♀Perrine Billard

Perrine Billard (about 1635 – 20 August 1705) was a Frenchwoman of the parish of Saint-Paul in Paris who settled at Montréal in New France with her husband and children, and died there in 1705. She was the eighth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Marie Brazeau (1663–1735).

Early life and marriage

She was born about 1635 at Chaumont-en-Vexin, in the Vexin north-west of Paris, the daughter of Jean Billard, a shoemaker, and Hélène Guillet. Those details come from her marriage contract as reported by two compiled works, the Fichier Origine, a register of French emigrants to Canada, and a 2007 article by Rémi Tougas in the journal of the Société généalogique canadienne-française. The Fichier Origine also writes her name as Perrette.

The contract for her marriage to Nicolas Brazeau was signed in Paris on 4 September 1661 before the notary Laurent de Monhenault. According to the same compiled account, both of her parents were dead by then and she was still a minor, so her aunt Marguerite Billard, of the rue de Jouy in Paris, acted for her. The groom was the son of Nicolas Brazeau, a wheelwright of the rue de la Cerisaie in the parish of Saint-Paul, and Marie Regnard.

Paris and Montréal

The couple lived in Paris for the next twenty years. According to the Fichier Origine, the couple had three children, all born in Paris: a daughter, Marie, in 1663, and two sons, Nicolas about 1670 and Charles in 1672. The Fichier Origine gives her husband’s trade as charron, a wheelwright, and records that the family came to Montréal in about 1681, the parents bringing the children with them. On 28 November 1681, at the house of the merchant Le Ber, she, her husband and their daughter Marie are said to have acknowledged a debt of 400 livres to Le Ber and to Charles Le Moyne for their voyage from France and for advances. Neither parent could sign, so Marie signed for them.

In March 1683 the couple were most likely living on the Côte Saint-François, on the Île de Montréal. On 2 March 1686 two soldiers are reported to have broken into her husband’s house on the Côte Saint-Martin, and one of them struck a crucifix with an axe. Perrine gave evidence at the trial, with her son Nicolas, then seventeen. It was probably the first trial for sacrilege in New France. On 19 October 1686 she was godmother at the baptism, in Notre-Dame-de-Montréal, of her grandson Raphaël Guérin, son of her daughter Marie and Sylvain Guérin; her husband was godfather.

At Montréal on 10 November 1698 her daughter Marie, a widow of 35, married the soldier Guillaume Tougas dit Laviolette. The register names the bride as the daughter of Nicolas Brazeau and Perrine Billard, of the parish of Saint-Paul in Paris, and her brothers Charles and a second Brazeau stood as witnesses.

Both sons married at Montréal, Charles in October 1693 and Nicolas in October 1694. Both acts name the grooms’ parents as Nicolas Brazeau and Pierrette Billard, the form the register uses for Perrine, and the 1694 act calls father and son alike charrons.

Perrine Billard died at Montréal on 20 August 1705.

Notes

A later pedigree compilation dates the marriage to 1662. The contract of 4 September 1661 is the dated and placed witness and is the date used here. The date of her death is taken from compiled Québec sources.

Côte Saint-François, 1683

Tougas (Le Premier Tougard en Nouvelle France, 1979, pp.41–42) places the couple on the Côte Saint-François on the Île de Montréal, through a baptism of March 1683 that names the côte. The baptism itself is not quoted here, so the residence rests on that compiled account and the body hedges it accordingly.

The 1681 debt

Tougas (1979, p.40) prints the act of 28 November 1681, an obligation of 400 livres to Le Ber and Charles Le Moyne; his note 4 on p.279 cites the notary, Claude Maugue, and the register number 534. That Marie signed for her parents comes from the printed text, not from a copy of the register.

The 1686 trial

Tougas (1979, pp.43–44) describes the break-in at the Côte Saint-Martin on Sunday 2 March 1686 and the trial of the two soldiers, Jacques Bernier dit Lajeunesse and Pierre Pellegris dit L’Espérance. He quotes the statement that Perrine and her son Nicolas, aged 17, testified at the first sacrilege trial in New France, and he cites Séguin’s La sorcellerie au Québec for the case. The “first” is his claim, so the body hedges it. No court record is quoted here.

The godmother of 1686

The baptism of 19 October 1686 at Notre-Dame-de-Montréal, with Perrine as godmother and her husband as godfather, is given in the Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) database and by Tougas (1979, p.45). The two agree, so the body states it flatly.