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Notes
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, centre de Québec (Library and National Archives of Quebec, hereafter BAnQ): notary J.-N. Pinguet de Vaucour, power of attorney conferred by Denis Constantin, sea-captain, on Elisabeth Hevé, his wife (17 October 1727).
We should however acknowledge the significant and virtually pioneering contribution made by France Parent to this question (Parent 1991) and an influential article by Susan Boyle (1987).
Brun 2006.
Plamondon 1977; Young 1996; Brun 1995 & 1997; Englebert 2008: 70.
For example: D’Allaire 1986 and, more recently, Gray 2007.
See the remarks of Beauvalet-Boutouyrie 2003: 138.
This article is the result of research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanites Research Council for Canada and follows up on a preliminary text on the question: Ferland & Grenier 2010. We thank in particular Josette Brun, Claire Dolan and Sylvie Steinberg for their valuable comments. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the work of our research assistants at Sherbrooke during this project: Maryse Cyr, Camille Martin, Mathieu Perron and Jessica Barthe.
The identification of agreements for powers of attorney can be carried out easily by means of the research tool, Parchemin, which inventories and summarizes all notarial acts for the period prior to 1789. Société Archiv-Histo, Parchemin – Banque de données notariales du Québec ancien (1635-1789), consulted at the Library and National Archives of Quebec.
Among others: Michon & Dufournaud 2006; Brun 1997 and 2006: 17-20; Parent 1991: 134; Thatcher Ulrich 1983. Finally, let us mention two very recent articles on a similar context: Ouellet 2010 and Charpentier 2010.
Among the numerous works on the history of Quebec City, consult in particular: Vallières 2008 and Gauvreau 1991.
This was notably highlighted by Boyle 1987: 779 and more recently by Englebert 2008: 70.
Under the ancien régime, the only exceptions to this state of fact were, therefore, women who remained single (described as “adult spinsters”), women who were public shopkeepers, widows and, to some extent, women who had been married under the regime of separate property holding, or who were separated from their husbands.
Cited in Beauvalet-Boutouyrie 2003: 34.
Claude-Joseph de Ferrière, La science parfaite des notaires ou moyen de faire un parfait notaire, contenant les ordonnances , les arrest et reglemens rendus touchant la fonction des notaires, Paris, 1692, p. 423.
For a discussion of this power of substitution, see Riot-Sarcey 1993: 22.
Robert-Joseph Pothier, « Traité de la puissance du mari sur la personne et les biens de la femme », in Traité de droit civile et de jurisprudence françoise, tome III, 1781, p. 456.
Poisson 1985 [1968]: 589-592.
Perrot 1998: iv.
Furthermore, official actions taken by women proxies (before a notary or in court) for which there exists no actual contract of power of attorney can also constitute valuable indications of the activity of women in the absence of men.
Josette Brun discovered only three proxies among the wives of some 150 merchants from the fortified city of Louisbourg and five proxies in 137 couples from Quebec City: Brun 1995: 60 and 2006: 19-20.
Of these, 22 power of attorney agreements between couples were not kept in the analysis, since they contained too little information about the way power was articulated within the couple.
BAnQ, notary J.-N. Pinguet de Vaucour, power of attorney conferred by Louis Denis de la Ronde, knight of the military Order of Saint-Louis and Captain of a company of troops of a Marine detachment, on Louise Chartier, his wife, from Quebec City (4 May 1734).
BAnQ, notary G. Boucault de Godefus, power of attorney conferred by Jean-Louis Allegrin, on Angélique Petit, his wife, from Trois-Rivières (21 May 1756).
BAnQ, notary G. Boucault de Godefus, power of attorney conferred by Pierre Trostier aka Dezauniers et al. on Madeleine Desaulniers, their sister [for the sale of the domain of l’île-aux-Hérons] (8 November 1746).
BAnQ, notary Pierre Parent, deposit of power of attorney conferred by François Bédouin, day labourer, on Ursule Toupin, his wife (15 August 1753).
BAnQ, notary P.-A.-F. Lanouiller-Desgranges, power of attorney conferred by Jean-François Jacquelin on Marie-Élisabeth Blais, his wife (5 November 1753).
BAnQ, notary Florent de Lacetière, power of attorney conferred by René Rainville, of Quebec City, on Elisabeth de Lagaripierre, his mother (16 September 1716).
Dechêne 2008: 287-307.
