from the Catholic population to counter them.
The peasants saw their sons leave to go to war and undergo the
depredations of the barracks. Angoulême was left in ruins and on the
other side of
the hill, Puymoyen, didn't escape the misery of the times. as proof, one only need
look no further than her half demolished church.
They still speak of the
disaster of Brouage. Indeed, it was in 1586 that Henri de Navarre, during
the fury of war, blocked this most beautiful sea harbor of the
Saintonge by sinking twenty building loads of stone into the
channel entrance. For a period of twenty years the town, where the
future founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, grew up, was placed under
siege five times. It would not recover from this last one.
Pierre, Marsault, Vincent
and Raymond, the sons of Antoine Simard of Puymoyen, participated in these
struggles between Catholics and Protestants. Under this guise, they also
fought in order to prevent the king of Navarre from becoming the king of
France. But in 1593, when Henri de Bourbon renounced his heresy and made a
profession to the Catholic faith, they caught sight of the aura of peace.
It then took him five additional years of effort in order to pacify the
entire kingdom, but in the countryside, normal life had already resumed
its course and the Simards heard the command of good king Henri to "Plow
and pasture."
By 1588, it was Marsault,
the eldest of the second family, who had become the head of the Simard
house. It appears that Pierre, the true eldest, found a place of his own
after the death of his mother or at least spent less time there after the
father got remarried. The new mistress of the house was Marsault's wife, Léonarde
Berthoulde, and we know that in the household there was a son who had the
name of the father, Marsault or Martial. It is possible that the other
children of Antoine, excepting those who had contracted marriage, still
lived in the old house. But this house was
just a part of the world and it faired very poorly during those years of
civil war.
The chroniclers of the era
say that the travelers who crossed the provinces of low Bas-Poitou,
Angoumois and Périgord returned with some impressions of horror and pity.
"The inhabitants are of an
extraordinary sobriety, gluttonous only of bread and ignorant of all other
delights. In their affairs they appear quite skillful, reflective and very
stubborn.
They
are squalid in their food and clothing."
Hanoteaux evokes an unpalatable picture of their misery:
"If one penetrates the horrible thatched cottage made of straw that
serves as their home, one finds naked children on the straw, shivering
before a cow dung fire." And mentioning a chronicle of the era:
"They live off
chestnuts, which they even export afar. One sees a countryside of oaks and
chestnuts. The earth is covered with stones, that the peasants are too
lazy to remove, otherwise it would not be bad. However, the barrenness
comes especially from the barbarism of the inhabitants. There are few
villages, some rare thatched cottages and, in the rocky fields, sheep and
few cows."
One could impeach the
judgment that attributes, to the laziness of the peasants, the negligence
of the land on which these poor people suffered through the wars of the
grand Lords; their staying makes that clear enough. When Etienne Pasquier
crossed Agoumois, on his way to Cognac, he spoke of "such
a great borough in which there were only four or five poor households"
at which he could find nothing to eat. It is easy then to comprehend why
Henri IV was able to impose a program, as soon as peace was restored,
which permitting every family a weekly "hen
in the pot."
The second Marsault was
married at the beginning of 17th century to Ozanne Soulot who he soon
left a widowed mother of four children; Marsault the third, Pierre, Antoinette and
Marguerite. In 1625, on the occasion of the marriage of her daughter
Antoinette, Ozanne was herself remarried to a merchant from Puymoyen,
Gaultier Leuraud. In 1631, when Pierre was in turn married, she was no
longer alive.
The childhood and the youth of the second son of the third Marsault, Pierre, unfolded under more serene circumstances, during the peaceful but too short reign of the Vert-galant. Puymoyen, like Angoulême and the rest of the Charente areas, returned to their previous lifestyles as the Huguenots were maintaining a calm in their stronghold of La Rochelle.
It was then that
they started to
speak, into the evenings, of adventures and a new country. A man from the
region, a Saintongeois originally from Brouage, returned in 1601 from an
expedition in America where the Spaniards were carving an empire. The old
father of Champlain, himself a coastal fisherman, was very proud of his son; the
vicar of Brouage had taught the boy Latin so that he had become "a nobleman," but the call of the sea carried him away. What
could some fishing nets do to hold this very spirited young man. He had
taken his leave during the epic struggles of the last war during which the
League battled to save his town of Brouage. This had led to peace in 1598
followed by twenty years of peace. He had the blood of a sailor in his veins,
this Samuel, and now, thanks to his uncle, he could succeed in the first
crossing overseas. Like the commander of the Spanish ship, the young
Champlain already felt like a great explorer;. He had conducted exercises
to Cadix to prepare maps, explored Havana and already saw that, in
piercing the isthmus of Panama, one could pass from the Atlantic into the
Pacific and from there to the Indies.
In 1603 Samuel de Champlain
departed on a new voyage, but this time he was part of a totally French
expedition on which he accompanied the commander on the dangerous deck, with the title of
geographer for the king, to explore the New Lands, Gaspé
and into the Saint Lawrence river. He was there as an envoy of Mr. Aymar
des Chaste, who the king had just designated, to exploit the fur trading
processes. When Champlain arrived during the first gleamings of fall, he
had other reasons to be pleased with a liking for this setting. He had
recently succeeded on a magnificent exploration as far as the high regions
of the Saint Lawrence and had been received by the king who bestowed his
greatest consideration. Rumors of this occurrence quickly overflowed the
area surrounding Brouage, continued through the Saitonge and were carried
up the Charente until reaching Angoulême.
Townsmen and peasants were
already well aware of daring fishermen who had gone from there to the New
Lands in order to bring back stocks of codfishes. The Basques from the
South, Britons from the North and Normands did not fear undertaking long
travel on frail craft and they profited from trading furs then sold in
France. The inhabitants of Saint-Malo attempt for years to ensure
a commerce monopoly under the pretext that it was left to them by their
compatriot Jacques Cartier?
The peasants of Angoumois
could only dream during the telling of these adventures; their fate was
stable, well riveted to the earth. But on the entire Atlantic coast, they
spoke only of America and New Lands. Men on land felt moved by the daring
exploits of men at sea. For thirty years, the periodic returns of
Champlain to Saintonge
served to nourish the curiosity of these sedentary populations and one is
not surprised to later see them provide many the colonists needed by
Quebec.
Pierre Simard was born in
1602 or 1603. He grew up on the farm in Puymoyen, but could not see making
his life there, since the title of the property had to remain with his
eldest brother Marsault. He also dreamed of taking up a profession: he
would become a mason.
His work brought him to
live to Angoulême around the same time when the queen mother, Marie of Médicis,
in a quarrel with her son, came to install her court in the town, thus
giving the future Richelieu his first chance to intervene in public
affairs. During the years 1616-1620, Angoulême had yet to finish
repairing damages of the war; it was necessary to demolish and
reconstruct. Masons, stone cutters, carpenters and casters were not
unemployed.
These were the social
surroundings of Pierre. Working between two sites in progress, he was able
to follow his nearby family events; his being close enough to travel from
Angoulême to Puymoyen in an hour. His father was the first to pass away,
leaving the house to Marsault, who apparently did not remarry because his
two daughters Antoinette and Marguerite were already grown. The most
surprising event was probably his mother's decision to marry a second time
to the merchant Gaultier Leuraud. We can deduce very little which would
reveal the character, a singular spirit or similar system of morals,
because there are too many factors concerning these elements to judge them
with relevance.
May 4 1625, Pierre "Cymard"
witnessed the marriage contract of his sister Antoinette to Pierre Texier,
an inhabitant of Puymoyen. As for Marsault and Marguerite, it does not
seem possible to specify dates for their marriages; the first was married
to Catherine Marot, with whom he had two children, Jacques and Jeanne, and
the second became the wife of another cattle farmer from Puymoyen, Pierre
Gellibert.
A daughter of these last
two, Antoinette, married a Simard who was probably her cousin in 1656.
This alliance allows us to note at that time there existed in Puymoyen,
and the surrounding region, several families named Simard. According to
records alone, we can identify Jean Simard and Léonarde Fallot, god
parents of Antoinette Gellibert, around 1650 and two Antoine Simards, one
husband to Jeanne Panisseau, the other to Marie Pertuze. For some painful
years Hélyot Cymard, husband of Mathurine Mornicas and father of widowed
Denis Garnauld, disappeared; on the other hand, we see living in Nersac, a
hamlet situated kilometers from Puymoyen, in the "village" of
Chez-Roby, cloth merchant named of Simon Simard. Finally, as part of
records dated 21 November 1654 Colas Symard confirmed the authenticity of
signatures for Marsault and Pierre Symard, the last working in the "escardeur" profession.
Pierre was 28 years old
when he got married at Angoulême in the month of May 1631. For his wife
he had chosen a young woman of the town, who was orphaned without father
or mother; named Catherine Boudier who lived at the base of the ramparts,
not far from the Saint Pierre cathedral, but was a parishioner of the
Saint Ausone church. As the marriage contract was passed before Vachier,
notary of Angoulême, Pierre was accompanied by his brother-in-law Pierre
Texier and his two cousins, Hélie Delavaud and Etienne Texier, the last
being a master stonecutter.
The household must have
know only a few months of wedded bliss. Catherine Boudier died during her
first pregnancy, without leaving her husband any posterity.
It is during this period of
mourning that we find it necessary close this chapter, for the life of
Pierre belongs to the future along with other perspectives. One cannot
ignore the direction in which we must go from here by becoming overwhelmed
and perplexed by the isolation he incurred during this period. Alas, the
train of human affairs must continue to move toward the light.
During the years after
1624, a great minister took the affairs of the kingdom in hand. The
Huguenots had already succumbed to the pitiless siege that cardinal de
Richelieu had mounted against the town of La Rochelle. In this year of
1628 strong memories remain in the mind and one often recalls His Eminence
riding, along with the tireless Capuchin missionary friar who followed him
like a shadow and whom they began to call the Grey Eminence.
THE OPTIONS
A man, if he is only thirty
years old, does not let himself be collapsed by a hardship. After a few
years of widowhood, Pierre Simard decided to rebuild his home. He
incidentally knew through lady Benjamin Boquet of Angoulême, a modest
orphan who worked for her as a live in servant. Her name was Suzanne
Durand and she seemed to belong in the workman surroundings that one
associates with Pierre Simard; along with her only relative, cousin
Nicolas Belan who worked as a professional carpenter and the widow Boquet
as her protector, she received assistance from the notary Gilbault in
forming a marriage contract.
As for the spouse, this
being no different than his first marriage, on this occasion he was not
accompanied by his brother Marsault who remained at the paternal farm in
Puymoyen; it was his brother-in-law, Pierre Gellibert, husband of
Marguerite, and his cousins Etienne Texier and Nicolas Rozier who surround
him. For witness, they required another man of the construction
profession, Armand Delacroix, stonecutter, and two persons that the notary
Gibault himself found in his setting, the clerk Michel Martin and Pierre
Chantecaille, a competing practitioner.
It was December 1635.
During this same period, in his regained town of Quebec, Samuel de
Champlain was preparing to die; after a short reprieve, the paralysis that
he turned back in October had already returned for another assault. But
the old Saintongeois carried with him the gleaming assurance that his work
would survive him. It was he who had provided for the establishment of the
first contingent of colonists that came from Perche with Robert Giffard.
And others were soon to come from Poitou, Aunis, Saintonge and Angoumois.
Cardinal de Richelieu
had expressly promised it.
For some years reports,
which the Jesuit missionaries wrote to describe New France to the
motherland, provided an abundance of information that quickly went through
Paris and into the old provinces to become the current topic. But it was
the especially the good news of restoring the colony to France from
England that allowed finishing the conquest work of Champlain by the
sympathetic inhabitants of the Atlantic coast.
A renewal of optimism burst
throughout the kingdom, including the restored home of Pierre Simard. The
same hopes, slow to ripen and always threatening to fade were, however,
made to languish between a married couple who had nothing in common. Here
was a modest workman, husband to an orphan who only knew domestic service;
over there, in the Louvre palace, was a king whose subjects demanded an
heir and who had little love for the beautiful Anne of Austria. The shadow
of the most discreet in waiting enveloped the banks of the Charente, while
a crowd of courtiers, on the banks of the Seine, were on the lookout for
gossip about the conjugal encounters of Louis XIIIth. One knows that after
twenty years in a sterile marriage, the king of France made a vow at Notre
Dame to consecrate his kingdom if Heaven gave him a son.
Pierre Simard was not a
father for more than a few months when the astonishing news sounded across
the entire kingdom: a dauphin was going to be born. And in fact, a royal
birth took place on September 5 1638 which granted France the greatest of
her kings; in order to proclaim their gratitude to Heaven, the parents
gave to this son, who would later carry the name of Louis XIV, the one God
given religion.
There was also a son born
to Pierre Simard and to Suzanne Durand and in their joy the parents could
not find or give him a name more beautiful: they named him Noel.
So that the parallel
between the child of the Bourbons and the one of the Simards does not
appear too bold and fanciful, let it be sufficient here to say that after
a life of equal length, although dissimilar in their celebrity, both would
die in 1715 and when that takes place one may ask which of the two
careers, however varied in their radiance, had been the most fertile in
works regarding the foundation of posterity.
The birth of Nöel Simard
marks a fundamental date in the history of the Simard family, since the
stock of this man in America will thereafter result in one of the most
numerous and enterprising families on which the destinies of Canada will
rest.
Some cradles contain more
promise for the future than others and more often it is the parents
themselves who cannot see it. The same mystery hovers over all children. Nöel
Simard appeared to have no disposition that distinguished him from any
other children in his setting and the rearing that he received from his
parents was aimed only to make him a man of the plainest condition.
Perhaps he learned some
elements of writing through catechism lessons; he would sign his name NOEL
SIMAR, which he often abridged into the simple initials NS.
From Noel's own testimony,
he declared their marriage took place in Puymoyen and the family had remained there in the small borough rather than in
Angoulême proper. A few years later a daughter was born and called by the
name of her mother, Suzanne.
Already during this era,
among the other Simards of the region, one was able to distinguishes
Pierre and his family members by the nickname of Lombrette which later
nearly came to replace the family name itself. It is necessary to renounce
preconceptions of such a word in order to establish its exact sense,
origin and meaning in a positive manner; almost anything is possible
through default by consigning facts and generating a few hypotheses to
deduce the word itself. Here are three of them which are particularly
interesting.
The R.P. Archange Godbout,
famous genealogist, suggests this:
"The nickname of Lombrette (little shade) that he carried to Canada and
that was passed to some of his descendants made have alluded to the small
size of a place recalled such as Puymoyen."
As may be seen in "lombrette,"
a diminutive of the word "shade,"
there is a certain advantage in going for the simplest explanation. On the
other hand, the double application suggested does not impose anything.
Since as ingenious an allusion could also be made as to size or shortness
of character, rather than to one which would project the place where one
is shaded as an ombrette, keeping simplicity in mind the former seems a
little more subtle. The origin of a place is said to offer more
feasibility, in that one already knows that Puymoyen existed rather than
places that were named Le Vergier or Le Lion. According to the still
retained custom, if there was a group of about two or three houses,
sometimes built from a part of the same dwelling, it would be called a
village. So we can find, in an area of less than a mile, inhabitants of
several villages each having their own name. Was there close to Puymoyen,
at the time of Pierre Simard, a place named Lombrette where, precisely,
the Lombrettes would have lived? It does not exist nor is there any trace
of it in memory.
Old French, on the other
hand, provides a very familiar word that could painlessly fit in the
composition of Lombrette. It was "brette,"
by which one referred to a sword or sometimes an axe. In this case, the
prefix "lom" would not
be more than the corruption of the epithet "long"
and "long brette" would have
given way to "lombrette."
We only know that the word "bretter"
passed from France to Canada where it took on a very particular meaning.
The Glossary
says: Bretter: idle, losing time to something and also "hang"
or "pry" It uses the expression in examples:
"To pass the day's work
in bretter" and "Why are you brettes? I have
waited an hour for you." And it also notes that in France one
finds equivalent conventions: in Bourgone, "bretter"
is used to say "turn";
in Anjou, "brêter"
means "go on vacation"
and in Berry, "breter" means "beg."
But elsewhere, it is necessary to add, that one in the masonry profession
uses an instrument to measure the size of stone which is called the "bretture"
and it also applies to the work executed by this instrument. Literally
used to the word "bretture"
three meanings: 1) to work on a roughened sculpture, 2) the stripe formed
on wood or stone by tools with teeth, 3) the teeth of an instrument used
to scribe the brettures: the word "bretter"
more precisely specifies: 1) in art terms: beginning a work of sculpture
with a roughed out notched figure in clay or wax, 2) the practice
using a hammer like instrument tipped with small teeth. And today we can
read it in a French newspaper, in a description of the restoration
work on the cathedral of Rouen,
in the following sentence: "They
work as they would have in the Middle Ages: except for the cement and the
iron, they employ the same means that were used in the fifth or sixth
centuries, with the same stone from the Vernon stonecutters, with
ancestral gestures they handle the laye, bretture and right-taillant,
which makes a noise that sounds like screeching."
If one considers that
Pierre Simard worked as a professional mason and that he to lived more
than forty years in a middle of stonecutters, casters and carpenters, one
might be inclined to believe that the nickname of Lombrette would have
come from his profession and would have been given to him by his
workmates; he would want them to say that the mason Simard had worked with
"the long brette,"
that the stroke of his arm on the stone was energetic and healthy; in
brief, it would be necessary to see a manly feature for this to work here.
