Marguerite Leclerc

Biography

Marguerite Leclerc was already in her mid-thirties when she left France for New France in 1665. Baptized at Saint-Symphorien in Tours, in France’s Loire Valley, on July 20, 1629, she was a daughter of Pierre Leclerc and Nicole Petit. She came as one of the Filles du roi and married Julien Bloys at Montréal, in present-day Québec, Canada, on November 26, 1665.

Their four children were born over the next nine years. The youngest, Jean, died in childhood; their son Julien was buried in 1687, aged seventeen. Both daughters married young, Jeanne-Marguerite to Adrien St-Aubin and Charlotte to Vincent Lenoir.

The census of 1681 catches the household between those changes. Jeanne-Marguerite had married, while Julien and Charlotte still appeared with their parents. Seven cattle and twenty-five cultivated arpents formed part of the family’s material surroundings. The census gives Marguerite an age younger than her baptism would indicate.

Marguerite was buried at Montréal on May 31, 1704. An inventory of her estate followed in September before the notary Pierre Raimbault. The settlement involved her surviving daughter and the minor children of Charlotte, who had died the previous year. The inventory thus records Marguerite’s place in the family’s property arrangements as well as the losses that had reduced her immediate family.

The burial listing places Marguerite Leclerc at Cimetière Notre-Dame (1672-1830), Montréal, Montréal Region, Québec, Canada.