♀Marie Juillet

Marie Juillet (born October 1653) was a settler’s wife at Montréal in New France, baptised there on 25 November 1653. Her godparents were the two founders of Ville-Marie, the governor Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve^W and Jeanne Mance^W; Ville-Marie was the first name of Montréal. She was the ninth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Marie Lecuyer (died 1755).

Family and baptism

Marie was the daughter of Blaise Juillet and Anne Etiennette Deliercourt, and was born in October 1653. The register of Notre-Dame at Montréal records her baptism on 25 November 1653, at the age of one month. Her father was described as a habitant when her brother Louis was baptised in 1658. He was dead by 30 June 1660, when her mother, called a widow, married Hugues Picard, a sawyer. The mother’s given name varies in the records between Anne, Antoinette and Anne Etiennette. Marie had at least three brothers and sisters baptised at Montréal, Mathurine in 1651, Charles in 1656 and Louis in 1658; the godfather of Charles was Charles Le Moyne, then called an interpreter.

Marriage

On 23 July 1670 Marie Juillet, single, married Pierre Lescuyer, also single, at Montréal. The seven witnesses were among the leading men of Montréal in 1670: Charles Le Moyne de Longueuil^W, Jacques Le Ber^W, Jacques Le Moyne, Marie’s stepfather Hugues Picard, the judge Charles d’Ailleboust des Musseaux, the town major Zacharie Dupuy^W and the procureur fiscal Migeon de Branssat. They included the town’s judge, its town major and its procureur fiscal, the officers of justice and of the garrison.

Children

Their children were baptised at Montréal between 1671 and 1695, twelve baptisms in all, beginning with Marie on 20 August 1671, whose godfather was Jacques Le Ber, one of the leading merchants of the town. In 1674 the godfather of the couple’s son Pierre was Pierre Le Moyne, whom the register names as the son of Charles Le Moyne de Longueuil, écuyer; he was the only son of that name, the later Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville^W. In 1676 their son Paul had Paul Le Moyne and Jeanne Le Ber as godparents, Jeanne being Jacques Le Ber’s daughter and later the colony’s celebrated recluse^W. The records do not say how the Lescuyer household came to have godparents of that rank.

On 17 October 1689 her daughter Marie married Rene Malet at Montréal, and the act names her parents as Pierre Lescuyer and Marie Juillet; her second marriage, in 1721, names them again. When and where Marie Juillet died is not known.