We confess that we prefer this interpretation to all others.
Unless one fails to invoke
the sense that the rather clearly defined words "brette,"
"bretter" and "bretteux"
have in Canada, others could insinuate that the Lombrette was slow with
work, preferring to be an idle slacker. That character trait does not fail
to sting, but it is necessary to note that Pierre Simard brought this
nickname from his native village and didn't acquire it in this country.
There exists other
explanations from those who know how to present ancestors with the least
number of disparaging insinuations. One amateur genealogist, of recent
memory,
being greatly pleased with some research to standardize the interpretation
of names used to produced the Tanguay Dictionary and in order to discover,
whenever possible, the origin of these old names, believes there should be
an etymological hypothesis. She did not enjoy any additional positive and
peremptory corroboration of the facts, but does not fail of interest:
"I want to finish,
she writes in a letter, closing as a
little part of the "big brette" or large axe of Pierre Simard
Lombrette and of his son, in that I am at "chip" of it, two
times by the Desbiens and once by Bouchard.
It is ingenious to resort
to the "long brette"
rather that to "the ombrette"
in explaining that the nickname of the Simards came of Puymoyen. But I
have become accustomed to believing that Lombrette was just other
distortion of a place denoting some anterior background with the staying
of some Simards at Puymoyen. This place would be Ambérac, named for the
district of Saint-Amand-de-Boixe (of which you speak), on the Charente it
descends toward Angoulême and Puymoyen is hardly ten miles north of the
capital of Angoumoise.
"One
knows that there are thousand of names with "ac" within confines
of the Old Provincial languages that are pronounced in more than a single
way. One says "ac," but it is often "ar"; and
especially "a," but just as frequently "att."
There
are many regions in the
country where they pronounce
"bratte" when they write "bérac." The initial
syllable is rather "amm," as dully as if it was "omn."
To go from of Ambérac to "of Ombrette" does not present many
shades of difference. I believed the Simards from Puymoyen had been some
people from Ambérac, to the anterior generations, and that wherever they
went one would say they were the Simards of Ambérac. One cannot guarantee
which way it was pronounced back then, nor for how many generations it was
said; but assuredly the Angoumoisins, as well that the Canadians, could
change into Ombrette anything which sounded like Ombrette. By putting an
"l" and an apostrophe there, is all that remains to do to that
ombrette."
Although he is from there,
with the nickname, Lombrette manages to be better off at Puymoyen, while
vague news of misery abates throughout the kingdom. The war mostly affects
the rich but soon invasion by imperial armies in 1638,
whose campaigns inflict dismay, brings on the intensive recruitment for
soldiers. And when the great Richelieu died in 1642, he had already lost a
lot of his popularity. But he deserves merit for development of New France
by organizing the Company of One Hundred Associates and his imposing
leadership in providing many colonists.
The death of Louis XIIIth
in 1643, well attended by regency and its unavoidable troubles, finished
breaking down the peasants in complete misery.
"A historian could write
a complete book, replete with monotonously touching testimonies, about the
destitution in the time of the Catapult. In all the testimonies, one would
find the same awful details on the odious excesses of some soldiers, the
pestilence and the famine.
" It was in this era that Providence caused Saint Vincent de Paul to
appear.
So much calamity pushed
some families to attempt the great adventure of emigration. In truth, we
are not surprised that there was not more; during the fifty years that
followed the foundation of Quebec, hardly a hundred emigrants passed into
Canada. For this purpose alone, the Company of One Hundred Associates was
hired to recruit four thousand colonists from 1620 to 1643.
One wonders how it was that
only such a small handful of emigrants, notes the cannon Groulx,
came to Canada in a quarter of a century. France was, at that time, the
most populous country in Europe. Should not the astonishment at this point
have been the opposite, where they would have come in greater numbers than
a thousand? The truth was that the men who would attempt this adventure
were not lacking in the kingdom of Louis XIIIth. Razilly estimated there
were 200,000 French husbands who, at that time, served abroad in order to
be not treated as "fools and
hypochondriacs." In 1635 Father LeJeune asked if it was not
better "to unload Old France in the New by colonization instead of populating
foreign countries." About 1660, did not Pierre Boucher demand of
Colbert "discharges from Old
France which was so abundant in men that the kingdoms and their foreign
colonies could be populated from there, day in and day out." But
why unleash these considerable migrations when they would only serve those
conspiring against this type of departure? We had to be part of oceanic
migrations, it was said, in the XVIIth century: the six to eight weeks of
being tossed from side to side on a fragile wash basin, which was less
comfortable for the passengers than the liners of today, was beastly, with
price being the biggest obstacle to the crossing enterprise: risks of
epidemic and death came from the pestilential holds and, during some
years, the risk of falling into the hands of the English privateers and
Dunkirkers. There was nothing to persuade the masses to act in any other
manner, such the gold fever of Spain, the religious and political
persecutions of England; but in opposition, there was all the frightening
and insidiously dangerous propaganda; the colonist were depicted in
epigrams as the trouble makers of the alleyways and courts, representing
semi foolish second class adventurers; and of Canada itself, one called it
the Mother of the Incarnation, describing it like "a
place of horror," on the "outskirts
of hell."
In fact, life in New France
did not offer anything in the way of comfort during the period from 1635
to 1665 for, in addition of all the inherent rigors of the beginning
regime of colonization, one added the constant insecurity of a war
sustained against the cruel Iroquois. Causing the population to constantly
bend under the weight of the overwhelming menace of a prospective
massacre. This was an era when a poor colonist had to work with a rifle
within hand reach. Ferland wrote: "The
French families scattered on the banks of the Saint Lawrence were exposed
to continual dangers. During the day, men were attacked in the corners of
a field, the edge of the woods or on the waters of a big stream; in order
to surprise their victims, the marauding Iroquois would remained hidden
behind fallen trees, in swamps or in the middle of the rushes on the
beach; during the night, they prowled about the houses, seeking to
surprise some defenseless family.
"
Their numbers were too few
in New France; in France, on the contrary, there were too many paupers. So
many of the French adventurers, who were then running the world, were
desirable of practicing an intensive policy of emigration and the
beneficial results that could be obtained from it: Relief for the
population, fortifying the French empire in America before those of
England, Spain or Holland, increased prestige for France, and the process
of fortifying the colony in order to dominate the savage tribes and
repulse English incursions. But the kingdom was no more than an enclosed
field where the Great Ones argued.
Similar to so many of other
households of this era, the Simards began working on an idea that first
causes fear, then returns to thread its way through the heart of men.
"There is over there,
say the Relations, some lands undeveloped since the birth of world";
they await a master. Here in France, there is nothing more than misery on
top of misery and war after war.
Noel was eighteen years old
and his sister, Suzanne, sixteen; as for their parents, they were twice
that at about fifty. In 1653 there was a big event happening in the
Charentes: at La Rochelle, before a notary, one hundred and fifty
candidates were hired to leave for New France in order to settle at
Montreal. But, in a very revealing sign of the times, at the time of
departure, nearly fifty of them failed to show up. Hesitation kept away a
number of people who wanted to go, but did not dare to embark, for Canada.
From time to time after
winter, on the departure of ships, they heard about those who had
committed, that a son was also preparing to do the same: it was Pierre
Couc Lafleur, of Cognac, or Jean Abaillargeon, of Londigny, or Nicolas
Durand, of Cheremmet. Nöel Simard returned home with this news, which
caused some less than approving comments.
During the twenty-five year
period, from 1642 to 1667, recruitment of colonists in the provinces of
the Charente was revealed as slight in intensity, since there were hardly
more than 60 departures that had taken place: 21 from Saintonge, 27 from
Aunis and 11 from Angoumois. Up through 1655, could we possibly count very
many more than about 30? Moreover, it is necessary to know that, during
this era, the total population in the Canadian colony didn't reach 700
people. It was only through Colbert, under the personal reign of Louis
XIVth, there came the establishment of a real emigration movement from
France to Canada.
When fall brought back
family members dispersed by work during the good season, the subject
around the fireplace concerned the misery of the time and the eventual
advantages of establishment in the colonies. In the Simard home, the
mother tried to understand her twenty year old son who insistently
returned to this topic. In the beginning, Lombrette was slow to answer the
overtures of his son; silent, he rather let his wife abound in reasons of
opposition and disapproval. But, little by little, his tacit resistance
crumbled; at first he tried to attenuate the mother's rigorous refusals,
demonstrating an additional opinion more in line with the views of Noel,
even taking to defending him with the causes of emigrant. Often Suzanne
mixed into the discussion on the side of her mother. Mealtimes provided
the opportunity for decisive intentional confrontations between the women,
anxious about their security, and the men, attracted by the adventure.
Winter passed with these
discussion, as the parties affirmed their positions and, come springtime,
the Simards found themselves faced with the decision of which option to
take.
Noel decided to leave for
New France. He met with the colonial recruited and gave his promise to be
present for first departure of the season. Then a true drama exploded in
the house. The father facing this fact was more encouraged in his resolve,
hoping the complete family would follow Nöel to the colony. There Suzanne
could quickly find a husband and the parents, in addition to the
satisfaction of living with their children, still had enough work years
and energy remaining to help establish them.
But alas! during this
entire process, the mother provided only opposition and a categorical no.
And her daughter supported her.
Well if Simard history did
not fall back into common obscurity during this time of rejection, it was
because of the way the two men faced it, one being overtaken by events. It
is necessary to replace the domestic problems with concrete circumstances
to understand the attitude of the two women: very natural fear, caused by
the prospect of a new life of nearly heroic requirements, seized them by
the heart. It was the firmness of the colonial candidates that causes
greater astonishment.
Was
it at this moment that the father became the party who followed his son?
Or was he himself the instigator of the departure? It is impossible to
clarify such questions, but there well was a consummate drama. The family
split itself into two pieces; Pierre Simard and his son would leave for
Canada in the spring of 1657, with one leaving the old country, his wife
and daughter, the other his mother and sister.
Their departure must have
occurred during the last days of May. Some very explicit documents show
that Lombrette worked at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré on July 24 1657
and that on May 28, they had not yet left Puymoyen.
Indeed, at the end of May
we can place him at the old house for the marriage of the son of Pierre's
brother Marsault. It appears that on this occasion he was no longer in
charge of the house, since it was the uncle Pierre who was requested to be
a witness to the marriage contract. This Jacques was surely passed thirty;
when he married a widow, Madeleine David, before lady Genis Brun.
They were allowed a get
together, at which the two Lombrettes participated, before their
embarkation. Whereupon seeing all the relations reunited, it was hoped
they would understand the conditions of the voyage and the establishment
promises that attracted them overseas. To their family, the father and son
did not represent hero figures. Even in the departures that were approved
of, one wonders about the resolve and staying convinced that those who
remained behind were not better off. For even more so than today, it is
easy to presume, the peasants of that time were themselves fixed to the
soil and by a desire to stay at home.
The period during which the
crossing was completed was less than three months. It was the movements of
shipping during that spring which easily allows us to precisely establish
when this was achieved by the Lombrettes. Indeed the Jesuit missionaries
of Quebec had for several years already kept a Journal in which, without
fail, they recorded the arrival of French ships and from where they had
departed; because, for the small colony of five hundred inhabitants
clinging to the rock of Quebec, it contained all of the important
developments. Therein one finds recorded, during the 1657 season, the
arrival of four ships of the distant past: first, on 21 May, was the
appearance of a Basque ship under the command of a captain Marot and
having previously arrived in Tadoussac; exactly one month later, on 21
June, there came another ship, the "Le Taureau," with a captain
Tardourneau, who arrived from La Rochelle after a particularly easy
crossing; on 29 July, after a rough crossing, a boat finally brought Mr.
de Maisonneuve, governor of Montreal, and Mr. de Queylus, along with
several other priests, who started from Nantes two month earlier; finally
in September, the only ship to arrive was the one on which a new governor,
the Viscount of Argenson,
Chart of the coast of St Francis Xavier, from Cape Maillard, listing
land concessions made by the Seminary of Quebec (From Seminary archives)
Partial photo of Noel Simard’s marriage contract starting at the
beginning and finishing with the ancestral signatures (taken from the
authentic document in the Quebec Archives)
had embarked but, due to being discouraged by excessive storms, had
returned to France from Ireland and did not resume his journey until 1658.
Pierre Simard and his son
came, therefore, to La Rochelle to embark on the "Taureau"
departing for Quebec on the last day of May. One report states
that "on 10 April 1657 there
appeared before master Abel Cherbonnier, notary at La Rochelle, the ship
owner Francois Perron and captain Elie Tadourneau, a merchant co-owner of
"Taureau." He was hired to provide passage and services to
Quebec, for fifteen persons, of which six were girls." The ship
entered in the roadsteads of Quebec on 21 June and did not depart for La
Rochelle until the following 26 September.
The one way journey from
Puymoyen to La Rochelle, totaling more than eighty miles, was made with
all diligence after 28 May. As for the two Suzannes, their silhouettes dim
in a gesture of definitive farewell. What part of a relationship can be
maintained with the other part on the ocean? Mail was practically non
existent and these poor people did not know how to write. During this era,
to leave was to do little more than die...
In 1661, when Pierre Simard
donated his possessions to his son on the occasion of his marriage, he
still had not given up on seeing his daughter Suzanne in New France, for
he obliged his son to reserve a dowry: "obligating
however his son Nöel Simard, declares the contract,
in case that his sister Suzanne who is in France comes to live in this
country, that he will give to his said sister the sum of three hundred
pounds in order to provide a fair payment for her to marry."
Suzanne never came to this
country. None the less, it is safe to assume, she did not know of this
donation, whose terms betray the desires of the father to gather all of
his family with him. Was she even alive as of this date? Five years later,
we found her mother withdrawn to Angoulême, at the home of Madame Marie
Baurye, wife of the tailor Mr. Pierre Panisseau. She had lived alone there
for a period of time and planned to die there, since before the notary
Guyot, on 27 October 1666, she assigns all her possessions in favor of
this woman who harbors her.
Here, in its eloquent
conciseness, is the will of this abandoned woman, who considers herself
widowed:
"In
the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I,
Suzanne Durant, widow of Pierre Simard, being from this town of
Angoulesme, with the grace of God, being of a whole mind and with
understanding, considering that there is nothing more certain than death
nor nothing more uncertain than the hour of its coming, have caused this
my last will and testament to be made in the form and manner which ensues.
First I commend my soul to God, my creator, and to the glorious Virgin
Mary, praying they will pardon the faults and sins that I committed in
this mortal world and that after my soul is separated from my body allow
it conversation with the blessed in Paradise; my said body is to be buried
in the cemetery of Our Lady of Beaulieu in this town of Angoulesme,
wherein Marie Baurye, wife of Pierre Panisseau, tailor of clothes, will
take the pains and care of praying to God for my soul. I hereby give, at
this place by my present testimony and in case of death, all pieces of our
common property furniture and conquests and a third of all my patrimonial
possessions of whatever nature they may be and in whatever location they
may be situated and seated, for the good and agreeable services that the
said Baurye has rendered and (that) I further hope to receive from her, of
which I have her [reluiée] (Sic) by these presents to enjoy after my
death as (her) own complete property as their other things, domains and
inheritances, revoking all other wills, donations, codicils and other
similar things, (in a manner) that they will be null and without effect:
but I well want understood here and then that my said present last will
and testament was voluntarily made and properly executed, after having it
read three distinct times I agree before the undersigned notary, of whom I
thus requested, stipulated and recognized, and to whom I am submissive in
his jurisdiction, obligate and hypothecate all and each of my present and
future possessions.
"Made
and passed in the house of the said Baurye, where the said testatrix makes
her abode in this town, the twenty seventh day of October gbjc (one
thousand six hundred) sixty six, in the presence of Francois Guyot,
merchant, and Pierre Mousnier, clerk, residents of this said village of
Angoulesme as required witnesses, and to the said testatrix declaring not
to require further inquiry and explanation.
(Signed;)
F. Guyot (with initials) pnt
P. Mousnier (with initials) pnt
Micheau (as) notary and
royal recorder
(Registry of Micheau, from the departmental Archives of the
Charente at Angoulême)
SECOND GENERATION
SIMARDS IN NEW FRANCE
Louis
Hemon, Maria Chapdelaine,
Nelson, 1934, 195.
THE ESTABLISHMENT
Only the
determination of facing the risks of an overseas voyage during this era
tempered such will power and prepared them for the most demanding careers.
Yet these were no more than poor peasants absorbed in the routine of a
sedentary life taking place on a frail vessel: where a few men decided for
all, these men had quit everything and were going forward to another world
to commence a new life.
They all knew from the
outset that during four to six weeks they would undergo "the perils of death." They also confessed, took communion and
most even dictated a last will and testament before embarkation. At sea,
death had many ways of taking victims: wrecks, drownings, attack by
privateers, scurvy, typhus, fevers. We can say that the ship carrying the
new governor, after its departure in the year 1657, had suffered in
similar storms and after two attempts at resumption, released Mr. de
Argenson in Ireland who, for his part, had renounced the crossing. A ship
in 1653, shared by Mr. de Maisonneuce, Marguerite Bourgeoys and a hundred
colonists, was afflicted with an epidemic at sea that cost the lives of
ten passengers. According to the historian Salone, we can deduce the mean
number of deaths during crossings at a third. It is very certain that in
1662, a contingent of colonists conducted by Pierre Boucher lost forty
people.
