♂René Hardy

René Hardy (baptized 26 December 1589) was a merchant and master goldsmith of the parish of La Trinité in Angers, in Anjou^W, whose daughter Marie-Anne married at Montréal in 1662. He is an ancestor of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) twice over: her tenth great-grandfather by two separate lines of descent, both through his daughter Marie-Anne Hardy (about 1634 – 1726).

Life

The baptism register of Sainte-Croix in Angers records his baptism on 26 December 1589, not the 20 December given in a Fichier Origine record, and names his parents as Jean Hardye and Perrine Séjourné. He was the fourth of the couple’s ten children baptized there between 1586 and 1600. A Fichier Origine record gives their marriage contract as made at Angers on 15 August 1585.

René’s first marriage, to Catherine Fournier, took place before 1614. Five children were baptized to them at La Trinité in Angers: a son René on 16 January 1614, a daughter Marie on 3 March 1615, a second son René on 23 January 1620, a daughter Renée on 16 April 1621, and a son Étienne on 24 July 1622. The second son was given his elder brother’s name, which most likely means the first René had died young. Catherine was still his wife on 18 February 1617, when she stood godmother at a baptism at Sainte-Croix in Angers and signed the entry. The date and place of her death are not known. By 1627 René had married again, to Renée Moget.

A Fichier Origine record dates René and Renée’s marriage contract to 6 June 1627, before the notary Fronteau at Angers. Their daughter Marie-Anne was baptized at La Trinité in Angers on 10 October 1633, a date the same record gives; the register entry itself names her parents as “Rene Hardye Me orfeuvre” and “Renee Mauget son espouse.”

His death has not been found. He is also known from his daughter’s marriage at Notre-Dame de Montréal on 23 October 1662 to Pierre Maillet, a settler from Saint-Coulomb in the diocese of Dol in Brittany. The register names Marie-Anne as the daughter of René Hardy, “marchand Mtre orfevre”, and of Renée Moget, “de la paroisse de la Trinité de la ville d’Angers”. The two titles, merchant and master goldsmith, were a common style for a French goldsmith who sold his own work. The records do not explain how his daughter came to cross from Angers to Montréal.

Marcel Trudel’s history of early Montréal, drawing on Marie-Anne’s marriage contract of 9 July 1662, calls her the daughter of a merchant who had died, and records that she brought her husband a dowry of 500 livres^W made up of rings, jewels and other goods. Among the Montréal brides Trudel studied for the years up to 1663, more than four-fifths married with no dowry at all. The church entry in October gives his trade without saying whether he was still living.

Lines of descent

Marie-Anne Hardy and Pierre Maillet had two sons whose lines both reach the family. Rene Malet’s line leads to Augustus A. Tougas dit Laviolette, and his younger brother Pierre Maillet’s to Ellenore S. Renaud dit Deslauriers. Augustus and Ellenore married at Vincennes on 6 July 1801, and their son Augustin Tougas Lovellette (1809–1866) carries both lines, so René Hardy and Renée Moget each hold two places in the family tree.

Notes

The register spells the family name Hardye. Tanguay’s dictionary of French-Canadian families names the same parents for Marie-Anne, giving René as a goldsmith (orfèvre) and the family as of La Trinité in the diocese of Angers. His wife’s surname is not certain: the register’s spelling can be read as Moget or Maget, Tanguay prints Moget, and the Drouin Institute’s index of the register gives Noget.