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- From https://www.geni.com/people/Nicolas-Marsolet-sieur-de-St-Aignan/6000000005102576878#:~:text=Nicolas%20Marsolet%20was%20recruited%20by,as%20a%20trader%20at%20Tadoussac.
About Nicolas Marsolet, sieur de St-Aignan
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Marsolet-2 Biography MARSOLET DE SAINT-AIGNAN, NICOLAS, interpreter, clerk in the fur trade, ship's master, trader, and seigneur, coming from the neighbourhood of Rouen perhaps from Saint-Aignan-sur-Ry, as his name suggests; b. 1587, if the burial certificate is to be believed, or 1601, according to the 1666 census; d. 15 May 1677 at Quebec.
Nicolas Marsolet was recruited by Samuel de Champlain in 1613 to come to New France from a village in Rouen France. Champlain "set him to work in the Saguenay valley, and called him the 'Montagnais interpreter'. This young man also learned other indian languages, but mainly he worked as a trader at Tadoussac. Marsolet came to know the Saguenay River as well as any European, and Champlain gave him positions of responsibility there in 1623-24. He moved deep into the country of the Indian nations, and also traveled back and forth across the Atlantic. Marsolet was in Paris on March 24, 1627, and back in Canada that same year. Then came the Kirke brothers, and the English conquest of Quebec in 1629. Marsolet turned his coat and began to work for the English." Champlain was appalled by his treachery and met him at Tadoussac. Hard words were exchanged by both. According to Champlain's diary Marsolet and another deserter, Brule, both said, "We know quite well that if they had us in France they would hang us; we are very sorry for that, bu the thing is done; we have mixed the cup and we must drink it, and make up our minds ever to return to France; we shall manage to live notwithstanding" Marsolet managed to be on the wrong side of the French for awhile. Father Paul LeJeune wrote angrily, 'In all the years we have been in this country no one has been able to learn anything from the interpreter named Marsolet, who, for excuse, said that he would never teach the Savage tongue to anyone.'
But Marsolet dealt with his difficulties by continuing to work as an agent among the Montagnais. He acquired his own boat, traded in furs with much success, and his profits brought him wealth and respectability. He came to be called 'the little king of Tadoussac' After Champlain's death, Marsolet settled down, married a French wife, raised a family of ten children, acquired a seigneury from the company of the Hundred Associates, and accumulated land and offices. He lived to the ripe age of ninety and died in 1677, a respected citizen of New France.
MARSOLET DE SAINT-AIGNAN, NICOLAS, interpreter, clerk in the fur trade, ship's master, trader, and seigneur, coming from the neighbourhood of Rouen perhaps from Saint-Aignan-sur-Ry, as his name suggests; b. 1587, if the burial certificate is to be believed, or 1601, according to the 1666 census; d. 15 May 1677 at Quebec.
The Quebec historian N.E. Dionne won awards from both Canada and France for the sources cited in his works. In his book, " Makers of Canada: Champlain", written in 1912, Dionne states that thirty men were with Champlain when Quebec was founded on July 3, 1608. Nicolas Marsolet is specifically recorded as being there with Champlain when Quebec is founded. Dionne explains that two years later, in 1610, there was a meeting between Champlain, the Huron and the Montagnais Algonquin natives. A trade was discussed by Champlain and the natives to send a native to France to learn about the French language and French people and in return, a Frenchman would go live with the Montagnais natives to learn about them and learn their language. The native who went to Paris was called Savignon by the French. The Frenchman who went to live with the Montagnais was Nicolas Marsolet. He lived amongst the natives for over 25 years until 1636 when he learned of Champlain's death in late 1635. He had been criticized by the French for adopting the dress of the natives, dress we would now call the attire of a voyaguer. The historian Dionne notes that Nicolas Marsolet and Etienne Brule are the first two interpreters in New France, and should be considered with other interpreters who came later as the Fathers of New France since they layed the foundations for the fur trade in Quebec. Dionne notes that during this period Marsolet makes many trips to Paris to meet with government and church leaders to establish native policies in Quebec.[1]
In Marsolet's long career two periods are distinguishable, during which he adopted in turn each of the two conceptions of colonization whose partisans were at variance in New France. On the one hand the merchants and their clerks, concerned solely with furs and wealth, were opposed to the establishment of a French population; on the other hand Champlain and his associates were struggling to populate the colony and preach the gospel to the Indians. Until about 1636 Marsolet seems to have supported the merchants; subsequently he went over to the other camp.