It is necessary to
represent the spirit of arduous conditions on such a trip in order to
evaluate the difficulties and, likewise, we cannot fail to recall the
account of a very pertinent observation on a voyager in 1639:
"It is something else to
experience inconveniences of the sea than to only hear talk. When one sees
the two fingers of death, one is found very astonished."
In a very suggestive study,
an author reconstructs for us
the various elements which allow imagining an oceanic crossing like ones
the colonists of the XVIIth century must have known: a description of the
ship, embarking of travelers, regimen of life on board, sudden voyage
changes.
"The meals, about
which one reads, were generally taken in groups of five or six gathered
around a common dish placed on the floor."
"The biscuit, basis of the meal, was made in part with a half pound of
plain flour (coquerelles), kneaded into a ball with sea water, to which
one had added a half quart of fresh water. These biscuits, stored in a hot
storeroom combined with humidity, spoiled, however, less than the other
stores. Not having a choice, one ate with appetite, but preferred the
night, in order not to see the green and sense less of the spoilage."
(J.- B. Charcot.)
The trip of Pierre and Nöel
Simard, even if they escaped storms, was not exempt from concerns and
continuous deprivations. Dragging the length of days between two
infinites, the travelers had time to wonder. What feelings were born in
them? Did they already know some sadness and nostalgia? or was hope alone
enough to fill their souls? Were the two Lombrettes also enthusiasts
whereby they must have constantly encourage one another? Was it the father
dragging the son to the colony or the son who caused his father to
accompany him?
Noel’s case does not
contain anything extraordinary. A twenty year old young man going off to
establish himself, even with the definitive price of separation, looking
only at what he believed to be prudent evidence of the future. It is
harder to discover reasons that moved the father, this professional man
who had passed fifty and who left the old country, a wife and a daughter.
Did he really want to permanently break with so many of his obligations
and attachments or did he only go over there to settle his son and viewed
this as an occasion to see a little of this country before he died? Was it
his intention to return to France or to begin another life over there? Did
he abandon his family in confusion or did he leave just in order to
subsist?
Life recommenced with the
appearance of the Canadian coast, at the approaches to the New-Land.
Normally ships made a stopover at Ile de Anticosti or Gaspé in order to
renew stores of fresh water and meat. The colonists disembarked to land,
the new party trampled through the virgin soil and breathed in the grand
features of pure Canadian spring air. It was mid June and nature was
deployed in resplendence.
Then the voyagers, having
returned on board, waited impatiently for revelations of the country.
First they skirted the south banks until the vicinity of Isle Verte, and
from there, head toward Tadoussac and the mouth of Saguenay. Stopping
again, first there were some natives camped at the fur stretching post;
then the arrivals found there were also a number of their compatriots,
curious for recent news from the old country.
Then came the Laurentides
that align with their superb capes, the foot of which bathes in the waters
of this river that again becomes a sea. The ship skirts the Ilse of
Coudres, twice as fast the Cape Tourmente and commits smoothly between the
Island of Orléans and the coast of Beaupré. Finally there is Quebec,
settled on its promontory, already superb in its welcome. Those arriving
can hardly believe their eyes: the country is unsurpassed in beauty and
fertility and all that one could hope for. In this season, greening forest
were on all shores, covering some log cabins here and there.
While the ship was between
roadsteads, the travelers examine the dwellings of Quebec with great
interest. Up there, was the residence of the Governor, the Château
Saint-Louis and the Fort; all about were the buildings of the hospital,
the Jesuits College, the barely completed future cathedral, the Ursulines
Monastery and, located at the base of the Chateau, an encampment of Hurons
who had taken refuge near the Frenchmen. The peculiar houses of the
residents, barely seventy,
were constructed at the base of the promontory, closer to the river, on
Sault-aux-Matelots street.
Pierre Simard and his Nöel
son suddenly felt comforted, like the other colonists, in viewing the
appearance of these hospitable places, despite their simplicity, where
some of their valorous compatriots were awaiting them. But an irresistible
emotion swelled in their throats when they put foot on the soil of Quebec.
The settlement of the
newcomers posed no lengthy problems for their needs, during the course of
this difficult period, all doors were opened to the men without hesitation
and the women who came assumed their share of the common burden. And soon
it was the new arrivals who were noted for reassurance they themselves
brought to the inhabitants of Quebec. It was on upon them, during the
summer of 1657 and the greatest war against the Iroquois, that the colony
depended day and night in order to stay alive. The Iroquois prowled
constantly around Quebec dwellings, camping in the midst of the colonists
and circulating off the Ile de Orleans coast, under the pretext of
negotiating a peace with the Hurons and Frenchmen.
At this time, the colony
had as an interim governor the son of former governor Lauzon, who had
resigned the previous year and departed immediately for France,
discouraged by the failures of his administration. Charles de Lauzon
Charny, too young and inexperienced, scarcely succeeded better at
maintaining command and security amid the sudden changes of fortune caused
by this war that undermined the strength of life in the colony. It was
before him, however, that the new colonists were presented in order to
ratify their admission into the country.
It was at the end of July,
having departing from Nantes on the preceding 17 May, that Mr. Ailleboust
returned from France; Mr. de Lauzon hardly gave him time to get settled in
Montreal with Mr. de Maisonneuve when, in September, he called upon him to
remove from his hands the too difficult charge of governing the colony
until the following year, when Mr. de Argenson would finally arrive.
As soon as the essential
processes were over and the most pressing problems of settling resolved,
Pierre Simard found work as a mason on the coast of Beaupré.1
He was about to undertake the masonry of a chimney and gable on a house
for the account of its inhabitant, Etienne de Lessard. This Lessard was
already a well settled farmer at Petit Cap, owner of one of the great
domains and first Lord of the island of Courdres, which he would later
sell to Monsignor de Laval in 1687. He had been the husband of Marguerite
Sevestre for five years and was presently constructing a secure home for
his family.
Pierre Simard was welcomed
in this family, with whom he would establish lasting relationships. Nöel,
working near his father; spoke with Lessard regarding establishment
projects.
For his part, Etienne de
Lessard gladly volunteered that he intended to grant of a vast tract of
his property for raising a church devoted to Sainte Anne. For several
years already, navigators and sailors had vowed to raise a chapel at this
place on the coast where the dangers of navigating the water are finished.
And it was to the venerable grandmother of Christ that they have always
assigned the celestial protection obtained for their voyages. Now their
vows were going to be achieved, for a piece of land two acres on the front
and a mile and a half deep were staked out in such a manner for
disposition to the missionaries. Mr. de Queylus came to reconnoiter the
area himself and determine the exact location of construction that would
begin next spring.
The Lombrettes also worked,
in the summer of 1657, after the Lessard site, on the construction of a
stronghold on the coast to better assure the defense of the colonists
against any surprise attack by the Iroquois. The island of Orleans, in not
providing much in the way of security for the poor Hurons who were settled
there, had also necessitated their establishment in a fortified camp like
Quebec.
Between times, the
colonists looked for land to acquire. Their professional dealings
facilitated the task and soon a work mate, a mason like Pierre Simard, by
the name of Pierre Gibouin, reported that the land neighboring his own, in
Beaupré, would offer all the desirable advantages. This land was, in the
lordship of Beaupré, on the section that today corresponds to the very
parish of Sainte Anne, not far from the domain of Etienne de Lessard, also
next to the one of Robert Paré. On the other side neighboring Pierre
Gibouin, spread the land of Etienne Racine, another inhabitant since the
first hour of New France.
We know that the immense
lordship that went from the Montmorency river to the one at Gouffre was
conceded, on the day following the death of Champlain, to the Secretary of
the Company of One Hundred Partners, in order to be shared immediately
between eight shareholders. Between all of them, the only who had come to
Canada, was specifically the last governor in charge, Mr. de Lauzon. It
was from him that Pierre Gibouin and Robert Paré had obtained their
concession of lands, and now his son had also replaced him in the office
of distributor of lots in the name of the Lords of Beaupré.
At the time, Mr. Charles de
Lauzon Charny was preparing himself to leave the colony in order to rejoin
his elderly father in France; he would embark on September 12. The
Lombrettes hastened to obtain from him, before he left, a concession for
the plot of land situated between the one of Gibouin and Paré. It was
therefore after the end of August, having fulfilled their usage bond in
the first days of September, that they obtained the like measured title of
possession from the lordship of Beaupré.
They had visited this land
before, they had seen its entire width while coming from Quebec to Petit
Cap: now they were returning there as masters to take possession. All that
remained was to take it: reclamation of a plot to put under culture,
construction of buildings with one for dwelling. But they were not only
the tasks which were of concern to these vigorous men who had resolved
where to live. They were there with regards to the terms of an otherwise
most arduous and painful enterprise, the one concerning their departure
from France and entry into Canada.
They also had souls full of
hope, despite the difficult conditions in which they found themselves,
necessary to become established. The terrifying danger that was maintained
by the presence of Iroquois in the area rendered life for the poor
colonists nearly untenable. The people spoke only of horrors committed by
these savages and of perpetrated massacres.
At the end of October, they
heard of a new atrocity perpetrated by a party of Onneyouts at Point
Saint-Charles. Nicolas Godé was constructing the entry to his house with
his sons-in-law, Jean de Saint-Père and Jacques Noël when they received
a visit from troublesome friends. After giving them food and drink, and
sacrificing several hours, they believed they could again go back to work
and went up on the roof of the house, without bringing their weapons. The
Iroquois then took hold of the portable flintlock guns and, choosing their
victims, killed all three of them at one time.
"Also as barbarous as
treacherous, relates one historian,
these savages hastened to take the scalps of Nicolas Godé and Jacques Noël; then they cut off the head of Jean
de Saint-Père, in order not to break his lovely hair, which they wanted
to triumphantly exhibit in their village. The authors of this triple
murder took flight immediately, carrying with them the bloody trophies
testifying to their atrocity. This then produced a strange phenomenon of
which several authors speak and which appears to be a case of hearing
hallucinations. The venerable Sister Marguerite Bourgeoys makes mention of
it in these terms:
"The savages having carried away the head of Saint-Père in
order to have his lovely hair, one reported some days later that his head
spoke to them. Mr. Cuillerier (who, having been taken, was in their area)
attested that it was true; others had also assured that the head spoke and
that the savages heard it several times."
It was under the continual
apprehensions caused by perilous incidents that the Simards organized in
order to winter on their land at Petit Cap. In a barely completed
tumbledown cottage, scarcely supplied with any comforts of elementary
furnishings, alone to do their own cooking, they looked at the fall nights
closing in more quickly on their work, the cold weather, then the snow
covering the entire area and the isolation was able to circumscribe their
hearts until their home was firmly assured.
During this first winter
for the Canadian colonists, they proved the excellence of their valor! Did
the Simards compare their present situations to Puymoyen, the old church,
the relatives? Did they especially think of the two women, whose presence
if close to them would be so precious? Given their experience, it was
rendered that they would have found life here too difficult: they
voluntarily conceded it was better that they had stayed in the Charente
area. But their absence was the sole shadow on their satisfaction.
They were established on
good land, in a totally new country, with a beautiful future before them.
In summary, they were satisfied. If their women had been there, a wife, a
daughter, a mother a sister, these would have been some happy men.
But happiness is not of
this earth. And the times were not for soft idealists!
THE FAMILY
Winter passed and the fifty
Iroquois that had found it necessary to suffer in the encampment at the
entrance to Quebec were hardly concerned with the presence of the
inhabitants around them, without protection from robbery and in an
isolation that left them defenseless. A party of Frenchman, that stayed
the winter in the Onnontagués district, found themselves exposed to
greater reprisals if they tried harder to counter these depredations.
The colonists were
protected by their neighbors. Those of the Simard's were a single man on
one side, living by himself, Pierre Gibouin who controlled their land, and
on the other side were the spouses Robert Pare and Françoise Lehoux,
married since 1653 and about to have a third child who they would call Noël,
after the valiant young man of Lombrette.
Spring brought the
inhabitants of the coast great joy. During the first beautiful days of
March (the 13th), Etienne de Lessard arrived quickly from the home of the
Governor himself, Mr. de Ailleboust, accompanied by the abbot Vignal,
delegate of the Vicar General, Mr. de Quelus. They came to officially
recognize the terrain ceded by Lessard for the raising of a church devoted
to Sainte Anne. A large number of colonists from the coast came to the
lands with them, all close to the river, where a branch chapel had already
been constructed by some sailors. Mr. de Ailleboust approved the site
choice, Mr. de Vignal proceeded with his blessing and everybody
immediately went to work on the foundations: the Governor in charge,
others digging and bringing stone. Included in the workmen was a poor
invalid who attempted to provide assistance. Then, a moment after he had
put down a stone, he straightened up and felt new life resuscitating in
his half paralyzed limbs. It was a miracle, a sign that Heaven had
recognized the holiness of this place and the first of an unremitting set
of marvels that spilled over Canadian land through the intercession of
Sainte Anne. The person receiving this miracle was named Louis Guimond;
three years later, he fell into the hands of Iroquois who made him undergo
the cruelest of torments and was, in a manner similar to the priest who
blessed the works, Mr. de Vignal, massacred and eaten by the barbarians.
The chapel they were
constructing could not serve as a church; they soon realized that the soil
there was too wet to sustain a permanent building and decided to transfer
the sailor's chapel closer to a small hill and change the construction to
make it larger and more solid.
For the moment, colonists
saw reason to rejoice, for the promise of erecting a chapel had been made
and the blessings of God descended upon them. Mr. de Ailleboust, while
returning to Quebec, visited some of the strongholds raised for defense of
the coast against Iroquois incursions and hurried along the task of their
completion: the Simards took part in all these activities.
It was only in July that
the interim governor could be relieved by Mr. de Argenson from the
responsibility of managing the country. The new Governor was welcomed with
deference and great satisfaction by the entire population: the Jesuits
gave a public reception at their college where, in a scenic play,
interpreted by pupils, Frenchman, Hurons and Algonquins welcomed the
viceroy in their respective languages. But as soon as the day after his
arrival, during the course of a banquet, Mr. de Argenson had a flagrant
demonstration of Iroquois fierceness: before his eyes, they murdered three
Algonquin women. A struggle to the death would follow.
About the same date a year
later, a ship arrived at Quebec carrying Monsignor de Laval. This was a
particularly historic date for the Lombrettes. Without a doubt they were
among the crowd that cheered the prelate and prostrated themselves when he
touched everybody with his blessed hand. Noël, that evening after having
attended the reception at the harbor, and in the procession at the church,
must have felt a mysterious joy in himself: for here had come someone who
would be more than a father to him.
He now felt very settled in
this country: He was a young man with a future who maintained friendly
relations with all inhabitants of the coast; during the course of the
summer of 1659, Madame de Lessard herself requested him to become titled
as godfather during the baptism of a baby at the home of the Meuniers.
So while the Governor
pursued a war against the Iroquois, Monsignor de Laval made a tour of the
institutions and families of his town; while in Montreal, he encountered
heroic prodigies who built an efficient gate against invasion from the
always menacing barbarians, during which time Dollard des Ormeaux along
with seventeen others, brave like himself, sacrificed their lives;
inhabitants sowed their fields across the stumps of trees, increased their
herds and constructed their homes. Soon Nöel Simard could think of
bringing a wife to his home. Not only was he twenty three years old, but
he had the land under his feet and a future before him.
If we can believe the
Narrations of the Jesuits, the establishment of the inhabitants became
very busy in spite of the Iroquois. Here we read about them in 1660:
"It
is necessary to confess that on its face a stay at our French colonies
would be agreeable, if the dread of the Iroquois did not render it
dangerous: the land is one of happy relationships and, providing the
farmer works carefully at cultivating it, in few years he will see it, not
only out necessity, but as an easier life for himself, his wife and his
children. We have seen several who, having had a concession that does not
cost anything here but their asking, in less than five or six years
collect wheat abundantly enough to feed their entire family and with some
to sell. They have all the commodities of a farm; they see some riches in
the beastly times, providing a life exempt of bitterness and full of joy."
"In
a few years the families multiply, for the air of this country is very
wholesome, one sees few children die in the cradle. Although the winters
are long and snow covers the earth for five whole months, to a depth of
three, four and five feet, the cold weather, however, appears to be more
bearable than in France, because the winters here are not rainy, which is
reasonable for those with the woods at their door.... Often one is seen
carrying fish before him in abundance, principally eel which in this
country is very excellent, not being mushy like those in France. In the
months of September and October, fishing for eels is so wonderful, that
they will bring in forty, fifty, sixty or seventy thousand. And it is good
that one finds the means to conveniently salt them and, through this
method, preserve their goodness. During the winter, one encounters rabbits
on the snow and our Frenchmen may kill thirty and forty as their share,
their meat being easily preserved by the frost and serving as a provision
during the winter; the skins being even more precious. This hunting once
appeared impossible to our Frenchmen and now serves them as recreation.
They are also setting traps to catch beaver, which are one of the great
wealths of this country."
It was time for Nöel to
think of marriage: the one that he discerned to be in his future was now
at the age and development to make him a good wife. This was surely not
settled, since she belonged to one of the oldest families of New France
and her mother was the very first of all the Canadians born in the
country, daughter of the celebrated Abraham Martin dit l'Ecossais that
everybody from Quebec personally knew. That Nöel Simard would even look
for a wife there at the home of Etienne Racine, already testifies to the
consideration given to where one would place him in his surroundings.
