♂Louis Motin

Louis Motin (about 1588 – 1637) was a French official in the Charolais, in southern Burgundy, who helped pay for the settlement of Acadia and saw four of his children sail there in 1636. He was the tenth great-grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his daughter Jeanne Motin (about 1615 – about 1666).

Life in the Charolais

He was probably born about 1588, the son of Nicolas Motin and Françoise de Vesvres, and like his father he was seigneur of Reux and of Corcelles. On 9 November 1607 he married Marie de Salins. He served as controller of the royal salt store at Mont-Saint-Vincent, an office the king appointed. Salt was then sold only through such stores, under the salt tax called the gabelle^W, and the controller watched over its storage and sale and judged the first cases under the tax. The couple had eight children, six sons and two daughters, among them Jeanne, born about 1615.

The Acadian venture

In January 1635 the Razilly-Condonnier company was formed to settle Acadia and trade in furs, led by Isaac de Razilly^W, and Louis Motin was soon admitted as a partner. He is said to have put 60,000 livres into the company’s funds, more than three times the share of the president of the Chambre des Comptes of Burgundy, who joined with him.

That autumn Nicolas Le Creux, sieur du Breuil, commander of the company’s fort at Canso, in Acadia, came home to France to recover from two sword wounds. He married Louis’s daughter Anne, and with Louis’s help he spent the season recruiting settlers. He also carried a request from Charles de Menou d’Aulnay^W, Razilly’s lieutenant in Acadia, and Louis gave his consent for Jeanne to marry him. In the spring of 1636 Jeanne, Anne and her husband, and two of the sons, Claude and Jean, sailed from La Rochelle on the Saint-Jean, and Jeanne married d’Aulnay in Acadia that same year.

Later life

Louis was a widower by then. On 8 April 1637 he married again, to Claude de Thomasset, daughter of Louis de Thomasset, bailiff of Mont-Saint-Vincent. He is said to have died later that year.

The family

Of the couple’s other children, Anne, who married Nicolas Le Creux, sieur du Breuil, in 1635, settled with him in Acadia, but the couple went back to France before 1650. Jean and Claude came to Acadia in 1636 and returned to France about 1640, and Jean became a priest. The eldest son, Nicolas, seigneur of Reux, was a captain of the ships of the Company of New France^W.

Notes

Sources

His parents, his two marriages, his office at Mont-Saint-Vincent, his investment in the Razilly-Condonnier company and the list of his eight children come from the Motin family notice in Léopold Lanctôt’s Familles acadiennes, vol. 2, pp. 117–118, a compiled genealogy, which calls him Louis de Mottin. Bona Arsenault’s Histoire et généalogie des Acadiens names him Louis Motin, seigneur de Reux et de Corcelles, en Charolais, and says he contributed money to Razilly’s enterprise. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, in its entry for Jeanne, calls him Louis Motin de Corcelles (or Courcelles) and says he was associated with the Razilly-Condonnier company. John Mack Faragher’s A Great and Noble Scheme (p. 51) describes him as a wealthy shareholder in the Company of New France and says Jeanne brought d’Aulnay a dowry that included shares in it.

Le Creux and the marriage of Jeanne

The account of Le Creux seeking a wife for d’Aulnay and Louis’s consent is from a translated family study in the Attakapas Gazette, vol. 23 (1988), pp. 158–159, which places Louis and his family at Mont-Saint-Vincent, where he was “controller of the royal salt works”. The party on the Saint-Jean is from the ship’s roll, printed by Archange Godbout in the Mémoires de la Société généalogique canadienne-française, vol. 1 (1944); the roll names the children but not Louis himself.

Birth and death

His birth about 1588 in the Charolais and his death in 1637 in the Somme, in Picardy, are given only by a WikiTree profile, without a source. Lanctôt has him marrying again at Mont-Saint-Vincent in April 1637, which leaves the Picardy death place open to doubt.