♀Marie Brazeau

Marie Brazeau (1663 – 29 May 1735) was a Parisian-born settler of Montréal in New France, the daughter of a wheelwright who brought his family to the colony about 1681. Already a widow, she was 35 and her new husband, a soldier, was 23 when she married Guillaume Tougas dit Laviolette at Montréal in 1698. She married four times in all, the last time at Montréal in 1713 at the age of fifty. She was the seventh great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her son Guillaume Tougas dit Laviolette (1699–1756).

Early life

She was born in Paris in 1663, the daughter of Nicolas Brazeau (born 1636) and Perrine Billard (1635–1705), whose marriage contract had been signed before a Paris notary on 4 September 1661. Her 1698 marriage act names her as of the parish of Saint-Paul in Paris. The Fichier Origine, a register of French emigrants to Canada, gives her father’s trade as charron, a wheelwright, and records that the family, with her brothers Nicolas (born about 1670) and Charles (born about 1672), came to Montréal in about 1681, when she was about eighteen. Her mother died at Montréal in 1705.

Marriages and family

Her first husband was Sylvain Guerin. The parish register of Saint-Denis at Amboise, in Touraine in the Loire valley, records their marriage there on 30 October 1679. She is named as aged seventeen and the daughter of Nicolas Brazeau and Perrine Billard, and he as aged twenty and the son of the late Silvain Guerin; her father was present as a witness. A family compilation describes him as a shoemaker from Amboise. Three of their children are on record: Marie, baptized at Amboise on 17 October 1680; Raphaël, baptized at Montréal on 19 October 1686; and Antoine, baptized at Montréal on 5 August 1688. The couple were therefore at Montréal by 1686. Her daughter Marie married at Montréal in 1697, aged sixteen. By 1698 she was his widow.

Her two sons by Antoine Beaujean were baptized at Montréal in 1691 and 1693. They did not marry: no marriage is recorded, and the register enters both children as illegitimate. The father had been baptized at Montréal on 16 April 1668, the son of Elie Beaujean. Antoine, the first son, was baptized on 9 July 1691, with Gilles Chauvin and Mathurine Beaujean, the father’s sister, as godparents; he was buried on 22 July 1691, aged ten days. Joseph was baptized on 17 March 1693, with Mathurine Juillet and Urbain Boudreau as godparents. What became of him is not known. Antoine Beaujean was buried at Montréal on 23 May 1693, two months after Joseph’s baptism; the burial gives his age as twenty.

On 10 November 1698 she married Guillaume Tougas dit Laviolette (1674–1708) at Montréal, a marriage contract having been signed before a notary the day before. The register describes the groom as a soldier of Louvigny’s company, from the parish of Fatouville in the diocese of Lisieux, in Normandy, the son of Guillaume Tougas and Marie Labbe, aged 23; it describes the bride as the widow of Sylvain Guerin, aged 35, and names her brother Charles Brazeau among the witnesses. The difference of twelve years ran the unusual way: she was the elder. Cyprien Tanguay’s genealogical dictionary spells the husband’s surname Tougard.

The couple had six children, born between 1699 and 1708; the eldest, Guillaume, was baptized at Montréal on the day of his birth, 29 September 1699. Tanguay dates the birth of the youngest, Pelagie, to 9 January 1708. Guillaume Tougas dit Laviolette was buried at Montréal on 23 September 1708, leaving her a widow for the second time, with six children under ten.

Third and fourth marriages

Her third husband was Didier Bourgouin, a soldier of the company of Montigny, from the parish of Saint-Paul in Paris. They married at Québec, in the church of Notre-Dame, on 29 October 1712; a marriage contract had been drawn up the day before. He appears to have died early in 1713, within months of the wedding.

On 18 June 1713 she married Pierre Tastet dit Francoeur at Montréal, in the church of Notre-Dame there. He was a former sergeant of the company of Le Verrier; he was forty-six and she was fifty. The marriage contract was drawn up the same day. He most likely died in 1716, and she outlived him by nearly twenty years.

Later life and death

She lived on at Montréal for almost twenty-seven years after the death of Guillaume Tougas. She died at Montréal on 29 May 1735 and was buried there.

Her life is the subject of a book-length study published in Québec by Éditions du Septentrion, which draws on the parish, notarial and court records of Montréal and describes her as having lived in the town from 1681 until her death.

Notes

The compilation that records her four marriages gives her birth as 16 March 1683 at Pointe-aux-Trembles, which cannot be right: it also gives her a daughter born in 1680, and her 1698 marriage act makes her about 35 and a native of Paris. It dates her death and burial to 30 May 1735.

Third and fourth marriages

The 1712 and 1713 marriages are on the Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) list of marriages, and the 1979 family history Le Premier Tougard en Nouvelle France prints the acts. The 1712 contract is dated 28 October 1712 before the notary Dubreuil at Québec, and the marriage on 29 October 1712 at Notre-Dame de Québec names Didier Bourgouin as a soldier of Montigny’s company, of Saint-Paul in Paris. The history says that this husband died early in 1713. The 1713 contract was drawn up on the day of the wedding before the notary Adhémar; the act gives Pierre Tastet dit Francoeur as an ex-sergeant of Le Verrier’s company, aged 46, and Marie Brazeau as fifty. The history gives 1716 as his year of death, and no day is given here. Grade: ON RECORD for both marriages; the two death dates rest on the history alone.

Children of the first marriage

Marie’s baptism at Amboise on 17 October 1680 is taken from a FamilySearch record of the Saint-Denis parish register at Amboise. The baptisms of Raphaël (19 October 1686) and Antoine (5 August 1688) at Notre-Dame de Montréal are in the PRDH list, which also gives Marie’s marriage at Montréal in 1697 and her age of sixteen. The groom is not named here, because the only names offered for him come from compiled trees. Grade: the Amboise baptism rests on the FamilySearch record alone; the Montréal entries are ON RECORD.

Burial age

The PRDH burial entry for 1735 at Notre-Dame de Montréal gives her age as 75. A birth about 1663 and the 1698 marriage act’s age of 35 put her at about 72 at death, so the entry’s figure does not fit and is not used for her birth or her age. The burial year agrees with the death of 29 May 1735. Grade: ON RECORD for the burial; the age is the entry’s own figure.