Either it is explicitly indicated, or it was possible to deduce it from other information contained in the document or from knowledge of the family and professional situation of the parties.
Although these women were not Canadian, we chose to include these proxies in the corpus since they were notarized in Quebec City and testify to the tie between male mobility and the recourse to proxy agreements.
BAnQ, notary J.-E. Dubreuil, power of attorney conferred by Catherine Damien on Angélique Chesnay (13 September 1732). The two women also made a mutual donation of all of their goods to each other in 1729.
This includes Terre-Neuve, the posts of la Côte-Nord, Labrador and Gaspé.
One example: BAnQ, notary Jean-Étienne Dubreuil, power of attorney conferred by René Brisson on Marie-Josèphe Doyon, his wife (9 June 1724); BAnQ, notary Jacques Barbel, power of attorney conferred by Michel Lamy, merchant, on Marie-Anne Petit, his wife (17 August 1732).
BAnQ, notary J.-C. Panet, power of attorney conferred by Charles-René de Couagne, tradesman, on Louise Cartier, his wife, from Quebec City (28 May 1745).
BAnQ, notary Claude Barolet, power of attorney conferred by Louis Liénard de Beaujeu de Villemonde, squire and Captain of the infantry, relict of Louise-Charlotte Cugnet, from Quebec City, rue Saint-Louis, guardian of Louise-Julie de Beaujeu de Villemonde, their only child, on Louise-Madeleine Dusautoy, widow of François-Étienne Cugnet, senior counsel to the Conseil supérieur, maternal grandmother of the said minor (12 February 1757).
BAnQ, notary François Genaple, power of attorney conferred by Jacques Barbel, bourgeois, on Louise-Renée Toupin, his wife, from the city of Quebec (6 July 1700).
BAnQ, notary Claude Barolet, power of attorney conferred by Guillaume-Joseph Besançon, bourgeois, on Françoise-Charlotte Blais, his wife, from the city of Quebec (9 October 1749).
These were usually trips to the Upper Country. For example: BAnQ, record P.-A.-F. Lanouiller-Desgranges, power of attorney conferred by Jacques Dufaut on Josèphe Clermont, his wife, from the city of Quebec (20 February 1756).
Boyle 1987.
We used a prosopographical approach to identify the women proxies and to reconstitute their families. This work was made possible thanks to the data of the Program in historic research and demography (PRDH) at the University of Montreal, which has inventoried the population of Old Quebec, from its origins until the nineteenth century. (www.genealogie.umontreal.ca).
This example tends to prove the necessity of a new proxy agreement for each absence of the principal.
Of the 43 French female proxies, 20 still lived in France but were named in a proxy agreement enacted in Quebec City. Only 23 of these French women actually lived in Quebec City, barely 10% of the group. See supra, note 30.
She had been taken captive during the war and then integrated into French Canadian society: Marie-Catherine Parsons, who married the lord Claude Bermen de la Martinière.
Identification of the women’s socio-professional origins was made on the basis of the occupations declared as well as of known titles of nobility: this was made possible by family reconstitution. Since the women rarely declared themselves as having an occupation, we used that of the husband for married women and widows, and that of the father for single women. Beyond that, taking into account the propensity for socio-professional homogamy, the social milieu of origin was generally the same as that of the husband.
For a discussion of the concept of social groups under the Old Regime, see: Nassiet 2006.
In New France as in France, possession of a seigneurial domain did not automatically imply nobility. The colony was nonetheless notable for a good number of non-noble owners of seigneurial estates, and, amongst them, some were of very modest extraction. These families belonged to a world clearly different from that of the grand seigneurial families of the colonial nobility. On the specificity of the seigneurial regime in Canada: Grenier 2012.
Mathieu 1981.
On the Canadian nobility: Gadoury 1992; Ruggiu 2008.
BAnQ, notary Jacques Barbel, power of attorney conferred by Philippe de Rigaud de Vaudreuil […] Governor and Lieutenant General for the king in all of New France to Louise-Elisabeth de Jouybert, his wife, from the city of Quebec (14 November 1709 and 6 November 1712).
BAnQ, notary C.-H. Dulaurent, power of attorney conferred by Charles Boucher de Boucherville de Montarville, squire, on Françoise Bourolle, his wife, from the place Royale du Marché of the lower city of Quebec (7 October 1744).
