Marie Barbier

Biography

Marie Barbier was baptized at Saint-Cande-le-Vieux in Rouen, in Normandy in northern France, on May 20, 1619, a daughter of Henri Le Barbier and Marie Le Vilain. A marriage contract with Nicolas Marsolet was made in March 1637, and she came to New France that year. Their family eventually included ten children born between 1638 and 1657.

Notarial records give Marie a presence beyond those births. In 1665 she and Nicolas acted together in property arrangements and made a mutual gift. Two years later, she gave him a power of attorney.

Their home also served as a place where another woman’s future was arranged. Marthe Quitel stayed there, and her marriage contract with Barthélemy Verreau was signed in the Marsolet household in August 1665. Marie and Nicolas were witnesses. The episode places Marie within the personal networks through which newcomers found accommodation and established families.

In 1671 Marie again appears with Nicolas in a property sale. Widowed in 1677, she later married Denis Le Maître. A contract and a church ceremony document their marriage in 1681.

Marie was buried at Québec city, on the St. Lawrence River in present-day Canada, on February 21, 1688. Across half a century in the colony, her record includes motherhood, hospitality, property instruments and remarriage—activities obscured when her life is reduced to the career of her first husband.

A published notarial inventory also lists a 1677 receipt in Marie’s name.

The burial listing places Marie Barbier at Basilique-Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Québec, Québec, Capitale-Nationale Region, Québec, Canada.