Madeleine Racine had just
turned fifteen years old (26 July) and her brother, who was eighteen, was
also named Nöel like the Lombrette; she also had a sister who, already a
bride of five years to Mr. Simon Guyon, was a model wife. And the Racines
were neighbors; hardly two plots separated theirs from the Simards on the
Quebec side.
The betrothal did not
present any difficulties and Nöel, since the beginning of fall, had been
going over the possible terms of a marriage contract with his father. Then
Pierre Simard judged the moment had come to transfer the property he
possessed to his son. At Toussaint, Nöel presented himself at the home of
the Racines to ask for their daughter Madeleine in marriage, agreeing on
all future steps, including those of the parents, to be taken; they spoke
of the establishment of a new household and fixed the date of the
nuptials.
It was thus that on the 13
of the same month, we found these good people united around Master
Andouart, notary of Quebec, who came expressly to write a marriage
contract. This document deserves to be reproduced "in extenso,"
because of the interesting information which it discloses:
"By
and before Guillaume Andouart, secretary of Counsel established in Quebec
by the King, notary of New France, and the undersigned witnesses,
personally appeared Etienne Racine, inhabitant dwelling on the coast of
Beaupré, Marguerite Martin, his wife, sufficiently authorized to effect
these presents as a party, in whose name likewise stipulate for
Marie-Madeleine Racine, their daughter, in acceptance of these presents,
aged fifteen to sixteen years or thereabout, for her and in her name as a
party; and Nöel Simard, son of Pierre Simard, inhabitant also dwelling on
the aforesaid coast of Beaupré, and of Suzanne Durand, his father and
mother as the other party; of which parties, and in the presence of and
asking consent from their parents and friends gathered for the topic that
follows, with knowledge, on the part of the aforesaid Marie-Madeleine
Racine, of Etienne Racine and Marguerite Martin, her father and mother, Nöel
Racine, brother, Abraham Martin and Marguerite Langlois, inhabitants
dwelling near Quebec, grandfather and grandmother of the aforesaid
Marie-Madeleine Racine, Jean Cloutier and Marie Martin, uncle and aunt of
the aforesaid Marie-Madeleine Racine; and before the party of said Nöel
Simard, of Pierre Simard, father of said Nöel Simard, Pierre Gibouin,
Claude Poulin, Robert Paré, all inhabitants from the said coast of Beaupré,
friends and neighbors of said Nöel Simard; Recognizing and confessing to
have made the settlements of marriage, agreements, grants, donations and
conventions which follow for reasons of said marriage which, at the
pleasure of God, will be celebrated before our Holy Mother Catholic
Church, Apostolic and Roman, as soon as they are so advised and deliberate
between themselves and their said parents and friends, if God and our said
Holy Mother Church agree to and so grant, it is with the knowledge: that
the aforesaid Etienne Racine and Marguerite Martin, father and mother of
the aforesaid Marie-Madeleine Racine, have promised to give unto said Nöel
Simard, who promises to take by name and law of marriage as his wife and
legitimate spouse, likewise the aforesaid Marie-Madeleine Racine also
promises to take him as her legitimate spouse, the aforesaid future spouses will not be held to the debts
made by the other and created before the future marriage and for which
nothing will be paid and fulfilled for the benefit of the one for whom
they were created; the aforesaid future spouses will be one and in common
possession of all furnishings and buildings, common property and
acquisitions as of the day of the nuptials; and in favor of said future
marriage, Pierre Simard, father, having considered that his son Nöel
Simard helped him with own sound work to make and put his concession in a
habitable state and that he spent all his youth there, he gives to him as
a present at least half of the foundation, house and barn, along with the
animals and furniture or other like things encountered there as
compensation for said sound work, and regarding the other half of the said
house, the aforesaid Pierre Simard declares that he is in favor of said
marriage and gives the foundation to him as a donation reserving the
rights of use and enjoyment during his life, however, obligating his said
son Nöel Simard in the case that his sister Suzanne Simard who is in
France comes to live in this country that he will provide the total sum of
three hundred pounds to his said sister as a one time payment in order to
help her get married; endowing the future spouse of the aforesaid future
wife with the total sum of five hundred pounds and providing over all and
individually for this one time payment; should death come to said future
spouse before the aforesaid future wife, the aforesaid future wife will
take that which she has brought into the marriage with her like dowry,
along with her clothes and serving linen for her usage; and in order to
arrive unto said marriage, the aforesaid Etienne Racine and Marguerite
Martin, father and mother of the future wife, promise and must provide and
deliver before said marriage in favor of and unto said future spouse by
the eve of the nuptials, the quantity of eighteen mills of French wheat,
together with two large bulls two to three years old, one cow, a mattress,
a blanket, four drapes, two tablecloths and twelve napkins, two platters,
four plates and a trunk, the total amounting to the sum of five hundred
twenty six pounds, which will be kept at the proper place of the aforesaid
future wife, besides her clothes and linen and other serving things for
her usage and that she brings to the pnt (sic) aforesaid community,
knowingly: two dress coats at sixty six pounds, a dozen of handkerchiefs
and a dozen hats, a half dozen pairs of cuffs and an apron, all
estimated... eight aulnes of canvas at four pounds per aulne for the
amount of thirty two pounds, six shirts valued at three pounds six sols
[tournois], which when totaled together herein adds up to one hundred
nineteen pounds ten sols, the entire agreement between the parties,
parents and undersigned friends, in promising each right and renouncement,
made and passed in the house of said Mr. Racine situated on the coast of
Beaupré, in the year one thousand six hundred sixty-one, November
thirteenth in the presence of Jean Bourdon, Mr. de Romainville, and François
Canto, undersigned witnesses, and the aforesaid future spouses have
declared they do not know how to write either to sign or interpret the
following ordinance, likewise so do Pierre Simard, father, Robert Paré,
Abraham Martin, Marguerite Langlois, his wife.
Nöel Simar Simon
Guyon
Mark of Pierre Simard X
Etienne Racine
Foucault
Marguerite Martin Canto
J. Bourdon
Androuart, not.
The signature of Nöel
which appears well at the bottom of this text and the apparent usage
declaration on his inability to sign it was of no concern; however, he
would often arrive at some analogous circumstances where he abstained
completely or is satisfied with only affixing his initials NS. But it is
indeed necessary to recognize that a signing was not sufficient to prove
that the author had instruction regarding or likewise knew how to read.
This is not what is important to observe here, instead it is rather the
lovely ease with which these inhabitants provided for their children with
property, furnishings and buildings. Pierre Simard had not been in the
country but four years and already he has given his son a piece of land, a
house, some farm buildings and the necessary utensils for a farm
household. The Racines permit their daughter to take with her all of her
lingerie and personal estate articles. From this text there goes up a
perfume of simple pride, an air of dignity.
Helping with the contract
was the grandfather of Madeleine, Abraham Martin dit l'Ecossais, who was
now seventy two years old. Patriarch of all, he sees a population growing
with his innumerable offspring. One knows that he was a companion of
Champlain, saw Kirke occupy Quebec and that he would lend his name to the
plains where, more than a century later, the armies of Wolfe and Montcalm
would meet. It could be that he and his aged wife especially preferred, of
all their descendants, this
small number of Racines because they were the children of this Marguerite
who forever remains the first Canadian born in the country.
The marriage took place the
following week, 22 November, in the modest church of the Château-Richer
in presence of Mr. Thomas Morel. After the wedding, the Lombrettes
reintegrate their house by therein installing, like queen and mistress, a
young woman of fifteen years. From there life was really to bloom in the
home of the young pioneers. Their excellent work was resumed, while
concerns remained high regarding the Iroquois and the struggle of
Monsignor de Laval against their trading in brandy had hit its peak.
Seventeen months passed
before their first birth. It was a boy and he was called Pierre, after his
grandfather. A year and a half later, another son would carry the name of
his father Noël.
Some sons. Already the
Lombrettes think that it will be necessary to better establish themselves
and begin to look for new lands to acquire. They look for godsends. Well
then at the beginning of 1666, a neighbor, Etienne Bellinier decided to
return to France. He was a young man of twenty years, original from
Poitou, and maybe it was nostalgia that made him raise the foot.
Additionally, he did not know if he would return; in any case, he left his
land at Petits-Ruisseaux under the conditional control of Pierre Simard.
But he did return, for he
could not find anything, in such a return to the old country, that would
immunize an emigrant against regret. One finds him settled in the country
during 1669, at Sainte-Family on the island of Orleans, married to a
"daughter of the king" originally from the Saint-Sévérin
parish in Paris. He had to take his land on the coast and sell it, and it
was to the Simards that he gave it up.
The year 1666, however,
brought great relief to all the colonists, for the menace of the Iroquois
dissipated. Indeed, during the previous year, the much anticipated
reinforcements had finally arrived at the colony. There was a summer of
rejoicing in the arrivals of this joyous season: first one of four
companies of soldiers on June 19th, including the Marquis de Tracy and
then another of the four companies on the 30th, then one of colonists and
girls July 16th and then, as a supplemental surprise, the landing of
twelve lively horses. On August 19th, there was Mr. de Salières, colonel
of the regiment of Carignan, who brought another of the four companies,
being well attended the following day, by the final of the four. Finally,
on 12 September, there were the ships Saint-Sébastien carrying intendant
Talon and the Jardin de Hollande carrying Mr. de Courcelles, the new
governor.
"In
summary, the colony saw fortification by four or five hundred colonists,
craftsmen and journeymen. Its magazines were overflowing with commodities
and munitions. A small army of twelve to thirteen hundred elite men
promised them a security unknown for twenty years. The presence of the
three eminent officials, Misters de Tracy, Courcelles and Talon, completed
their general happiness."
While New France adapted to
an era of peace and prosperity, the children were growing at the Simard
house and a girl was born who they named after her mother,
Marie-Madeleine.
It was in October 1667 that
a new opportunity to enlarging their domain was presented. Their neighbor
Gibouin told the Simards that he was leaving; he was not married and if
the Simards were interested in acquiring it, he offered his land for the
sales price of fifteen hundred pounds. It was a plot three acres wide,
cultivated to a depth of twelve acres, with buildings, animals and pieces
of furniture.
For the fifteen hundred
pounds, however, much of which they were unsure, the Lombrettes were well
resolved to take advantage of this godsend. The grandfather already seeing
the first of his grand children reach five years, carrying his name, had
well succeeded. Another boy followed and others would also come, making it
necessary that they also be established. Then in the house of the
Lombrettes they started to think of ways to resolve this problem and find
an acceptable solution.
Every fall, in honoring
annual requirements, they went to Quebec to render faith and homage to
their Lord and pay him the land rents of convention. This march brought
the inhabitants from the coast of Beaupré to the same feet of Monsignor
de Laval. For in 1664 indeed, the bishop of Quebec was already the
acknowledged owner some three quarters of the lordship of Beaupré which
he had acquired in sections from Julien Fortin dit Bellefontaine and
Charles-Aubert de la Chesnaye.
This surely was not the
first meeting of the Lombrettes with the eminent prelate with whom they
were sure to find needed counsel and support. Monsignor de Laval, who knew
how to judge men and discern their qualities and merits, had already seen
in the Simards what he knew to be honest workers; in fact he felt that
they deserved special consideration, which rendered him even more
accessible.
It was not that he was
particularly inclined to seek the confidences of the colonists who came
from the southwest of the kingdom; he more preferred the people of Perche
and Normandy, more laborious, in his opinion. Of this he had explained
thusly to the great Colbert, during a 1662 trip to the court of
Versailles: "During
your last stay here, responding thusly, you testified before me that the
people from the vicinities of La Rochelle were lazy. The king made a
resolution, following your opinion, to raise three hundred men from
Normandy and the neighboring provinces."
But on this date, Monsignor
de Laval did not yet know the Lombrettes; the confidence that the Bishop
would gain in Nöel Simard during the coming years testifies that he did
not confuse him with some compatriots less ardent to tasks. The
Lombrettes, after having paid their yearly land rents, spoke to their Lord
of their desire to buy the land of Pierre Gibouin their neighbor; they
also said that money difficulties were keeping them from doing it: they
asked him for fifteen hundred pounds, with the right to three remittances
of five hundred pounds each every five years.
Monsignor de Laval
preferred this kind of colonist to others who abandoned their lands and he
approved of the Simards desire to enlarge. He removed all fear from them
by promising help, when they need it, with his own money.
On the following October
16th, we find Nöel Simard and his father before the notary Aubert in
order to effect the purchase of the land of Pierre Gibouin on terms fixed
by the latter: a first remittance of five hundred pounds would be made in
five years, the second in ten years and the third, in the case where the
seller would have died, will be resolved... by prayers.1
Now work is restarted with
greater enthusiasm. While the conditions of the last purchase did not
cause anything pressing, it was now necessary to foresee the accumulation
of savings, this was necessary in order to provide for two lands and feed
a family that increased with the rhythm of each successive birth. March 4
1669, a boy came into the world, the Racine grandparents called him
Etienne and would soon have the pleasure of seeing him see grow up near
them: "Their
last descendant was already five years old."
September 4, 1671, it was a
girl, Françoise; February 4, 1674, another boy, Joseph, April 3, 1676,
again a boy, Augustin. The mother was only thirty years old and the
household already counted eleven people. Happily the eldest began to help:
here Pierre was now thirteen years old and Nöel twelve.
And all was going to get
even better in the future. Monsignor de Laval had just returned from a
stay in France, which lasted four years, and declared that he had decided
to put his immense lordship into full exploitation, the entire rights of
which had been ceded by the Company of Occidental Indies.
THE WORK
The stay in Canada of the
intendant Talon, from 1665 to 1672, provoked a number of new activities
and made an era of development know to the colony that was as intensive as
it was brief. It was thanks to the initiative of this diligent royal
official that Baie-Saint-Paul acceded to the order of current events. One
enjoys underlining, not unlike a cask for the savoring of paradox, that
this large and restful village, again completely engaged in its farming
routine, was nevertheless born under the promising sign of industry.
During 1666, a French
engineer sent in exploration of the region, by Talon, made the discovery
of iron ore, the discovery of which the intendant speaks in his first
annual report to Colbert. In 1667, there was seen, in the terrain upset by
the tremors of 1663, the existence of saltpeter that gave hope of
flourishing exploitations "providing
there is sulfur," noted the prudent Talon. And later, from 1675
to 1682, and again around 1730, there were announcements of some silver
and lead mines along the Gouffre river, at Cape-aux-Corbeaux and Cap-à-la-Raye.
The inhabitants of these regions still await the day they will find many
of the legendary riches.
Another industry resulted
from intendant Talon that gave the area at Baie-Saint-Paul some
establishments and provided work on a large scale for some years. Louis
XIV had in effect recommended to the intendant, in his commission, that he
find in the country that which could be used to keep him from resorting to
Holland in order to supply tar and woods required for his naval shipyards.
Talon believed he could produce both products at Baie-Saint-Paul, where he
had found "a quantity of pines
and firs."
It was not however until
the fall of 1670 that he could make a report to Colbert about the first
works undertaken by the "leaders
of the workshops" which the king had well stocked especially
toward this end. A Mr. Arnoulf Alix, tar maker, had indeed come to inform
him that fifteen hundred feet of trees had been cut down and debarked and
that he had now settled in with his workmen to wintering over in the area;
with optimism, "he promises to find the material for work of thirty years duration."
In fact, he succeeded in manufacturing such excellent tar, according to
reports of the tests made, that the following year he sent some samples to
La Rochelle and Dieppe.
So Talon remained
preoccupied with the spirit of launching this industry, so precious to the
king. He had to leave the colony in the fall of 1672, but before leaving
he was careful to organize the Baie-Saint-Paul tar-shed on a firm footing;
to this end, in the name of the king, with his right of export as Lord, he
concedes vast domains at Baie-Saint-Paul to two entrepreneurs, the same as
the lordship of Beaupré, bordering the Gouffre river. Mr. Arnoulf Alix,
His Majesty's envoy in the area to show the people how to make tar,
considers his task ended and leaves the area; a house had been constructed
in addition to a furnace, about eight thousand pines were presently
stripped, workmen and instruments were working. The new directors of the
site were named Léonard Pitoin and Pierre Dupré and their contract dates
were 25 August, 17 September and 13 October.
Unfortunately these very
good efforts would barely succeed at these dubious installations as they
were a cover to the traffic of fur trading with the savages, to the
detriment of trading of Tadoussac, and the beginning of illegal
reclamation. Everybody suddenly became suspicious of the enterprise. Talon
left, Pitoin and Dupré extorted a new concession from Governor Frontenac
of three acres of land, in the same lordship of Beaupré, along the
Gouffre river, and they found a third partner in the person of Bernard
Gontier.
At the same time, a more
ambiguous person arrived in the area, Jean Serreau, esquire, Mr. de
Saint-Aubin, according to his notarized transactions. Accused of murdering
Jean Terne, then rehabilitated, then pursued for trading alcohol to the
savages and expelled from the Island of Orleans, he declared, on July 4
1672, he would leave "in order to live at Cadie or
Baie-Saint-Paul." In this last place he quickly rejoined people with
as little honor as himself.