We distinguished wealthy merchants and traders from those who associated the title of merchant with an artisanal status, for example: marchand-cabaretier (wine shopkeeper), marchand-boucher (butcher), marchand-perruquier (wig maker). These occupations are clearly those of artisans or shopkeepers of lesser status.
BAnQ, notary C.-H. Dulaurent, power of attorney conferred by Jacques Gueroult, “merchant wig-maker”, on Marie-Angélique Guenet, his wife, from the city of Quebec, rue Couillard (25 September 1754); notary C. Rageot de Saint-Luc, power of attorney conferred by Jean Bureau, innkeeper, on Madeleine Vermet, his wife (13 October 1701).
Habitants was the term used to indicate peasants in New France.
BAnQ, notary Pierre Parent, power of attorney conferred by Jean Baugis of the seigneurie de Beauport on his wife, Marie Drouin (15 February 1750).
Essentially those who lived in France.
BAnQ, notary J.-C. Panet, power of attorney conferred by Denis Goguet, tradesman, on Louise Ferey called Duburon, his wife, from the city of Quebec (11 October 1747).
Suzanne Rollet died on 26 August 1764 in Quebec City, leaving behind two young children. PRDH # 158786.
BAnQ, notary C. Louet, power of attorney conferred by Martin Chennequi, sea-captain, from the city of Quebec, on Thérèse Grenet (10 September 1764). Furthermore, when he remarried in 1768, it would be to a niece of his mother-in-law, a cousin of his first wife. See PRDH, file # 45058: marriage of Martin Chennequi and Marie-Louise-Angélique Grenet (8 February 1768).
BAnQ, notary Claude Barolet, power of attorney conferred by Gaspard-Joseph Chaussegros de Léry, squire and lieutenant of the infantry, on Louise Martel de Brouage, his wife, from the city of Quebec (22 June 1756).
Mathieu 2001 [1991]: 80.
BAnQ, notary J.-E. Dubreuil, power of attorney conferred by René Brisson on Marie-Josèphe Doyon, his wife (9 June 1724); notary J.-C. Panet, power of attorney conferred by Jean-Antoine Bedout, merchant, on Françoise Barolet, his wife, from the city of Quebec (18 October 1747); notary Jacques Barbel, power of attorney conferred by Pierre Plassant, bourgeois merchant, on Louise Albert, his wife, from the city of Quebec (15 November 1703).
Beauvalet-Boutouyrie 2003: 103. See also Tilly & Scott 1978; Juratic & Pellegrin 1994.
BAnQ, notary Claude Barolet, power of attorney conferred by Guillaume-Joseph Besançon, bourgeois, on Françoise-Charlotte Blais, his wife, from the city of Quebec (9 October 1749).
On this question, see Gauvreau 1987.
BAnQ, notary C. Rageot de Saint-Luc, power of attorney conferred by Jean Bureau, innkeeper, on Madeleine Vermet, his wife (13 October 1701).
BAnQ, notary J.-N. Pinguet de Vaucour, power of attorney conferred by Jacques Daniaux, on Marie-Anne Cluzeaux, his wife, from the city of Quebec (5 August 1730).
BAnQ, notary J.-A. Saillant de Collégien, power of attorney conferred by Louis Legardeur de Repentigny, squire and officer in the troops of a Marine detachment, on Marie-Madeleine-Régisse Chaussegros de Lery, his wife, from the city of Quebec (30 April 1750).
BAnQ, notary P.-A.-F. Lanouiller-Desgranges, power of attorney conferred by Jean-François Jacquelin, merchant, from Quebec City, rue Saint-Pierre, on Marie-Elisabeth Bled, his wife, former wife of Jean-Baptiste Huppé called Lacroix (5 November 1753).
BAnQ, notary C.-H. Dulaurent, power of attorney conferred by Michel Sallaberry, Flute Captain, on Madeleine-Louise Juchereau-Duchesnay, his wife (1 August 1750). On the family of this proxy, in particular her mother, see: Grenier 2005.
For example: Ewan 1992; Van Kirk 1992.
Michon & Dufournaud 2006: 7.
Witness the debate on this subject between Micheline Dumont and Jan Noel in the early 1980s: Noel 1981; Dumont 1982; Noel 1982, as well as Susan C. Boyle’s work on Sainte-Geneviève in Illinois in the eighteenth century (Boyle 1987).
Noel 1981.
Hufton 1984; Young 1996.
Greer 2000; Brun 2006; Gray 2007; Grenier 2009.
Noel 2010.
Greer 1998: 94.
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