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BOURGEOIS, FRANCOISE

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DC0215
Les Filles du Roy (The King's Daughters)

It was a young population and very predominantly a male one in New France. Some of the soldiers married the local girls of the colony. For others, there was a need for young girls to emigrate to Canada and become wives of these new settlers. The authorities in France encouraged emigration of young women to Canada by paying for their ocean transportation;providing them with some articles in a small chest: one head dress, one taffeta handkerchief, one pair of shoe ribbons, one hundred sewing needles, one comb, one spool of thread, one pair of stockings, one pair of gloves, one pair of scissors, two knives, one thousand pins, one bonnet, four lace braids, and two pounds in silver money; and a dowry of 50livres from the King if they married a soldier. The authorities were careful in their selection, and tried to send to the ports of embarkation, only young honest girls from good families, who were, for the most part, orphans of the poor ,that were raised by the state: the reason forwhy they were called "les fille du Roy."
The intendant of New France, Jean Talon, built hostels to house the girls, who were cared for by the Ursuline nuns until they found husbands.
The aim was to get the girls married as quickly as possible. To encourage this, after the arrival of the immigrant ships, bachelors in the colony were forbidden to go hunting or fishing or engage in the fur trade until all the King's daughters were married.
The filles du Roy were courageous, adventurous, daring spirits, who sawNew France as a means of escaping the depressing future that would be their lot in France because of their relative poverty. The majority of them were from the larger towns of France, and the adaption to the primative living conditions of the wilderness in the New World, must have been extremely difficult.
Françoise Bourgeois became one of the King's Daughters and began her new life as the wife of one of the former soldiers of the Carignan-Salières Regiment, Paul Vigneault dit Laverdure.

Ile d'Orléans, Québec (New France)

Paul and Françoise Vigneault first settled in the parish of Sainte-Famille, ile d'Orléans, Québec, on the fief Maheu, sometimes referred to as"les habitations Maheu." This seigneury was granted by Bishop de Laval, on 15 January 1651, to René Maheu and his wife Marguerite Corriveau. The fief consisted of five rotures (numbers: 66, 67, 68, 69 and 70) of three arpents of river frontage by 15 arpents deep. It was located almost in the centre of the Island of Orleans, bordered from the south side to the north-east by the rivière Maheu (Saint-Louis River in 1659), by Claude de la Barre, and to the southwest by Jean Leblanc. Paul Vigneaultdit Laverdure had leased 3 arpents of land on roture number 68, from Barthélémy Verreau, who acquired it from an exchange made with Noel Rose-dit-Larose. In 1682, Verreau, "by means of exchange," ceded this land to Jean Charest...
Paul Vigneault held roture 68 (lots 241 and 242) by lease from 1671 to 1681, then moved his family to the parish of Saint-Laurent, on the south-west side of the Isle d'Orléans. Paul bought the title deed of roture number 48, with 2 1/2 arpents of frontage, from Vincent Guillots. This sub-fief was ceded by Monsieur de Lauson, on 6 May 1653, to the Ursulinenuns.
The Ursuline's fief included roture numbers 46b to 49, with 8 arpents of river frontage. It was known as "Terre des Ursulines or arriere-fief des Ursulines."
In the census of the parish of Saint-Laurent, in 1681, page 86b, Paul Vignault, 40 years old, had 2 arpents "en valeur" (ploughable, or cleared) land, between Pierre Garand and Thomas (Clement) Ruel.
On the 1689 map by Villeneuve, page 171, Paul Vigneau owned lot numbers57 and 58, with a barn, between Louis Savadier and Jean Cotte.
On the 6th of May 1691, Paul Vignaux-dit-Laverdure transferred by meansof exchange, to Louis Savadier, 2 arpents less 7 feet of frontage, with buildings, land between Louis Savadier and Jean Cotte.

The death of Paul Vigneault and his wife Françoise Bourgeois, occured before 1695, when their son, Maurice, aged 21 years, signed a document by the notary Louis Chambalon, that obligated him to pay for the pensionof his little sister, Marie, aged 12 years, to the Hôpital-General of Québec.
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