Well all these goings-on
happened in the absence and without the knowledge of the definitive owner
of the lordship of Beaupré, Monsignor de Laval, who left for France in
the fall of 1671, from where he could not return until four years later,
in September 1675. While he was occupied in Paris obtaining the letters of
license from the Company of the Occidental Indies confirming his property,
Governor Frontenac took a malignant pleasure in creating troubles for him
on his return. Then in 1676, Monsignor de Laval attempted to bring order
to these irregular exploitations, and on March 27 of that year, the abbot
Mr. Dudouyt, his procurator, would place a request of eviction against
Pitoin, Dupré and Saint-Aubin. They did succeed, before fall, in
expelling the "squatter" Saint-Aubin, by compensating him
extensively for all the work accomplished during his four years. But
Saint-Aubin, at the instigation of his protector, the count of Frontenac,
was hurrying to return to France in order to present himself, to the
Court, as an agent of bad press against Monsignor de Laval on the topic of
the quarrel over brandy.
As for Misters Pitoin and
Dupré, they were already removed, but it would take three years of
discussions in order to obtain their renunciation of all property rights
at Baie-Saint-Paul. Before the tribunal of the intendant, the claims of
Monsignor de Laval, carried by Mr. Dudouyt, went before the king, close by
was Frontenac himself sustaining the resistance against the intendant
Duchesneau. It was only under the article of death, that Pitoin came to
recant, at La Rochelle on July 9 1679, and that Dupré then ratified his
renouncement in Quebec during October of the same year.
Then Monsignor de Laval
decided to provide the early exploitation of his lordship for the benefit
of his seminary; he assumed charge of the tar-shed, but ceded the
immediate rights and eventual benefits to Mr. Philippe Gauthier de la
Comporté. This last man was not interested in the enterprise which had
lasted two years and, during the fall of 1677, having been appointed as
provost marshal and in receipt of Sovereign Counsel, he asked that the
intendant Duchesneau let him be discharged from the tar-shed, which then
stayed unoccupied.
But finally, with the
industry in jeopardy, the land was liberated and no longer awaited the
veritable colonists. Mr. Dudouyt, the procurator of the Seminary, who was
charged by Monsignor de Laval with organizing the new firm, permitted, in
the year 1676, an inhabitant of Cape Tourmente to attempt an establishment
at Petite Rivière Saint-François, about five miles from his home; this
colonist was named Claude Bouchard, but he was known only by the nickname
of "Petit Claude." It was he who resorted, that fall, to putting
the buildings in order and rounding up the animals of Baie-Saint-Paul at
Cape Tourmente before the winter. He stayed there eight days.
The land put under culture
by Pitoin and Dupré covered three acres and did not have any buildings;
that of Saint-Aubin, going alongside the mountain on the Gouffre river,
along the northwest leg, seeming to be more extensively reclaimed, was
already supplied with buildings and he found six horned animals there.
After rendering an account of his work to the procurator, Claude Bouchard
agreed to rent it, for the following year, in order to reap sixty mills of
wheat from the Saint-Aubin land. But he especially depended on a
concession by Monsignor de Laval, at Petite Rivière, of a large plot of
land twelve acres wide with a length of a mile and a half deep. He was
more interested in his own domain than the interests of his Lord and,
although, in 1677, he occupied the construction at Baie-Saint-Paul and
provided butter for the tar workmen, he did not renew his contract in the
fall of 1677.
However the new procurator
of the Seminary replacing Mr. Dudouyt, delegated by Monsignor de Laval in
France, received an order from the Bishop to push the exploitation of the
lands at Baie-Saint-Paul. It was at this moment that Nöel Simard dit
Lombrette appeared.
That fall he came with his
wife by his side to Monsignor de Laval, first to render faith and homage
like all good servants must toward their Lord, but especially to expose a
problem had with his affairs; in particular his inability to satisfy the
obligation contracted ten years earlier in buying the land of Pierre
Gibouin. It seems that he is still owed a sum of seven hundred fifty
pounds, and Pierre Gibouin is impatient to receive it, he had stayed in
the country as a mason since quitting the land, but now he was preparing
to return indefinitely to France.
Monsignor de Laval did not
have any great trouble in understand the difficulty of the poor colonist
in assuming the responsibilities of a family; he also sees him as justly
preoccupied with establishing the five boys that he now counts in his
household. Additionally, he volunteers to study the problem with the
Lombrettes themselves.
Well, was he not at this
moment thinking of opening the most distant lands in his lordship, on the
Saint-François-Xavier coast and at Baie-Saint-Paul, and was he not
looking for someone in whom to entrust the responsibility, since Petit
Claude was not the necessary man? At forty years old, Nöel Simard
appeared to be in shape to undertake a task of this magnitude. Monsignor
de Laval knew him as a rough worker, a man of integrity, in whom he would
not fear putting his confidence. He knows from other things that Nöel
could leave his land at Sainte-Anne without too many inconveniences: his
father, despite his seventy five years, is still robust and he has two
sons presently of an age to work the land.
The Bishop would,
therefore, advance Lombrette the money he needed to settle his debt with
Pierre Gibouin and give him a letter of credit against the reserves that
he possessed in Paris; in return, the inhabitant would recognize this
credit by a mortgage on his present possessions. Then the Lombrettes, by
taking charge of the farm work at Baie-Saint-Paul, could find the means to
fulfill this new liability while assuring himself, in large amount, of new
lands for the establishment of his sons.
According to the terms of
this understanding, we find Nöel Simard before the notary Duquet on
October 22, 1677, happy to definitively settle up with Pierre Gibouin,
thanks to the letter of good credit from Monsignor the Bishop.
And a little later, the abbot Pierre de Francheville, new procurator of
the Seminary, came to Lombrette show him a lease plan that he prepared
with a view of enrolling him as a collaborator of Monsignor de Laval in
the exploitation of the domain at Baie-Saint-Paul. Noël, conscious of the
advantages that he could obtain from it, accepted the proposition and the
lease was signed on November 29 before the notary Becquet.
He enlists for five years,
commencing the following 10th of April; he was asked to work on rendering
usable the lands that are located from the Saint-François-Xavier coast of
the Petite Rivière to those that spread along of the Gouffre river, with
the exception of those already exploited by Petit Claude. He would keep
half of the harvest and the half of the animals to be born of the herd for
himself, the remaining amount would be turned over to the Seminary for the
account of Monsignor de Laval. He would have to construct some buildings,
the first to begin were the wood and flour mills, get some workmen to
supervise, and effect some transportation. In order to begin, he was
generously provided everything necessary for a farm: six large beef
cattle, six cows with their calves, three bulls, six pigs, nine hens and a
rooster, eighteen earthenware pots for butter, one hundred twenty bales of
hay, twenty-four mills of wheat, four mills of oats, three mills of barley
and six of peas; of these last quantities, half represented the seed
grains that he would need, before providing for himself with the other
half.
At the beginning of April
the farmer started out, probably in company of Claude Bouchard having
spent the winter at his house at Cape Tourmente.
How could one not be
touched by evoking this departure in 1678, of Nöel Simard, as the
culminating point of his entire career as a pioneer, and for the region of
which Baie-Saint-Paul is the center, as its veritable point of origin? In
what measure Lombrette was conscious of the destiny that he carried, it is
unnecessary to know. This hero moreover especially underpins the very
simple and concrete realities of lives that scarcely left them leisure
time to think about what anybody would later say of them. The valiant
colonist well knew that to work with the Monsignor of Quebec, was to
collaborate in great undertakings; but it was necessary at the same time
to get his household in order, assuring himself that each will generously
accomplish their task and that the family would want for nothing; he was
prepared to live there a complete season, practically in a forest,
practically alone, exposed to a thousand dangers; it was especially
difficult for him to complete the necessary journey over forty miles of
shoreline that separated him from the Gouffre river, while conducting a
herd and with heavy luggage. The trip, at this time of the year, must have
been particularly rough, across the last ice, the abundant waterfalls of
the headlands and all of the surprises of an unknown journey. Nöel went
around the foot of these crushing mountains, passed by the natural
prairies of Petite Rivière, a great deal longer then than today and, when
Petit Claude let him stay in his domain, with great strength he entered
this stopover at the bay where he had been sent by his Lord.
He was certainly not the
first to come here; especially during the fifteen years when they explored
this region to cut pine and manufacture tar. But he, more than all others,
in settling this land, was pleased to look upon the flanks of these
gracious mountains, at the wealth of this farmable valley. Maybe, he had a
feeling that he had found a worthy cradle for the race who would follow
him.
There were tasks to
complete. Reclaiming, erecting, constructing, hunting and fishing occupied
Lombrette for the entire season. The building already started by Claude
Bouchard, in particular, required some work on the frame and bricks over
which Simard lead the efforts of workmen helping him; he was concerned
about a mill in addition to a manor that would provide a dwelling for the
vicar of the parish to come. He took a somewhat painfully quick trip to
Sainte-Anne; before the autumn birth of a sixth son that the father
hastened to call François, the of name his venerated patron, Monsignor de
Laval.
He then returned to
Baie-Saint-Paul to work with Claude Bouchard all winter. At his request,
however, the Seminary approved, in the fall of 1678, to give him a helper
and, through a lease a little like the one of Lombrette's, they engaged a
colonist from Ange-Gardien, Pierre Tremblay, in a work contract which
would begin at Easter in 1679.
That year the Seminary gave
Nöel Simard, probably on the passage by Mr. de Maizerets on the coast,
some lands that he could leave in total property to his sons by
inheritance; he chose them at Petite Rivière, on the coast of
Baie-Saint-Paul, in that part that was already named Cape Maillard.
Several concessions had already been made at this place: two to Claude
Bouchard in 1676, three in 1677 to Tremblay, Racine and Lacroix, also
another in 1678 to a Laforest.
For some years, he lived in
the same buildings as the Seminary, so that he could work on finishing
them and readily house his family in 1680, rather than repairing those
left by Mr. de Saint-Aubin.
During the fall of 1678,
Monsignor de Laval went to France to personally discuss the thorny
question of brandy; it was during the course of this trip that, in January
1680, he made a grant of all his possessions to the Seminary and that the
lordship of Beaupré fell definitively under the administration of this
admirable house. Nothing at all changed for the family members and housing
of Nöel Simard, which he had occupied, since that spring, when he brought
his family to Baie-Saint-Paul.
The boys, some almost men,
returned to Sainte Anne in order to cultivate the already extensively
reclaimed lands under the direction of their grandfather, while the mother
installed her nest as best she could in this dwelling with poor amenities.
It was a harsh season for this mother of the family who was going to bring
a girl into the world, in November. The customary joy of all births would
then be overcast by a regret: the season would be late and all the
missionaries would have returned to Sainte Anne, thus necessitating a wait
until spring in order to baptize the child.
During the first days of
spring the long awaited priest appears. Oh what happiness! it was Minister
Gagnon, young Canadian priest that Monsignor de Laval ordained in 1677.
And he brought some completely new registers that begins thus:
"The
second of May 1681, by we undersigned priests in performing the parish
functions at Baie-Saint-Paul, being that of baptizing Rosalie, daughter of
Nöel Simard."
It was during the course of
the year 1681 that a new census took place in the colony:1
Nöel Simard, whose name was figured on top of the census taker's list for
the lordship of Beaupré2
because he was the most distant, declared that he possessed thirty acres
of earth under culture, twenty horned beasts and three rifles; he was
evidently then unconcerned about his lands at Sainte Anne, for at the
moment he was giving all of his time to the Seminary. The grandfather
counted eighty years complete and now lived with the family at
Baie-Saint-Paul where he would die a short lime later.
The census also shows other
inhabitants, in the vicinity, Pierre Tremblay who was ceded lands not far
from those of Nöel Simard at Cape Maillard, Claude Bouchard who possessed
two plots of land and six acres under culture, Ignace Gagné and Pierre
Laforest, workmen at the Seminary. One also finds, in this census, Mr.
Pierre Dupré at Baie-Saint-Paul, owner of four acres under culture; after
much discussion, this is acknowledged to be a piece of land on the other
shore of the Gouffre river and it was there that he lived until 1680, when
he then married the widow of Jacques Dodier, Catherine Caron, who brought
him the love of two girls and a boy. During the following year, he
considerable enlarged his property through a concession by the Governor,
Mr. de la Barre, a true lordship that spread his domain inland four miles
deep and a half mile fronting on the stream leaving the Gouffre river.
It was in 1683 that the
lease expired between Nöel Simard and the Seminary of Quebec. Even if
Lombrette found that to be of some advantage, he still had not completely
eliminated his debt with Monsignor de Laval, which consisted, in 1678, of
346 pounds. The first harvest returned very little: barely 85 mills of
wheat in 1679, and construction absorbed more time than farming. However,
at the express will of Monsignor de Laval, the Seminary of Quebec would
only maintain this exclusive property at Baie-Saint-Paul until 1716.
During the first days of
November in the year 1683, at Sainte-Anne, Minister Gagnon was invited to
bless the marriage of the eldest son of Pierre Tremblay, a Pierre himself,
who takes as his wife the first of Nöel Simard's daughters,
Marie-Madeleine, who was only sixteen years old.
It was happiness that
finally seemed to settle in these stronger positions of those isolated
regions; this sprang from wholesome and lively sources: the work, family
and religion. In January 1684, a fourth girl was born into the home of Nöel
and at this time, they had no greater wait than that of her baptism in the
spring, then in February, the missionary appeared, attracted by a more and
more pressing ministry.
The spring of 1684 was
particularly full of rejoicing. Pierre Trembley and his young wife were
awaiting a child; everybody was prospering and Lombrette rejoiced at the
thought of soon seeing the first face of this new generation, the first of
his one hundred and twenty two grandchildren.
Some concerns well arise
about the young wife, but the concern and experience of the mother
remained vigilant in order to avoid all danger. Finally on 20 August, a
child appeared, he was immediately baptized under the name of Pierre:
Pierre, son of Pierre and grandson of Pierre.
Alas! the joy was short
lived and then followed by alarm. For some days, the young mother was
failing and died in the midst of her impotent and aghast family. Every
concourse of circumstance came with the burden of this sudden hardship:
the isolation, a destroyed home, the first visit of death, the obligation
of going to Sainte-Anne to have a burial. On August 24, in a canoe, a sad
cortege left the Saint-François-Xavier coast: it was Nöel Simard and his
son-in-law, Pierre Tremblay, who moved away with the body of the young
woman in order to render her, across the headlands, unto Sainte-Anne.
The baby was staying in the
care of Pierre's mother.
THE HERITAGE
Work provides a good
diversion after such a cross and the men went heartily back to the
completion of the mill at Baie-Saint-Paul. At the end of fall in 1684,
they would inform the Seminary of Quebec that the mill would be ready to
function the following spring and that the apartments developed in an
adjacent part could be inhabited.
Then the Bishop of Quebec
judged the moment had come to organized this distant mission in a
controlled manner and immediately names Minister Gagnon as the missionary
of the coast with a residence at Baie-Saint-Paul. The young vicar came to
move into the mill apartments and there he organized a domestic chapel
that would serve as a place of worship for thirteen years. From there, his
ministry went out as far as Tadoussac, like Monsignor de Laval had
projected, at that time, establishing a sedentary mission for the savages
at Baie-Saint-Paul, in order to protect them against the trading of
brandy. He exposed his project in a long letter in which he manifested
great understanding of the area, without doubt from the precise
information of Nöel Simard.
The year 1686 brought the
pioneers new joys. Pierre Tremblay remodeled a home in order to get
remarried at a second wedding to Marie Roussin, a daughter of some family
neighbors, at Ange-Guardien, and Nöel Simard had baptized the eighth of
his sons, Jean, born on the 27th of May. Thus the family continued to
increase. The boys worked the farm at their establishment, while the
second of the girls reached, in her turn, her seventeenth year. That was,
in this era, the age when young girls got married. Jean Alaire, an
inhabitant of the coast, presented himself in order to obtain the hand of
Françoise; the marriage itself was celebrated in April 1688, at
Baie-Saint-Paul, and the spouses went to become established at Beaupré.
In January 1689, there was
a girl born in the home of Nöel Simard to whom he gave the name of the
dearly departed, Marie-Madeleine. Then in the month of April another
marriage took place at Baie-Saint-Paul: Nöel, the second son of
Lombrette, married Anne Dodier, who was one of the two daughters of lady
Pierre Dupré, the wife of the Lord of Rivière du Gouffre. Her first
husband in dying, left an inheritance of land at Beaupré, that had to be
retained for the last of the Dodiers, Ange, still a minor boy. At a good
price, the young household made a purchase of this land and hurried off to
settle there; they would only be there about eight years, for the
brother-in-law, as soon as he gained his majority, would obtain
restitution of his domain by decision of the Superior Counsel of Quebec.
Eighteen months after his
younger brother, Pierre Simard came in his turn to the Dupré family to
look for a wife; her name was Claire Dodier. With title as eldest of the
family, Pierre inherited the first Simard lands, at Sainte- Anne, and
definitively settled there with his young wife.
The time had come for the
second generation. Time after time, children swarmed around the pioneer.
At the paternal house at Maillard where he was living, a last child was
born in May 1692, the 14th for this beautiful family; a girl they named
Catherine.
In 1695, Etienne, who was
raised by his Racine grandparents, got married; he took a girl from the
Saint-François-Xavier coast as his wife, Rose, the child of Claude
Bouchard, their neighbor, and Lombrette established him on a lot on the
southwest border of his at Maillard. The following year, it was a daughter
that someone came looking for at Nöel Simard's home, his Rosalie who was
born sixteen years earlier at Baie-Saint-Paul. She married Jean Caron,
inhabitant of Beaupré and nephew of lady Pierre Dupré.