Little information prior to 1629 is available in respect to Marsolet. In 1623 and 1624 his presence at Tadoussac was noted; on 24 March 1627 he was in Paris; in the summer of 1627 he was back in Canada and took part in fur-trading at Cap-de-la-Victoire. Finally, the interpreter who spent the winter of 1625-26 with the Jesuits of Quebec while incapacitated by pleurisy and who agreed to impart his linguistic knowledge to Father Charles Lalemant, was Marsolet.
From the moment he reached New France, Marsolet probably divided his activities between the posts at Tadoussac, Quebec, Trois-Rivières, and the Algonkin villages of the Ottawa River region, living with the Indians in the greatest licence and continually on the look-out for substantial profits. This at least is what Champlain hinted at in 1629, when he accused Marsolet and Brûlé of remaining without religion, eating meat on Friday and Saturday, of indulging themselves in unrestrained debauchery and libertinism, and especially of having betrayed their King and sold their country for love of money, by putting themselves at the disposal of the English when Quebec was taken by the Kirke brothers. However, the historian Dionne notes that when the Kirke brothers from England took over Quebec for three years, there were no French ships or French soldiers in Quebec to protect and defend Quebec against the English. Certain Frenchmen living in Quebec, notably Marsolet and Etienne Brule found it right for themselves to stay in Quebec and work with the English to continue to develop Quebec than to abandon Quebec altogether. Although Champlain angrily denounced their actions, the historian Dionne notes that if the French government had truly found Marsolet and Brule guilty of treason, they would have either been hung or returned to Paris for a trial, neither of which ever happened. Instead, after Champlain died, Marsolet was awarded large grants of land in Quebec.
Champlain had another reason to complain of Marsolet. The interpreter wrecked his plan to take back to France Charité and Espérance, two Indian girls whom the founder of Quebec had taken upon himself to adopt. This incident occurred because the native elders requested Marsolet carry a letter from them to Champlain requesting that the girls be returned to their native village. These girls and their way of life were known to Marsolet and it is likely that he agreed with the native elders that going to Paris would not be best for them. Despite Champlain's indignant denials and his offer to appease the Indians with a valuable gift, David Kirke did not authorize him to take his two protegees with him to France and they were returned to their village.
At the end of the summer of 1629 when the English took over Quebec, the majority of the French sailed for France. Marsolet remained behind. He continued to carry on his occupation as an interpreter. In 1632 the French returned. The Jesuit Paul Le Jeune wrote in 1633: In all the years that we have been in this country no one has ever been able to learn anything from the interpreter named Marsolet, who, for excuse, said that he had sworn that he would never teach the Savage tongue to anyone whomsoever. Only Father Charles Lallemant won him. Nicolas Marsolet was still harbouring the inveterate distrust felt by the majority of the fur-traders towards the missionaries and the settlers, for they dreaded their influence over the Indians who supplied the fur trade.
Nevertheless, the interpreter was soon to abandon his prejudices. By about 1636, Champlain has died, and there seemed to be no possibility that the movement towards populating and evangelizing the country would be checked, although it was still only at its beginning. Marsolet sided with the general opinion and resolved to settle down. In 1636 or 1637 (we know the first child was baptized on 22 Feb. 1638) he married Marie Le Barbier, and on 6 Oct. 1637 took possession of the seigneury of Bellechasse (Berthier). This seigneury, with a frontage of a quarter of a league and a depth of one and a half leagues, had been granted to him by the Cent-Associés on the preceding 28 March; three years later, on 20 Nov. 1640, he bought from René Maheu a tract of land on the Sainte-Geneviève hill. From then on Marsolet lived a steady life. In 1643, for example, the Relation spoke of him as a valued collaborator of the missionaries.
