♀Esther Coindriau

Esther Coindriau (born about 1620) was a woman of Ars on the Île de Ré who, as a widow, crossed to Québec with her children in 1665, married again there, and in 1667 brought a complaint on her daughter’s behalf before the Sovereign Council of New France^W. She was the tenth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Renee Delaporte (died 1705).

Île de Ré

The Fichier Origine, a published file of the origins of Québec’s settlers, gives her birth at Ars-en-Ré about 1620 and names her parents as Nicolas Coindriau and Anne Tesmier; the acts behind those statements have not been seen here. She married Jacques Delaporte of Ars; the date of the marriage is not known. Their eldest child, Renee, was baptised in the church of St-Étienne at Ars on 23 January 1642, and the register names her mother “Ester Coindriaud”. Six more children were baptised at Ars between 1643 and 1662, among them a daughter, Marie-Anne, in 1658. Renee married Jacques Arrivee at Ars on 22 July 1663, and six weeks later, on 3 September 1663, Jacques Delaporte was buried there, aged 48.

Québec

In 1665 Esther, now a widow, emigrated to New France with her children. Renee and her husband also came in 1665, and their daughter Louise Arrivee was born at Québec on 7 August 1665. On 8 March 1666, at Québec, Esther married Jean Baillargeon.

In the spring of 1667 Claude Maugrain, called Le Picart, a soldier of the Carignan-Salières Regiment^W, pursued Esther although she was a married woman. A history of the regiment, drawn from the Council’s judgments, relates that while boasting to her he exposed himself and made to assault her young daughter Marianne, and that Esther and others present pulled him away before the child was harmed. Esther’s complaint, as the wife of Jean Baillargeon and widow of Delaporte, came before the Council on 6 June 1667. The Council found that Maugrain had acted as she alleged and sentenced him to twelve strokes of the birch from the public executioner, to be given in the prison in the presence of Esther, two women of her choosing and her daughter.

Esther was still living on 21 March 1671. The date and place of her death are not known.

Notes

Her surname is written Coindriau, Coindriaud and Coindreau in the records and histories that name her. The history of the regiment gives Marianne’s age in 1667 as about five; the daughter Marie-Anne baptised at Ars in 1658 would then have been about nine.