The parents watched their
children leave one after the other and could not keep from expressing
their satisfaction at seeing them happily settled. There was pride in the
Simard home; they knew the anguish that the father had gone through to
provide his sons with pieces of land. Five sons still lived at home, of
which the oldest was only twenty three years old, and three daughters. In
1697, Lombrette felt the time had come for new establishments on those
domains that he still possessed on the coast of Beaupré: lands acquired
from Pierre Gibouin at Sainte-Anne and the smaller one at Château-Richer.
This is why, on October 27
1697, he went to Quebec, before the notary Chambalon, with his wife and
two sons Joseph and Augustin; this act of donation deserves to be quoted:
"By
and Before the undersigned royal Notary in the provostship of Quebec came
a resident, and the following appointed witnesses, present was Nöel
Simard, inhabitant of Petite Rivière near Cape Maillard, and
Marie-Madeleine Racine, his wife, that he authorizes for effecting these
presents, to be present in this village; who in considering his already
advanced age and the large number of children that he has, being numbered
at thirteen still living, which of that number five are not married and
for which they have the duty as veritable father and mother to provide for
their advancement by their marriage and, as they do not want to provide
less means to those who have not yet been provided for, that they are
resolved that they contribute as much as they can from which their means
and their health will permit of them, have of their good will ceded, quit,
forsaken and transferred by these presents now and forever through the
form of this donation as an advanced endowment to their future succession
with the promise of "gariment" (sic) to Joseph and Augustin
Simard, their minor children of about1
twenty two and twenty-four years, by their presence and acceptance, their
said father and mother authorize them through this effect, to know: unto
said Joseph, the land and dwelling sited and situated in the coast and
lordship of Beaupré, parish of Sainte-Anne, containing three acres of
frontage on the Saint Lawrence river with a mile and half of depth inland,
joined on one side to the habitat of his brother Pierre Simard, the other
side on the one of François Paré, and facing the aforesaid river; and
unto said Augustin, nine perches of land fronting on the aforesaid river,
likewise being of a depth of one and a half miles inland, joined on one
side to the habitat of Jean Paré, the other side on the one of Etienne
Racine, being situated in the Château-Richer parish; also that each of
the said lands pursuant to and including, for their enjoyment and
disposition, the knowledge that the three acres of frontage to the
aforesaid Joseph and those nine perches, also of frontage, to the
aforesaid Augustin, separately, is their inheritance and having cost to
each their consideration in all property; and to this effect they promises
to place on each the titles and contracts that will preserve the property;
this advanced dowry donation and assignment thus made, with the
responsibility of the aforesaid Joseph and Augustin, their children, each
paying their consideration, in the future, for the requirements and land
rents that the lands herein given are charged by the Lordship of Beaupré,
in the census of which they are nevertheless released of all past due
through this date, and of the surplus because it is the will of said
Simard and his said wife, their father and mother, for procuring their
advancement and facilitating their means of providing comfort and ease of
marriage, if such is their intention, with the responsibility, however,
that the aforesaid Joseph Simard, in the later case that he wants to come
and share in future successions of the said father and mother with his
other brothers and sisters, his co-heirs, by returning the lesser of it or
the sum of six hundred pounds to them, the value of which the
above-mentioned habitat with three acres of land frontage was given and
relinquished to him by his said father and mother, having with him been
their common accord of estimated value; the aforesaid Augustin Simard, by
likewise returning it or the lesser sum of three hundred pounds due to
their said succession, for which sum the above-mentioned nine perches of
frontage land he was also given equaled in priced, being considered the
present value of the lands by each other for the aforesaid lands; and to
this effect, the aforesaid Simard and his said wife, father and mother,
and saying both jointly and severally, cede and transfer to their said
children, each of which they regard completely and rightly dismissed and
consenting; and in order to complete signatures on these presents before
the provostship in this village, and other places where needed, with such
date of presentation in four months, they make and constituted their
procurator as the holder, before whom they can give and make this a
required act: for being thus obliged, and having renounced, made and
passed at Quebec, into the survey before said notary, after noon, on the
twenty seventh day of October sixteen hundred ninety seven, in the
presence of Mr. Dupont, counselor for the Sovereign Counsel of this
country, and François Aubert, witnesses all being residents of said
Quebec, who have signed with the aforesaid notary, the said parties having
declared they do not know how to sign this inquiry.
Aubert
Dupont
Chambalon, notary
In the spring of the year
1698, Noël, the second of the children, husband to a Dodier and settled
at Sainte-Anne on the lands of his brother-in-law, finally had to return
the domain that he had reclaimed by order of the Superior Counsel.1
He then acquired a piece of land at Petite Rivière and came to settle
near his father, at Maillard, on a lot situated to the northwest. That
year an even greater consolation was granted to the entire population of
the region. Monsignor de Saint-Vallier, who had succeed Monsignor de
Laval, finally agreed that a church would be constructed at
Baie-Saint-Paul. This was the realization of desires that already dated
more than ten years. In 1689, indeed, with money provided to Monsignor de
Laval by the King, they had even begun the raising of a chapel; but the
strong willed and fickle new Bishop had suspended the work and compelled
transporting the parts of this precarious chapel to Petite Rivière. Now,
it was a real church that they were raising. A lot bordering on the
Gouffre river was conceded by the Seminary; Nöel Simard supervised the
work and Minister Gagnon, in the fall, tasted the happiness of dispensing
his ministry in a modest but appropriate temple.
Then, in June 1699 they
celebrated a beautiful marriage: that of Marguerite, daughter of
Lombrette, to François Bouchard, captain of the militia and son of Petit
Claude. In April 1700, Joseph Simard married a girl from the coast of
Beaupré, Gertrude Caron; unfortunately his young wife would die the
following year while bringing twins into the world and Joseph would hasten
to reestablish his home by marrying Marie Blouin in October 1702.
In 1700 the Simards had yet
to reach the end of their time, however, since the father was 63 and the
mother 54; prudence inspired them to definitively put their family affairs
in order by effectively giving away all of their possessions to the last
of their children, the remaining five who were still living at the
paternal house. He wanted to share two pieces of land between the three
boys, François who was twenty two years old, Paul who was nineteen and
Jean, hardly fourteen years old; it was also necessary to assure the two
little girls, Madeleine and Catherine, respectively aged eleven and eight
years, a dowry for their future marriage. This is why in July we see the
Lombrettes go down the coast of Beaupré, accompanied by their oldest son,
François, and present themselves before the notary Jacob in order to
execute a donation of these terms:
"By
and Before Etienne Jacob, notary in the lordship of Beaupré, and witness
hereafter appointed, was present Nöel Simard and Madeleine Racine, his
wife, that he allows as a party, inhabitants from the Saint-François-Xavier
parish of Baie-Saint-Paul, who in again considering the same kindness that
they have received from God during the course of their lives, having
provided the grace of His divine providence for them to feed and raise the
children that He had given to their marriage and in giving them the found
means of providing for an establishment conforming to their conditions,
for the reservation of François, Paul and Jean Simard, and for the two
other daughters who live with them, not provided for by marriage or
otherwise, for which good services they have received and receive daily
from François, Paul and Jean Simard; in recognition of the aforesaid
services and reliefs, they agree between themselves to give to their said
aforementioned children, on the condition, however, that they will be held
and obligated to them and maintain them, in sickness and in health, for
their remaining days and, after their death, pray to God for the rest of
their souls, for these reasons, the aforesaid Nöel Simard and Madeleine
Racine, well and duly authorized by her said husband, of their good
pleasure, pure, straightforward and free will, recognized and admitted,
and by these said presents recognize and admit to have given, ceded, quit,
transferred and forsaken, gives, cedes, quits, transports and forsakes,
now and for always by pure, simple and irrevocable donation, eagerly
entered into under the best conditions and manner that can be made and
that the donation could be worth, without hope of either wanting to revoke
or affect it in any way or manner that is contrary and for the greatest
validity hereby promise to warrant it against all troubles, debts and
mortgages and other ordinary general defects; to the said François, Paul
and Jean Simard, brothers and their children, aforesaid Françoise who is
present and accepting as required and aforesaid notary accepting also for
them, the said Paul and Jean Simard, still in their minority, land and a
dwelling sited and situated in the aforesaid Saint-François-Xavier parish
near Baie-Saint-Paul, which consists of about .... (blank) .... acres of
land in width on the edge of the Saint Lawrence River and on the back end,
toward lands not conceded, on which there is land of little value, with
the building constructed thereon, bordering on one side to Etienne Simard,
and on the other side to the lands of the widowed Vigny, with each and all
of the plowable, meadow and grazing lands, without anything reserved by
the aforesaid donors other than the use of the aforesaid lands which they
reserve only during their lives, to this end this constituent holds and
possess it in the name aforesaid donators, their children, of precarious
title only during their lives, the desires of the aforesaid donors that,
as of the day of their death, the aforesaid use becomes and remains
returned and consolidated with full foundation and property rights of the
aforesaid lands wherever given and belonging to said donors by title of
concession which they received from the lords of said Beaupré, and
similarly charged back to the domain for required land rents, customary
manorial rights, and those pieces of furniture for which the said parties
could not presently say belong to the said donors, and about which they
were questioned by the aforesaid notary, along with their other
possessions which consist and amount to those of which they can, from whom
comes fair enjoyment and disposition of the land by the aforesaid donors,
their heirs are caused, with their good understanding, that in addition to
their proper inheritance on the day of the death of the aforesaid donors,
now and forever, this donation thus makes the charges, conditions and
reservations before said use, in addition the charge that the aforesaid
François, Paul and Jean Simard will be held and obligated to feed,
maintain, house, heat and harbor the aforesaid Nöel Simard and Madeleine
Racine, their father and mother and donors, in sickness and in health, and
in case of illness, take care of them and doctor them for their remaining
days in places that they will want and wish to stay, and after their death
bury, inter, them and pray to God for the rest of their souls in a way
that is customary and for which all children are held and obligated to
perform, and also that for Madeleine and Catherine, the sisters of the
aforesaid heirs, will live with their said father and mother until such
time that they are provided for by marriage or where they are otherwise
equally fed and kept according to their condition until such time of their
marriage, and then the aforesaid heirs will give and pay to each of them
the sum of two hundred pounds, reserving to the aforesaid Nöel Simard the
liberty of conducting the management of the family as father, thus in the
manner he did before, and with only the smallest remuneration and
compensation from the aforesaid François, Paul and Jean Simard of the
goods, useful help and friendship that they have always and continue to
render and carry, and through the expectation they shall continue them in
the future, proof of which is dispensed absolutely through these said
presents, and as much as it is their will and intention they make the
present grant, transferring all property rights by these said donations,
subject to the before said use reservations, foundations, depths, named
reasons, actions, foreclosures, possessions and any other general thing
that they could have, pretend or demand of the said things herein given
over, which by these said presents are released, dismissed and disallowed
to and for the profit of the aforesaid heirs, their children, volunteering
and consenting that they are and will remain seized and bound having
received by sufficiently good possessions and holdings of which and they
will thus be entitled, to this end by virtue of their procurator the
aforesaid presents constituent holder, giving unto him the same power
required to seal these presents and bind these insinuations through the
provostship of Quebec and at all places where they belong during the four
months of the order, they make and constitute their procurator the same
holder, giving unto him authority to so execute this act. Promising,
obligating, renouncing, making and passing said survey before said notary,
this twenty-fourth of July afternoon, in the year seventeen hundred, in
the presence of Charles Goulet and Joseph Lespine, witnesses both from
said Beaupré, who signed and with the aforesaid Nöel Simard, and said
Madeleine Racine and François Simard who have declared they do not know
how to sign this inquiry
.
Charles Goulet, Joseph Lespine and Jacob, notary
The Simard family binds
very close to the principal families of the region, thanks to some
frequent double marriages. Those of the Dodiers, Carons, Bouchards and
soon those of the Parés each have two children allied to the Simards.
Soon a third Bouchard comes to look for a wife at the Lombrettes; it is
Antoine who marries the second Marie-Madeleine, a young of girl fifteen
years destined to raise a family of eleven children.
In the spring of 1707, a
son-in-law, Jean Alaire of Beaupré, died leaving a widowed Françoise
with two children. As for the sons of Lombrette, they came of age and had
not married: Was not Augustin thirty four years old and Francois thirty
two? However they looked to the home of the Parés, their neighbors at
Sainte-Anne, for good girls who knew the sons of Lombrette well. It was
finally Augustin
that chose a spouse in the person of Marguerite, and two years later, François,
in his turn, came there to look for Ursule.
With 1714 there came a
period charged with trials for the Simards. First in July, it was Rosalie
who died, barely thirty four years of age, leaving her spouse Jean Caron
with a family of eight children. One month later, Françoise who was
remarried to Nöel Bouchard since the spring, died in her turn after
bringing a third child into the world; she was only thirty six years old.
Noel and his wife held up
well despite these difficult crosses; they had the heart to establish all
their children and heaven seemed to want them to leave with that
assurance. Of their fourteen children, only three were not married: Paul
would soon be thirty four years old, but he planned to get married, in the
summer, to Geneviève Gagnon; Jean counts, he was also thirty years of
age. As for the last of the girls, she would soon be twenty three years
old; this was nearly an old maid, staying close by her parents who were
burdened by age. The father counted seventy eight years, the mother
reaches her seventieth year.
The summer of 1715 came
with some bad omens. An epidemic spilled across the coast claiming
numerous victims, especially from the savages. Minister Leblond, the
missionary vicar, had to leave to help with the stricken poor and stayed
in their midst at Tadoussac. Happily Mr. de Grandelet, canon-dean of the
cathedral of Quebec, came to Baie-Saint-Paul to replace him.
It was during this crucial
period that Nöel Simard, the old Lombrette, was struck down by his last
illness. He died on July 24th, in the arms of his faithful wife,
surrounded by his children. His funeral ceremony and burial took place at
Baie-Saint-Paul and the entire parish attended his funeral, presided over
by Mr. de Grandelet, surrounded by several priests from the Seminary.
It was only on the
following day that vicar Leblond arrived, exhausted from stress and at the
end of his strength. The epidemic had attached itself to his poor body and
surely undermined it; as soon he returned home he expired, achieving to
prolong the already deep mourning affecting all the inhabitants. July
29th, Mr. de Grandelet celebrated the funeral service of the prematurely
dead missionary, a victim of his goodwill.
As destiny had decreed in
1637, the modest birth of Lombrette had been well accompanied by the more
illustrious birth of the Sun-King, the future Louis XIV. Why did it again
want the no less modest death of the pioneer to also be as well attended
as the royal death of the same Louis XIV? At the moment when Nöel Simard
died, the king returned to Marly, decrepit, legs already affected by
gangrene. He went quickly to Versailles, where he languished for a month.
Then, in September 1715, the entire kingdom of France mourned the great
king, while in New France, a patriarch no less respected, in his own way
also as famous, disappears without sound in the middle of the lands that
he reclaimed and the numerous posterity who would immortalize his name. If
one recalls that Louis XIV, after having seen a son and grandson die
mysteriously, did not leave a successor or one faint descendant and that,
on the other hand, the abuses, militarily or worldly, that had burdened
the end of his reign, rendered him so unpopular that it had been necessary
to clandestinely carry his remains to Saint-Denis, there is well a place
to again ask which of the two men, Louis Dieudonne or Noël, was the most
grand....
Alas! the trials themselves
did not stop with the death of father. Jean, who's marriage had been set
for the end of July, without rejoicing, celebrated his wedding with Geneviève
Graval at Saint-Anne; but in November of the same year, death in its turn
took him, in an unknown way, at his full flowering age. The young wife,
then pregnant, posthumously gave birth to a child in January, a son who
she named Jean. The child, although born before term, lived and assured
the posterity of this family branch.
Finally, in the summer of
1716, the final destiny of this grand family was achieved. The young
daughter, Catherine, found a spouse in the person of a twenty eight year
old widower, Nöel Guay, grandson of Lord Gaston-Guay de Saint-François
from the island of Orleans. Paul, himself the last of the boys, was also
married in June to Geneviève Gagnon.
