Marie-Thérèse Machard/Marchand

Biography

In 1701, Marie-Thérèse Machard prepared an invoice that became evidence in a lawsuit in Montréal, in present-day Québec, Canada. Her husband, the merchant Charles Alavoine, was seeking payment from the engineer Gédéon de Catalogne. Marie-Thérèse produced the account, which included thirty livres associated with a lottery and a separate two-livre lottery ticket. It is an unusually direct glimpse of her participation in the family’s commercial affairs.

Born around 1664, she came from Jarnac in the Charente area of western France, according to Fichier Origine. Her father, Jean Machard, was a master surgeon; her mother was Élisabeth Proutier. She married Charles at Saint-Barthélemy in La Rochelle, on France’s Atlantic coast, on October 3, 1689. Two daughters, Marie-Françoise and Marguerite-Charlotte, were born there before the family’s move to Canada. Their son Jacques-Charles was born at Québec city, farther down the St. Lawrence from Montréal, in October 1695.

Business dealings could also lead to conflict. A description of a 1697 court file records a dispute with the locksmith Martin Massé over payment for repairs to her small chest. Massé accused her of assault and injury. The reported sentence required her to pay the legal costs and prohibited a repetition of the conduct.

Marie-Thérèse’s surviving record therefore includes specific actions of her own: commissioning repairs, disputing a bill, preparing an account and presenting it in litigation. She died at Montréal on November 8, 1728 and was buried on November 10.