♂René Lemonnier

René Lemonnier (fl. 1605–1622) was a Frenchman of Clermont-Créans, near La Flèche in the province of Maine^W, whose son Mathurin settled in New France and married at Ville-Marie^W, the mission settlement that became Montréal, in the first wedding celebrated there. The act of that marriage, written in Latin in 1647, names René and his wife Marie Le Roux as the groom’s parents. He was the tenth great-grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his son Mathurin Meunier (baptized 1619).

Marriage and family

René Lemonnier and Marie Le Roux were married on 29 June 1605 in the church of Saint-Christophe at Mareil-sur-Loir, the parish where Marie had been born. The couple made their home at Clermont-Créans, where ten children are known to have been baptized in the parish church of Saint-Lambert between 1606 and 1622: Louise, Marie, René, Michel, Christophe, Jeanne, Thomase, Catherine, Mathurin and Julienne. When René and Marie died is not known.

Their son in Canada

Mathurin, baptized on 22 April 1619, probably went to Canada in 1644 as an engagé^W, a laborer hired in France to work in the colony for a set term. On 3 November 1647 he married Françoise Fafard at Ville-Marie, and the act names him as the son of René Lemonnier and Marie Le Roux, of the parish of Clermont near La Flèche. In Canada his surname came to be written Meunier.

Notes

His name

The act of his marriage in 1605 writes him René le monnier, with René Le Monnier in the margin, and his son’s marriage act in 1647 has the Latin Renati Lemonnier. No record gives his age, his trade or his parents.

The marriage and the children

The act of 29 June 1605 in the parish register of Mareil-sur-Loir names neither the groom’s nor the bride’s parents. Its date and place are also those given by the Fichier Origine, the register of French emigrants to Québec kept by the Fédération québécoise des sociétés de généalogie, in its entry for Mathurin. That entry lists the baptisms of his three brothers and six sisters at Clermont-Créans, with their dates, from the parish register; Mathurin’s own baptism act of 22 April 1619 names his parents as René le Monnier and Marie le Roux.

Coming to Canada

The Fichier Origine gives Mathurin’s hiring as an engagé by a contract of 20 April 1644 before the notary Pierre Teuleron at La Rochelle, and his arrival in Canada that year.

The first wedding at Ville-Marie

The marriage of Mathurin and Françoise Fafard is the first act, numbered M 1, in the marriage register of Notre-Dame de Montréal. The day of the month is blotted; 3 November 1647 is the date in the Drouin Institute’s index of Québec parish acts.

The historian Marcel Trudel, in his study of early Montréal, lists one couple who contracted marriage earlier that year, Michel Chauvin and Anne Archambault, in July 1647, but their wedding was blessed at Québec.