The elderly mother then
wanted a final adjustment of succession affairs, for her young
daughter-in-law Geneviève Gravel, widow of Jean, who had expressed a
desire to see the position of her minor son clarified regarding the one
third share he stands to receive, along with his uncles François and
Paul. They convened a family gathering and proceeded to inventory, then
distribute domestic possessions. Although it is rather long, it is unknown
how a text of this act could be replaced by summary:
The
year seventeen hundred sixteen, July sixth before noon, at the request of
François and Paul Simard, inhabitants from Baie-Saint-Paul, and Joseph
Simard, inhabitant of Beaupré, parish of Sainte-Anne, in the name of and
as guardian to Jean Simard, son of deceased Jean Simard and of Geneviève
Gravel elected by act in this jurisdiction on the date of ________, and
also in the presence of François Laberge, also an inhabitant of before
said Beaupré, also elected by aforesaid act, and also at the request of
the aforesaid Geneviève Gravel, widow of the said late Jean Simard and
with rights of common possessions in accordance with her contract of
marriage with the aforesaid Jean Simard, who was an heir with the
aforesaid François and Paul Simard, each for a third of all the
possessions of deceased Nöel Simard and Madeleine Racine, their father
and mother, by contract passed by and before Mr. Jacob, notary in this
lordship, and also by other acts passed by and before master Louis
Chambalon, royal notary of Quebec, one on the date of 24 July 1700 and the
other on October 15 1706, and authenticated by monsignor Rodot, intendant
of this area, dated on 25 April 1711; the aforesaid Geneviève Gravel
reserves forever the right to accept the aforesaid community property of
said deceased Jean Simard, her husband, or to renounce it, in that
hereafter she will be advised by the following counsel of what she is
accorded by her marriage contract; the aforesaid inventory was made with
the approval and consent of the aforesaid Madeleine Racine, their mother
and donator, who declares before said notary that she agrees that all the
said possessions are contained in the aforesaid donation being shared
between these said heirs as if she had died: to this effect, being before
the undersigned notary of said Beaupré as a good and faithful inventory
describing all property, furnishings, buildings, house keeping utensils,
grains, beasts, gold and money, monetary and non monetary, titles, papers
and other things, and homes, that were found belonging to the forenamed by
means of donation by the deceased aforesaid Nöel Simard, donor, with the
consent of the aforesaid Madeleine Racine, and found in said donor's house
August 4 1715, where the aforesaid Simard died, conducted and signed by
aforesaid François and Paul Simard and Ursule Paré and Geneviève
Gagnon, their wives, and the aforesaid Geneviève Gravel, after swearing
prior to said agreement before said notary that all the said property was
declared and shown without diversion, hiding any, under penalty
requirements as were given to them by the aforesaid notary, which was
taken and estimated by Godar, bailiff for said Beaupré, juror, caller,
furniture seller, aided by René de Lavoi, inhabitant of said Beaupré,
who appraised them in his soul and conscience, having considered their
age, in the final sum that follows, and the aforesaid Godar and Laberge
having signed and the others declaring they do not know how to either
write or sign, this inquiry following the order.
Godar
Laberge
René
of Lavoie
"Having
at this time appeared François and Antoine Bouchard and Etienne Simard,
the foresaid Bouchards married to Marguerite and Marie-Madeleine Simard,
their wives, declare they oppose the inventory and share possessions
abandoned by the said deceased Nöel Simard, their father, and
father-in-law, who gave them to said François, Jean, Paul Simard, his
said children, who want and claim they were provided as part of the
aforesaid donation, after much litigation with the aforesaid François and
Paul Simard, the aforesaid compliants agree that the said François and
Paul Simard and before mentioned others only have to redo said inventory,
sharing said possessions, reserving only assurance that the aforesaid François
and Bouchard Antoine Bouchard and Etienne Simard do not prejudice or harm
their receipt of donation of the aforesaid if they have such rights, and
to which the said François and Antoine Bouchard have signed and declared,
and the said Etienne Simard declared he does not know how to sign, this
inquiry following the order.
F. Bouchard
A. Bouchard
That which follows, we have
inventoried:
Item
Price
Two pot racks ____________________
3000
A fire shovel _____________________
1800
A large pot with its lid _____________ 2500
Another large pot without lid, dirty___2000
Another medium pot without lid _____1200
Two small cooking pots, new _______ 2500
Another small pot _________________
800
A small yellow copper kettle, round ___ 800
Another yellow kettle ______________ 700
Two other small yellow kettles for liquid 800
A frying pan _____________________ 1600
Another frying pan ________________1400
A pot spoon ______________________ 400
Another pot spoon ________________ 500
Two iron lamps __________________ 400
A broiler _______________________ 1000
A big kettle_____________________ 1000
A big tin basin __________________ 3000
Another medium basin ___________ 2300
Another medium basin. ___________ 2000
Another medium basin ___________ 2000
About twelve pounds of old tin, of 4
pounds the [liv] __________________ 4800
Four old plates ___________________ 200
Two plates ______________________ 1200
A small dish _____________________ 800
A [demiard] of tin ________________ 400
Three glass bottles ________________ 900
Three firewood axe _______________ 6000
An old axe in poor condition _______ 200
An axe to shoulder sheep ___________ 2500
Two picks _______________________ 2000
An old bill-hook and a broken level __ 200
Two pounds of old tin ______________ 800
An old grill ______________________ 400
An old pick and a small [tille] axe ___ 2100
Five freight wheels _______________ 1600
An old casserole __________________ 300
A kettle shackle ___________________ 100
A handgun, with an old stock _______ 3000
Another gun, with a carbine ________ 3000
Another gun, with another old stock _ 3000
An old scythe _____________________ 200
An old vitiated burrow _____________ 300
Four sickles ______________________ 200
Four horse irons __________________ 800
A long file saw, with a chisel ________ 300
Two old axes _____________________ 300
A chisel _________________________ 300
An old sabot maker spoon, with a
carpenter chisel __________________ 700
An old axe broken in the middle _____ 200
A [coste] of small chain mesh _______ 300
A green crock ____________________ 200
Another green crock, small _________ 100
Fourteen earthenware pots ________ 2100
Three small barrels of two pound pieces 600
Three buckets of one pound pieces ___ 300
Being the noon hour, will return for the continuation of said inventory after noon.
It being the same aforesaid risen day, we continue aforesaid inventory:
Firstly:
A big crock in which there is about three
pots of oil ________________________ 1200
A medium crock with three pots of oil _ 1100
A small vitiated crock, with two pots of oil 500
A round pine wood table with legs ____ 400
A paltry pine plank cupboard _______ 1000
A beef hide ______________________ 3000
Cow hide _______________________ 2000
Seventy pine wood boards __________ 4000
A half meter of finished canvas _____ 2000
A finished plough for plowshare, blade,
plough chain and round fronts _____ 2500
Three freight wheels ______________ 1200
A small [verlope] __________________ 300
A big burrow _____________________ 300
A medium burrow _________________ 300
A till broken at the head ___________ 400
A scythe complete with handle ______ 700
Another paltry scythe ______________ 200
A pitchfork for muck ______________ 300
A long saw _____________________ 1800
A wide saw ______________________ 800
An old pick ______________________ 100
A wheelbarrow for muck ___________ 300
Fifty planks _____________________ 8000
A good winnowing sieve ___________ 3000
Two salting tubs _________________ 1200
Another salting tub _______________ 400
A sifter _________________________ 800
Three veal skins _________________ 4100
Two old sickles __________________ 100
A [tinet] ________________________ 200
A small vat ______________________ 300
Another big vat _________________ 1000
A cask for salting eel _____________ 400
A half mill of salt _______________ 1100
Eight tablecloths ________________ 2400
Ten pouches ____________________ 3000
Another round table with legs ______ 400
An old [justaucorps] _____________ 1100
A brown freezing cloth hood with a
red jacket ______________________ 7000
Another old grey hood ___________ 2000
Two pairs of brown fabric pants ___ 1600
A pair of very dirty mittens ________ 400
An old [tapabor] ________________ 1000
Six mans shirts _________________ 5000
Six other vitiated shirts, at four
pounds apiece __________________ 2400
A canvas belt ___________________ 200
A striped canvas necktie with
a handkerchief __________________ 100
A pair of leather belts ____________ 500
Following are personal items of deceased Jean Simard
A red [tapabor] ___________________ 800
Another red [tapabor] _____________ 800
A hat __________________________ 1000
Another hat _____________________ 2000
A pair of simple light shoes ________ 1000
A pair of men's white socks _______ 1200
A pair of wild goat shoes __________ 200
An inexpensive old belt ___________ 600
An old neck scarf of striped canvas __ 100
A canvas hood __________________ 1000
Some soiled canvas _______________ 400
A canvas belt ____________________ 200
Three mans shirts _______________ 1800
A pair of soiled [masamet]s ________ 1000
A red shirt ______________________ 1000
A pair of red mittens ______________1100
A pair of half worn out white pants __ 600
An old blue hood _________________ 800
A brown [masamet] hood __________ 6000
A new [masamet] hood and jacket __ 15000
A jug hood with jacket ___________ 15000
A [tirtaine] hood with jacket _______ 8000
A pair of red pants _______________ 2000
Two pairs of pants _______________ 2500
A new pair of canvas pants _________ 600
Two pairs of socks ________________3000
An old pair of socks and of bad mittens 400
Eight men's shirts ________________ 6000
A white canvas shirt _______________ 2000
A pair of [granade] garters and a leather
one with buckle __________________ 1000
A striped belt _____________________ 1600
A cheap red belt __________________ 1600
Three pairs of gloves _______________ 600
Lsd
Item Price
A [fillosel] tie _____________________ 800
A baptism tie and another of striped
canvas with a handkerchief _________ 200
Two pairs of [fresset]s ______________ 400
A pair of wool garters ______________ 200
Two knives _______________________ 100
A cask fermentation lock ___________ 1200
An old shirt and vest _______________ 300
An old leather hood ________________
600
A pair of leather pants _____________ 1000
A jumper of leather ________________ 200
Canvas underpants ________________ 300
A canvas belt _____________________ 100
An old canvas hood ________________ 400
A pair of snowshoes ________________ 300
A pair of French shoes _____________ 300
A money box lock __________________ 400
Two old pairs of shoes ______________ 200
An otter-sack of tobacco ____________ 200
40 mills of wheat were found, much wheat flour was found in the attic, that we gave it to Paul Simard in order to feed the aforesaid Madeleine Racine, following their march together, the aforesaid wheat was not estimated.
Follow: the animals
Firstly:
Item
Price
An eight year old mare, with an old
harness ________________________ 10000
A large beef cow ________________ 20000
Two other young four year old beef cows,
with a two year old bull __________ 40000
A red three year old cow and a two year
with white nose [taure] ___________ 15000
A large ten year old black with white nose
cow a one year old black and white __ 5000
Another large ten year old red and brown
cow, with a black one year old [taure] and
a veal of this year _________________ 15000
A pig ____________________________ 2000
Another [verat] ____________________ 4000
Another pig _______________________ 4000
"The aforesaid parties declare they
personally owe nothing and that nothing is due to them.
Follow: the titles and papers
Firstly:
Item:
a donation contract, made by the deceased Nöel Simard
and Marie-Madeleine Racine to François, Paul and Jean Simard,
their children of land and a dwelling at Baie- Saint-Paul, the aforesaid
contract passed by Mr. Etienne Jacob, the before notary of Beaupré, on
the date of
25
July 1700 _________________ Enclosure:
(A)
"
another contract, passed by Mr. Louis Chambalon,
royal notary of Quebec, the aforesaid contract order
nullified a clause in before said donation contract and confirms
the aforesaid donation, aforesaid contract dated
15 October 1706 ________________________
Enclosure: (B)
"
an endorsement by Monsignor Rodot, intendant
of this area, for the aforesaid donation, dated
24 July 1700 __________ Enclosure:
(C)
"
a sheaf of receipts of the manorial land rents
that
we have ________________ Enclosure: (D)
Follow:
the real property of said succession
"
a dwelling and land ten acres wide and mile and a half
deep, sited and situated at Baie-Saint-Paul, located on the
southwest side of the
land of Etienne Simard and on the northeast
side of the land belonging to Jean Vigny, on
which there is a house of pieces over pieces of covered
board, twenty eight feet long and eighteen wide.
"
another old house, thirty feet long and fifteen wide, of
very old covered boards.
"
a barn thirty two feet long, including a stall which is at the end of the
aforesaid barn, of enclosed boards and
covered with straw.
"
half of another barn, forty feet long and twenty five wide, enclosed also
by boards and covered with straw, and also
half of an old stall of pieces over pieces, twenty-four feet
long and sixteen feet wide, of covered boards.
"
an old bakehouse of pieces over pieces, ten feet long and
eight wide, of covered boards.
"
another dwelling and land also ten acres wide with the same depth, located
to the southwest of the dwelling herein previously inventoried and on the
northeast side of the land of Jacques Lavoie, on which habitation he has
no building.
"In
that this is all of the property found to inventory, we finished and
stopped the present inventory and have the aforesaid Godar and François
Laberge with us, notarized, signed and the aforenamed others declaring
they do not know how to either write or sign, this following inquiry to
the order.
Godard
Laberge
René de Lavoie
Verreau
"By
and Before the notary, in the lordship of Beaupré, those undersigned
residents and hereafter appointed witnesses, were present and personally
appeared François and Paul Simard, inhabitants of Baie-Saint-Paul,
Saint-François parish, and living there, and Joseph Simard, in the name
of and likewise guardian of the minor child of the deceased Jean Simard,
and also in the presence of François Laberge, inhabitant of Chateau
Richer, and subrogated guardian of said minor, and also in the presence of
Geneviève Gravel, widow of the before said deceased Jean Simard and
mother of the before said minor, the aforesaid parties saying that the
aforesaid François and Paul and aforesaid deceased Jean Simard are the
heirs of the deceased Nöel Simard and Marie-Madeleine Racine, their
father and mother, of all their possessions, furnishings and buildings,
they want to divide the said possessions of the aforesaid donation into
three parts and of this, the aforesaid Marie-Madeleine Racine, their
mother, thus consents in having so declared in her presence before said
notary and witnesses; their asking to share a dwelling and land ten acres
wide and a mile and a half deep, sited and situated at Baie-Saint-Paul,
Saint-François parish, portal to Cape Maillard, located northeast of land
acquired from and, before being divided, belonging to the gentlemen from
the Seminary of Quebec, and which border the southwest side of the land of
Etienne Simard on one side and by and before the edge of the St- Lawrence
River on the other side and behind which the lands are not conceded, which
were transferred before the appointed René de Lavoie and Godard,
inhabitants of said Beaupré, and with the consent of the aforesaid
parties have found it of equal value, asking they divide it into three
parts of equal length, "the first lot will have, belonging to it
", the three acres, three perches, six feet, along the southwest side
of the lands of Etienne Simard, and the second standing next to the first
lot will have a like amount of land, the third will also have a like
number of three acres, three perches, six feet of land in width standing
next to the second on one side and on the other to the aforesaid habitat
that they acquired from the aforesaid gentlemen of Seminary, and all with
the said depth of one and a half miles, which lots also made the said
parties content and asking which one be left to fate and to this effect we
have made three tickets, each of equal rolled up size as the other, on one
was written "first lot" on the "second" and on the
other "third lot," which after they were moved at length in the
hat of René de Lavoie taken by the parties and consenting the aforesaid
parties would have them distributed one after the other as they said and
by the opened aforesaid tickets, it was found that the first share fell to
the minor child of Jean Simard, the second to Paul Simard and the third to
François, of which the aforesaid were content and asking of their share
of the aforesaid habitat that they acquired from the aforesaid gentlemen
of the Seminary, also containing ten acres in width at the same depth, to
be divided into three parts as before, having made three equal tickets as
before, the first lot will be joining the part to be given over to François
Simard which will be a like number of three acres, three perches, six
feet, as are the other parts, and after they put the tickets back into the
before said Lavoie hat and after having removed them, consenting the
aforesaid parties would have them distributed one after the other, by the
opened aforesaid tickets it was found that the first lot again fell unto
said minor child, the second unto said Paul, the third to François, also
causing the aforesaid parties to be found content because this was just
and likewise with the respective lots thereon to be enjoyed by themselves,
their heirs and always having reason to be peacefully, to begin the
aforesaid enjoyment in advance of this day, to be responsible for the
requirements and land rents that the aforesaid inheritances may owe the
lords of the aforesaid Beaupré on the conditions that they would have
during their ordinary course, providing, transferring by each of the
aforesaid parties to the others all property rights in essence, depth,
name, reason and action that they could have and intend that on the
aforesaid things shared and discharge which are reciprocally restrained,
dismissed and divested from each for the profit of the other and
consenting about those things thus shared are and remain guaranteed by
each to the others between all the divisions following custom promise to
cede from one to the other and furnish the just pieces of property for the
things that are allowed to them by the present sharing, which they
respectively quit and promise to help one another in case of recourse to
the aforesaid guaranty, the aforesaid shares are made without and
understood that all the buildings that are constructed thereon, will
remain in common between the
three divisions, and also without prejudice several pieces of furniture,
such as beds or other pieces of furniture, that remain in the hands of the
aforesaid Madeleine Racine, their mother, that the aforesaid Paul Simard,
her son, is obligated to represent her after her death, expecting that she
is going to stay with him. Made and passed the aforesaid divisions unto
said place at Cape Maillard, July eighth, seventeen hundred sixteen, in
the presence of Etienne Godard and René de Lavoie, witnesses who have
with the aforesaid François Laberge and myself, notary, signed, and all
the others aforementioned declared that they do not know how to either
write or sign the order following this inquiry.
René de Lavoie
Laberge
Godard
Verreau, notary
Then tranquility returns to
install itself within this family that more resembled a tribe of the Old
Testament. The younger generation growing up, numerous, valiant, full of
enterprise. It takes hold of the land little by little.
The old grandmother,
Madeleine Racine, does however again see, before reposing in her own last
sound sleep, the disappearance of her two eldest sons. First it was Pierre
who died on his land at Sainte-Anne, November 17 1724. He was sixty-one
years old and left a family of six children, of which three were boys.
Then in April 1726, Noël died, son, who occupied land neighboring the
paternal land at Maillard. He counted sixty two years and left a family of
thirteen children, of which ten were boys.
Both had amassed wealth; Nöel
in particular had inherited through his wife one half of the lordship on
the Gouffre river that came from Pierre Dupré, and his son, in 1735, who
would buy the other half from his uncle, Ignace Gagné. But during 1728,
the mother, Anne Dodier, would die in her turn, some months after having
made a donation of her possessions to her son Pierre, which was given
under procedures similar to the act which we have just read: before the
Superior Counsel, inventory, sharing.
