Marie-Marguerite  MARSOLET

Notre-Dame

Mathieu, son of Louis D'Amours, conseilleur de Roy at the Chatelet in Paris, and Élisabeth Tessier, was born at Paris in c1618. His "ancestors belonged to the French nobility and had possessed seigneuries in Anjou." Mathieu reached Québec in October 1651 and the following April married Marie, daughter of Nicolas Marsolet de Saint-Aignan, the famous explorer and interpreter to the Algonquins, and Marie La Barbide; Mathieu was 33 years old, and his bride was 14, at the time of their wedding. Mathieu served as major of Québec and commanded "'a flying column.'" Evidently his service caught the eye of the powers that be. Beginning in September 1663, Mathieu served as one of the seven founding members of the Conseil sourverain de Québec and served on the Council until his death in October 1695, age 77. His power and influence enriched him materially as well as politically. In November 1672, he obtained a seigneurie at Matane, on the south shore of the lower St.-Lawrence; he thus became Mathieu D'Amours, sieur de Matane. He also received grants on Rivière St.-Jean and on Rivière Métis, as well as fishing rights on the lower St.-Lawrence. In the summer and fall of 1681, after receiving a fur trading license for Matane, he was imprisoned for two months in the Château Saint-Louis by his political enemy, Governor-General Frontenac. Nonetheless, considering the sieur de Matane's power and influence, and his wife having come from a prominent Canadian family, it was expected that their surviving sons, Louis, Mathieu, fils, René, Charles, and Bernard, also would receive seigneuries in New France. All five of them, in fact, received land grants on Rivière St.-Jean, in present-day New Brunswick, during the early 1680s, after Frontenac's recall to France. Louis received his seigneurie at Jemseg in 1683 and became Louis D'Amours, sieur de Chaffours et de Jemseg; he received a further grant along Rivière Richibouctou, on the Gulf of St. Lawrence coast, in September 1684. In October 1686, at Québec, Louis married Marguerite, daughter of Simon Guyon and Louise Racine, and would remarry to Anne, daughter of Acadians Jean Comeau l'aîné and Françoise Hébert, at Port-Royal in January 1708. Mathieu, fils's grant, which he received in September 1684, lay along an upper stretch of the river between Jemseg and Nashouat (also called Nashwaak). With the grant came the title, sieur de Freneuse. In October 1686, at Québec, the sieur de Freneuse married Louise, daughter of Simon Guyon and Louise Racine and widow of Charles Thibault, a sister of Mathieu, fils's older brother Louis's first wife Marguerite. De Meulles counted the D'Amours brothers on Rivière St.-Jean in 1686. Louis, sieur de Chauffours, was age 32, but wife Marguerite's age was unrecorded. The intendant found them with no children. Mathieu, fils, sieur de Freneuse, was age 28, but wife Louise's age was not recorded. Nor did de Meulles record them with any children. Also in the census, on Rivière St.-Jean, was Louis and Mathieu, fils's younger brother, René, sieur de Clignancour, still a bachelor, who, like his older brothers, had received a grant along Rivière St.-Jean in September 1684. De Meulles did not give the young seigneur's age, but he would have been 26. René would marry Charlotte-Françoise, daughter of Charles Le Gardeur and Geneviève Juchereau, at Québec in 1689 but return to his seigneurie on Rivière St.-Jean. Two younger sons of the sieur de Matane who also would be associated with greater Acadia--Charles de Louvières and Bernard de Plaine--were not counted on Rivière St.-Jean in 1686; still bachelors like older brother René, they likely were still in Canada.