♂Blaise Juillet

Blaise Juillet (baptised 26 February 1611 – buried 20 April 1660) was a native of Avignon who settled at Montréal in New France, where his daughter Marie had the governor, Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, and Jeanne Mance as godparents in 1653. The two were the founders of Ville-Marie, the settlement that became Montréal. A compiled file on French emigrants to Canada adds that he drowned near Île Saint-Paul while fleeing the Iroquois. He was the tenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Marie Juillet (born 1653).

Origins at Avignon

He was baptised on 26 February at the church of Saint-Agricol at Avignon. The register entry reads “Blasius filius magistri Joannis Julier et Gabrielle Barbarine coniugum”, and it dates itself only “anno quo supra”, so the year 1611 is that of the compiled emigrant file, which checks its entries against the registers. The file names his parents as Jean Juillet, a butcher, and Gabrielle Barbarine, and dates their marriage at Avignon, in the parish of Saint-Symphorien, to 18 June 1609. It lists five brothers and sisters baptised at Saint-Agricol: René and Claude, both on 16 November 1615, Nicolas on 6 January 1622, Marguerite on 6 May 1625 and Joseph-Philippe on 19 March 1629. Tanguay’s dictionary gives him as Blaise Juillet dit Avignon, son of Jean Juillet and Gabrielle Barbarini, of St. Agricole in the diocese of Avignon.

Emigration and marriage

The compiled file dates his arrival in New France to 1644 and describes him as a “bêcheur engagé”, a hired digger, signed on at La Rochelle by a contract of 21 April 1644 before the notary Jacques Mousnier. It places his marriage to Anne Deliercourt, written there Anne-Antoinette de Liercourt, at Trois-Rivières on 2 February 1651, on the strength of a marriage contract before the notary Gatineau. Tanguay’s dictionary dates the couple’s marriage contract 10 February 1651. No marriage act for the couple appears among the acts indexed under his name.

Family at Montréal

Blaise Juillet and Anne Deliercourt had four children baptised at Montréal between 1651 and 1658. Mathurine was baptised on 31 December 1651, with Lambert Closse^W and Mathurine Godé as godparents. Marie was baptised on 25 November 1653, about a month after her birth; her godparents were Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve^W, whom the register calls “Gouverneur”, and Jeanne Mance^W, and the act also names the Jesuit Simon Le Moyne and the priest Claude Pijart. Charles was baptised on 18 May 1656, with Charles Le Moyne^W, written “interprète” in the register, as godfather. Louis was baptised on 11 October 1658, and there the father is written “Juillet Avignon, Blaise, habitant”. The mother’s forename is not consistent in the records: she appears as Anne, Antoinette, Anne Antoinette and Anne Etiennette.

Death

The register of Notre-Dame at Montréal records the burial of Blaise Juillet dit Avignon on 20 April 1660. He was dead by 30 June 1660, when his widow, named Antoinette Deliercourt in the act, married Hugues Picard, a sawyer, at Montréal; Lambert Closse, sergeant-major of the garrison, was a witness. That act records only that Blaise Juillet was deceased. The compiled emigrant file gives his death as 19 April 1660 and remarks that he drowned while fleeing the Iroquois, near Île Saint-Paul at Montréal. Tanguay’s dictionary gives the same date and place, makes him a companion of Dollard des Ormeaux, and says he drowned with Mathurin Soulard while trying to escape the Iroquois, at the very start of the expedition that ended at the Battle of Long Sault^W.

On 23 July 1670 Marie Juillet married Pierre Lescuyer at Montréal, and the act names her as the daughter of the late Blaise Juillet and Anne Etiennette Deliercourt; Hugues Picard was among the witnesses, with Charles Le Moyne and the merchant Jacques Le Ber.