Thanks to his long experience of Indian questions and of the fur trade, Marsolet obtained a post as clerk to the Cent-Associés about 1642; but while he continued to act as an interpreter, an occupation which he never abandoned, he soon began to traffic on his own account. Marsolet was on bad terms with the directors of the Communauté des Habitants; he disapproved of their luxurious living; and after inciting a movement of protest against them in January 1646, which was swiftly suppressed by the governor, he had to rely on his own resources to carry through his commercial undertakings. By 1647 at the latest he was the owner of a boat which he utilized in his fur-trading trips to Tadoussac. Later, about 1660, he appears to have operated a shop at. Quebec: in December 1664, for instance, he was accused of retailing wine at 25 sols a jug, despite the rulings of the council. In 1663 he was one of the 17 settlers to whom the governor Pierre Dubois Davaugour, on March 4, had rented the Tadoussac trading concession for two years; this lease, however, was judged irregular and annulled shortly afterwards by the Conseil Souverain.
The 'little king of Tadoussac', totally engrossed in the fur trade, took scant interest, perhaps for lack of capital, in exploiting the numerous grants of land that had been made to him. After the Bellechasse seigneury which he made over to M. Berthier* on 15 Nov. 1672, Marsolet had received the following: from Abbé La Ferté on 5 April 1644 the Marsolet meadows, an arriere-fief with a frontage of half a league and a depth of two leagues, in the Cap-de-la-Madeleine seigneury; from the Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France on 16 April 1647 an equal area of land, in part of the future Gentilly seigneury, which he sold to Michel Pelletier de La Prade on 23 Oct. 1671; and from Jean Talon on 3 Nov. 1672 the Marsolet fief, half a league long and one and a half leagues wide, in the future Lotbinière seigneury. None of these fiefs was lived on or cleared by Marsolet's efforts. In the censive (seigneurial area) of Quebec Marsolet owned two other estates: 71 acres on the Sainte-Geneviève hill, granted by the Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France on 29 March 1649, and 16 acres on the St. Charles River, made over by Louis d'Ailleboust on 10 Feb. 1651. Only the land on the Sainte-Geneviève hill was brought under cultivation, and in 1668 Marsolet declared that the 71 acres were 'now ploughed' and that on them he had 'had built two buildings and a barn'; it seems, as is suggested by the farming lease made between Marsolet and Raymond Pagé, dit Carcy, in 1656, that this land was chiefly worked by farmers.
Shortly before 1660, and although he still acted as an interpreter if occasion arose, Nicolas Marsolet ceased to make excursions to Tadoussac in order to devote himself to his business at Quebec. It is here that he died on 15 May 1677. His widow, who had given him 10 children, married Denis Le Maistre on 8 May 1681. She was buried at Quebec on 21 Feb. 1688. As for Marsolet's children, some of them became connected by marriage with the best families in the colony.
The historian Dionne notes that there were twelve interpreters who came to Quebec to establish the fur trade in New France between 1608 and 1625 and Nicholas Marsolet was the very first. "Their services to the authorities, both civil and religious, were therefore at certain periods exceedingly valuable. It is among these men that we may fittingly seek for the founders of the Canadian race."
Sources
"'Dionne, THE MAKERS OF CANADA':CHAMPLAIN, Toronto Press, 1912; pp. 27, 37, 76, 103-105. Contributed by Cheryl Granville Johns, October, 2015.Granville-73 20:52, 13 October 2015 (EDT) http://genealogiequebec.info/testphp/info.php?no=188756page 506-507 of Champlain's Dream, by David Hackett Fischer 2008 http://www.nosorigines.qc.ca/GenealogieQuebec.aspx?genealogy=Nicolas_Marsolet&pid=3972&lng=en&partID=3973 http://genealogiequebec.info/testphp/info.php?no=188756 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Marsolet Companions of Champlain: Founding Families of Quebec, 1608-1635 By Denise R. Larson..Companions of Champlain Source: S-2066392702 Title: Dictionnaire Généalogiques Des Familles De Québec Author: Jetté, René Jetté, René. Dictionnaire Généalogique Des Familles De Québec. Source: S-2066392706 Title: Dictionnaire National des Canadiens Français, 1608-1760 Author: Drouin, Gabriel Drouin, Gabriel. Dictionnaire National des Canadiens Français, 1608-1760. Tanguay, p 413 (p 458 of 668) ↑ N.E.Dionne, THE MAKERS OF CANADA: CHAMPLAIN, 1912, public domain book, available at Amazon.com, pages 27, 37, 41, 143, 144 Acknowledgements
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1601 - 1677 (75 years)
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