Marie-Marguerite Jourdain was baptized on 12 November 1648 in the parish of Notre-Dame du Bois-Robert near Dieppe in Normandy, the daughter of Claude Jourdain and Marguerite de La Haye.¹ Her life in France ended in 1667 with the death of both of her parents, and in that same year she crossed the Atlantic to Canada as one of the filles du roi, the young women whose passage was financed by the Crown in order to help establish families in the colony.² As with the other King’s Daughters, she brought with her a trousseau—a chest containing clothing and household linens—and a royal dowry intended to make marriage and settlement possible in New France.³

Soon after her arrival at Montréal she entered into a marriage contract before notary Basset. Neither she nor her future husband signed the document, a common situation in a colony where many settlers were unable to write.⁴ On 25 November 1667 she married Bernard Delpeche dit Belair, a former soldier of the Carignan-Salières Regiment.⁵

Their first years were spent at Montréal, where their earliest child was baptized in 1669. In the following decade they moved into the expanding agricultural settlements along the St. Lawrence River, particularly at Repentigny and Pointe-aux-Trembles, where long, narrow riverfront farms gave each family access to transportation and fertile land.⁶ Their children were baptized in the parish churches that served these new communities:

Marie-Barbe (1669–1669),
Marie (baptized 1670),
Catherine (baptized 1672),
Denise (baptized 1673),
Marie-Madeleine (baptized 1675),
Françoise dite Marguerite (baptized 1678),
François (c. 1679),
an unnamed child who lived only briefly (1681),
Jean-François (baptized 1682),
and Jean-Baptiste (baptized 1685).⁷

Bernard Delpeche died at Repentigny on 9 December 1687 and was buried the following day, leaving Marie-Marguerite with a large family to support.⁸

On 8 January 1689, again at Repentigny, she married Louis Majeau dit Maisonseule, another former soldier of the Carignan-Salières Regiment.⁹ Their marriage contract had been drawn up a few days earlier before notary Fleuricourt, and as in her first contract neither spouse signed.¹⁰ Louis formally assumed responsibility for the children of her first marriage, an important legal step that ensured the continuity of the household and its property.

Two children were born to this second marriage: Denise, who later married Jean-François Labelle in 1711, and Joseph-Pierre, baptized at Lachenaie on 31 March 1692.¹¹ Louis Majeau died at Repentigny in January 1700.¹²

Marie-Marguerite lived for another twenty years and was buried on 19 May 1720 at Saint-Sulpice.¹³ By the time of her death she had spent more than half a century in the colony, raising a large family and taking part in the gradual movement of settlement from Montréal into the surrounding seigneuries.

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Sources

1. Parish register of Notre-Dame du Bois-Robert (baptism of Marie-Marguerite Jourdain), cited in Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes, vol. 3.
2. Peter J. Gagné, King’s Daughters and Founding Mothers (Pawtucket, RI: Quintin Publications, 2000), 315–316.
3. Yves Landry, Les filles du roi au XVIIe siècle (Montréal: Leméac, 1992).
4. Marriage contract of Marie-Marguerite Jourdain and Bernard Delpeche, 23 November 1667, notary Basset, Montréal, Quebec, Canada, Notarial Records, 1637–1935.
5. Parish register of Notre-Dame de Montréal, marriage of 25 November 1667, Drouin Collection.
6. Parish registers of Montréal, Repentigny, and Pointe-aux-Trembles, baptisms of the Delpeche children, Drouin Collection.
7. Gagné, King’s Daughters and Founding Mothers, 315–316.
8. Parish register of Repentigny, burial of Bernard Delpeche, 10 December 1687, Drouin Collection.
9. Parish register of Repentigny, marriage of Marie-Marguerite Jourdain and Louis Majeau, 8 January 1689, Drouin Collection.
10. Marriage contract of Louis Majeau and Marie-Marguerite Jourdain, 29 December 1688, notary Fleuricourt, Quebec, Canada, Notarial Records, 1637–1935.
11. Parish register of Lachenaie, baptism of Joseph-Pierre Majeau, 31 March 1692, Drouin Collection.
12. Parish register of Repentigny, burial of Louis Majeau, 18 January 1700, Drouin Collection.
13. Parish register of Saint-Sulpice, burial of Marie-Marguerite Jourdain, 19 May 1720, Drouin Collection.