But too many separations
burdened the shoulders of the poor grandmother; she saw five of her
children and her spouse die, she was now more than eighty years old. She
could depart in peace and go on to receive the just reward of her works.
Her career was very replete. She died during the course of the summer of
1726.
THE HERITAGE
It is the fate of all
generations to successively be born, grow old and disappear. Likewise, the
years in their flight carried away all the children of Lombrette. In 1732,
it was the turn of François, who died at fifty four years old, father of
nine children, of which two were sons. In 1733, it was Paul, at fifty-one
years of age, father of seven children, of which four were sons; the last,
François, was born three month after the death of his father. In 1735,
Augustin disappeared, at the age of fifty nine years, at the head of a
family of nine children, of which two were sons. In 1738, Joseph died, at
the age of sixty four years, father of fifteen children, of which ten were
boys. In 1748, Catherine disappeared, the youngest of the girls, wife of Nöel
Guay; she was fifty six years old and left nine children. In 1750, Etienne
died at the beautiful age of eighty one years; he left twelve children, of
which four were boys. Finally in 1756, Marguerite died, at the age of
seventy four years, leaving a family of eighteen children and, in 1760,
Marie-Madeleine with eighty years completed, mother of eleven children.
The country would change
allegiance. The European nations would tear it to shreds. In viewing the
four generations that had, during a one and a half century interval
(1600-1760), established a most beautiful lineage, we render an accounting
as to the vitality of a race and put our finger on the secret of its
survival across the worse difficulties.
When, in 1660, Nöel Simard
dit Lombrette reclaimed his first land at Sainte-Anne, he was by himself.
One century later he was forever asleep in a land bathed with his sweat
and very faraway from the one which had seen him born. Here, however, we
see, in his survivors, the fourteen children who he had trained, of which
eight were boys, fathers of families like himself, and behind this first
host, another of even greater advances. It was composed of his grand
children, numbering a hundred twenty two, of which there were thirty-five
boys, likewise themselves, also the fathers of families, carrying on the
name of Lombrette, the name of Simard.
Nöel Simard, dit
Lombrette, a patriarch of grand style, pioneer of high stature, reclaimer
of lands, conqueror of domains and finally constructor of buildings,
houses, mills and churches; founder of parishes, a model for those valiant
and equally modest workmen that edified the entire place with one
heritage.
Is it possible, after three
centuries, to discern the type of physical features in which one would
recognize the progeny of Lombrette? He would clearly enough belong to a
race from near the south of the ancient Gaelic-Roman Aquitaine. Among the
Simards, there are very few blonds, the great majority of individuals even
have jet black hair. Their eyes are also dark brown and their looks shine
with radiance. Their rather mat complexion again points to the Latin
temperament; the lines of the face most often marry the bony contours, but
there seems to exist, however, a secondary type of round and full face.
The slim size individuals dominate over large stout ones, but they do not
reach the height of six feet which makes a really tall person.
One can find the Simards,
through quite a long period of time, in all spheres of human activity. A
large number of them still cultivate the countryside lands all along the
Saint Lawrence. Baie-Saint-Paul in particular, among its eight hundred
families, counts more than a hundred and ten who carry the Simard name.
But we see them spring up everywhere new spaces are opened to the
conquering energy of pioneers. There were two of them, among the
twenty-one, who opened the Saguenay, in 1838; they colonized the Abitibi,
Témiscamingue and Rivière La Paix. Great enterprises attracted them,
from among all the first French Canadians, and there they knew successes
that distinguished them throughout the country. The prelature and
judiciary have both already welcomed descendants of Nöel Simard and the
teaching universities have offered their most serious chairs to professors
who carry this name. Finally this name, not so amazingly, is found on the
forewords of the most serious Canadian edition writings of science or
politics.
It is a name that does not
have less radiance in France, even though it appears there a little less
frequently. We know as early as the XVIIth century of a Pierre Simard, or
Symars, born at Besançon (1620-1680) who, entering through the
Dominicans, first occupied a chair of theology and was then appointed
Inquisitor General of France, famous for his zeal in pursuit of suspected
heretics and magicians, and as an author of works of piety: The
Treasure of the Rosary of the Most Blessed Virgin, Advise for priests and
pastors. We know even better the French sculptor, Pierre Charles
Simart, who was born at Troyes in 1806 and died in Paris in 1857. His
works decorate the facade of the Hôtel-de-ville in Paris, the tomb of
Napoléon at Invalides and the palace of Luxembourg. A student of Dupaty,
he was the toast of Rome in 1833, member of the Institute, and always a
fervent disciple of ancient classicism, belonging to the Ingres school.1
The present owner of the
ancestral house at Puymoyen, Mr. René Simard, is himself a very reputed
geometer in his region of Angoulême and a notable personality in France.
At the end of the last war, in 1945, his fellow citizens designated
him to represent them at the Palace of Luxembourg as a member of Counsel
of the Republic. In the scientific world, we again find the name of
Simard, for here we note, in the Amiot-Dumont Editions, the publication of
a work that won its author, Mr. Colin Simard, the Grand Prize in history
for 1956, Archaeological Discoveries
of France. It should not come as a surprise that a Simard, whose
family comes from one of the richest regions in prehistory, is devoted to
the science of archaeology so important in the present era. Finally,
French broadcasting counts among its best known speakers a Miss Jacqueline
Simard, who is only one of numerous persons with this name actually living
in Paris.
This presence on all planes
of social activity, as much in France as in Canada, already constitutes an
eloquent testimony in favor of this grand family carrying the name of
Simard; there is a sign of distinction that honors it and in which one
could be as proud of her rich heritage. For a heritage is a set of
spiritual securities, more so than a sum of material possessions.
It is, however, important
to notice, as an integral and slightly neglected part of the Simard
heritage, the centuries-old house in Puymoyen which achieves all its value
from being so rare to Canadian families that are able to identify their
precise place of origin. It is without doubt that all the descendants of Nöel
Simard would unanimously desire that such a monument, according to the
same vow of the present master of the domain, be converted into a
veritable family sanctuary and thus insure it remains with the Simards.
It would also be necessary
to attach a special consideration to the lands reclaimed by Lombrette in
Canada: three at Sainte-Anne, four at Petite-Rivière Saint-François-Xavier
and the vast domains that Monsignor of Laval put under his charge in
organizing Baie-Saint-Paul. These lands that Nöel Simard acquired,
conquered and bequeathed, all transformed by his noble labor, by his sons,
they are still easy to identify, even if they are no longer entirely in
Simard hands.
Finally, it is important to
note that Nöel Simard has already merited the raising of a monument in
order to immortalize his memory. In effect, there was a celebration held
in 1948 at Baie-Saint-Paul for the 250th anniversary of the raising of its
first church and on this occasion, there was at this location unveiled a
magnificent monument of granite and bronze to honor its pioneers. It shows
five persons who are, after Monsignor of Laval, the true founders of
Baie-Saint-Paul: in the center, Minister Pierre Paul Gagnon, the first
vicar; on the right, Nöel Simard and his wife, Madeleine Racine, having
at their feet the Rosalie whose name opened the parish registers; on the
left, the two Pierre Tremblays.
This monument, sculpted by
the great Canadian artist, Emile Brunet, will probably attract a large
number of Simards at Baie-Saint-Paul during the summer of 1957, in order
to celebrate the principal work of Lombrette in a more solemn way: the
opening of the entire region controlled by Baie-Saint-Paul.
In this way the sons
venerate and conserve the memory of their human roots and this affiliated
piety demonstrates the most fertile promise for the future.
This presented
biography of Nöel Simard attempts to be complete, in all its modesty, the
most explicit homage that his progeny could award him on the occasion of
the tricentennial anniversary of his arrival at Quebec.
APPENDICES
The Biography of Saint Cybard
The Tricentenary of the Simards
SAINT CYBARD
Recluse of Angoulême (+ 581)
Cybard or Eparchius was
born at Trémolat in Périgord. His parents, Felix, surnamed Oriolus, and
Principia, were rich nobles. When their son was seven years old, they sent
him to Périgueux, where he was instructed. His grandfather, the count
Felicissimus, made him a chancellor when he was still very young,
less than fifteen
years old, and he ran away to the monastery of "Sedaciacum."
This monastery disappeared early; he then went either to Seyssac, the
community of Saint-Aquiline, or to Saint-Cybard de Mouleydier (Dordogne).
The abbot Martin chastened the young man by him sending to take care of
grapevines, plow lands and accomplish all sorts of services. He obeyed
faithfully, fasted, stayed up and prayed assiduously. Already he had
healed a sick person and delivered the possessed; one recounts the
marvels: at Limeuil, a deer was racing ahead of him to lick his hands and
left only after received his blessing; at Sonocella, probably Saint-Avit,
he had caressed baby birds in their nest along with their mother.
In order to escape to the
obtrusiveness of the faithful who venerated him like a saint, Cybard quit
his monastery and browsed the diocese of Bordeaux, then the one of Angoulême.
The bishop Aphtone received him very well and invited him to remain
nearby. He did not want to commit without authorization from his abbot and
of the bishop of Périgueux, Sebaudis. The messengers sent by Aphtone
returned with this permission and he prepared a cell. One night, while
everyone slept, he went to look, pray and rest. He then heard the voice of
Christ say: "Cybard,
stay here and do not continue to journey for a long time." In
returning, he passed before the jail and prayed; immediately the chains
fell, doors opened and all the prisoners ran to take refuge in the church
while the people applauded this prodigy.
The bishop Aphtone bishop
ordained Cybard as a priest and presided over his entrance into the cell
where he had to remain for thirty nine years. Some disciples joined him,
he received them and allowed them to share his life. That is why he is
sometimes given the title of abbot. He passed all of his time in prayers
and him did not permit to his monks to work or even cook their own bread;
likewise all the gold and money that passed between his hands was
immediately redistributed to the poor or prisoner employees of
acquisition, sometimes he reassured his companions citing the words of
saint Jérôme to them: "Faith
is not afraid of hunger." And the faithful were brought to eat.
Cybard gladly received those who came for his consultation and to assist
at his mass.
Better still, on a curious
day he performed miracles that enlightened the mentality of the era. One
day, a thief was arrested and accused by the crowd of all sorts of thefts
and crimes. The count Ranulfe condemned him to be hanged, despite the
intervention of a monk who, with sorrow, came to tell his master all about
it: "Return there, he
said to him, and observe from afar." and then prostrated himself in
tearful prayer. The gallows collapsed, the chains broke and the monk
brought back the convict. Cybard declared to the count:
"You didn't want to listen me, but God heard me and he
rendered the life of the one that you had sentenced to the death." It
was not the alone occasion where Cybard helped an unfortunate escape a
punishment which, during this barbaric era, often befell someone innocent
or hit the guilty too brutally when they were without defense.
Still more interesting is
the story of Arthemius. Of a noble family, he had wanted to be in the
service of Lord and, without being cleric or consulting anyone, he shut
himself up in a hermitage at Saintonge. He stayed there for a good number
of years during which time he let his hair grow and, on a beautiful day,
he left declaring that he wanted to go see the king of Childéric. His
parents planned to accompany him and diverted him from his path. In
arriving at Saint-Denis-d'Hiersac, Arthemius saw that he was approaching
Angoulême and declared that he did not want to see Cybard.
He remained solidly tied on
his horse and continued down the road. On arrival, his horse started to
bristle and all its senses were agitated, during which time he declared
that there was no semblance of saint in him. Cybard then calmed it with a
simple sign of cross. The following day, despite some resistance, he made
him cut his hair and some days later, took him into the priesthood. Much
later, he was even promoted to the deaconry and lunacy never reclaimed
him.
Many other miracles
increased the renown of Cybard's holiness: curing sick people,
providentially recovering stolen items, deliverance of prisoners... His
austerity drew admiration from the masses: he never drank either wine or
any other drink and was so chaste that no one had ever seen him eat. He
died quietly on the first of July 581.
The miracles continued
after his death, and an abbey was founded on the site of his hermitage.
Served by canons, then by Benedictines starting in 950, it was submissive
to Saint-Jean-d'Angely in 1096 and suppressed during the Revolution. The
relics of the saint were burned by the Huguenots in 1568.
The dioceses of Angoulême,
Périgueux and La Rochelle celebrate his feast day.
Bibliography.
Cybard Saint is a privileged of the [hagiographie mérovingienne]: his
Life was written by a contemporary; it was edited in the Acta sanct., 1st of July, I., pp. 112-115, and better in the Mon.
Germ. Hist., Script. Rer. Merov., t. III, pp. 553-560, with a preface
by B. Krusch, justly critiqued by
Monsignor Duchesne in the Bulletin
critique, 2nd series, t. III, (1897), pp. 471-473. Grégoire de Tours
also mentions saint Cybard in his Historia
Francorum,
t. VI, c. VIII, and in the De gloria
Confessorum where at c. CI, he contradicts the history of the hanging,
in this second work, he places this scene after the death of saint Cybard,
while in the first, it took place during his lifetime, which must be the
truth. For posthumous miracles, see Acta
Sanct., 1st July, t. I., pp. 109-118, and Mon.
Germ. Histor., Script. Rev Merov., t. III, pp. 560-564.
THE TRICENTENARY OF THE SIMARDS
TEXT OF THE LETTER SENT TO
SIMARDS
Dear cousin,
It appears established that
the ancestor of all the Simards living in America arrived at Quebec on 21
June 1657. Many reasons render it desirable that on the 300th anniversary
this event is noted and celebrated by the large Simard family: the
personality of the first ancestor, his admirable work and the important
positions that his progeny occupy in Canadian life. It is necessary to add
that the Simard family is one of a very rare Canadian lineage that still
remain at the ancestral home in France, always in the hands of a Simard,
Mister René Simard, geometer, former Counselor of the Republic and
faithful curator of this family sanctuary.
A group of organizers have
therefore taken charge of the Simard tricentenary celebration. It includes
an honors Committee, whose members are:
Monseignor Ovide-Dolor
Simard, vicar of Alma, Lac Saint-Jean,
Mr. René Simard, geometer,
from Angoulême, France,
Mr. Joseph Simard,
industrialist from Sorel,
Mr. Fridolin Simard, mayor
of Amos.
An executive committee was
likewise formed with four members: two priests, a law student and a
professor on the Faculty of Philosophy from Laval University, which was
designated to assure the success of the great family anniversary. Two
events of which will occur there by next spring:
a) the publication of a
book containing the biography of the ancestor Nöel Simard, to appear at
the beginning of 1957 under the auspices of the historic Company of
Saguenay;
b) the organization of a
family pilgrimage to its place of origin and the Simard ancestral house,
at Puymoyen, near Angoulême, France; this group trip to Europe will take
place in 1957 from June through August.
There is no doubt that all
the Simards will want to know about the celebration developments and to
participate in them according to their means. We will attempt to increase
attendance by reaching the largest number of them: but it will not be
possible without the communications of those contacted with the Executive,
by reading the enclosed leaflets and returning a response to them as soon
as possible in the enclosed addressed envelope they find.
All assembled, the Simards
of America and France, in a just homage to their common ancestors.
(Signed:)
Emile Simard,
secretary of the executive
Committee.
The Simard tricentenary
Postal rack 1251
Quebec
WISHES AND SUGGESTIONS
The realization of
the two projects disclosed in the Communication to the Simards:
publication of a biography and organizing a family pilgrimage to France,
will without doubt be marked in as vivid a manner as the original
anniversary we are about to celebrate. The promoters also foresee, in
addition to the religious manifestation at the Basilica of
Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, a series of conferences in Canada, conducted by
Mr. René Simard, of Angoulême (text appended to the communiqué).
We hope that the large
Simard family will desire, during the occasion of this anniversary, to
constitute a permanent Committee, whose goals will be to maintain and
develop ties that will keep members of the Lombrette lineage united in
spite of their unavoidable dispersion, and to maintain conservation of the
family heritage. The Committee would assure retention, except the land,
that the ancestral House in Puymoyen which it guards, with the
collaboration of its present master, in order to either make it a family
museum or a place of pilgrimage.
The Simard family could
also, on the occasion of this anniversary, in a thought of social service,
provide the foundation work for an aid to education: a modest capital
contribution by subscription could thus provide scholarships for study by
several young people, eager for instruction.
There is also a place to
presume that other researchers in the future will devote works on the
passage of the Simards, the grace of which, little by little, would
constitute a Book of knowledge worthy of such a family. In this respect,
the complete collection of all public acts relative to the Simards,
resting in those parish registers and notary libraries, would in
themselves be works of value. And could they not be exploited, from the
sociological point of view, in a domain all so rich in the human elements
that have been a great family, during the course of three centuries of
history? Let those who have the eyes to see open them wide!
DISCLAIMER
The preceding was excerpted from a document that was translated into English from the original French publication authored by Paul Médéric. The content but not the substance of the text has been altered to fit the style and beliefs of the translator. It is and was not intended to be a perfect translation, as the translator is not a professional in such matters or even a native French speaker.
This translation was not meant to violate any copyright laws or otherwise infringe on legal rights that may held by any third party. This document may not be reproduced for profit. It is, however, anticipated that it may and will be circulated to as many of the English speaking descendants of Nöel Simard as possible so that they will be able to enjoy the text contained herein to learn more about our common ancestry.
Enjoy!
Sincerely,
Paul Simard
Zephyrhills, Florida