Françoise Curé was born about 1643 in the parish of Grévillers in Artois (today Pas-de-Calais), the daughter of Pierre Curé and Barbe Charles.¹ The parish registers of Grévillers record the deaths of both of her parents on 19 December 1669, a reminder of the losses that shaped the lives of many of the young women who left France for Canada in the seventeenth century.¹
She came to New France in 1669 as one of the Filles du Roi, the women whose passage was financed by the crown in order to strengthen the colony’s population.² Like the majority of these immigrants, she brought with her a modest dowry provided by the king, generally valued at about 200 livres, intended to help establish a household in the new colony.³
On 19 December 1669, shortly after her arrival, she signed a marriage contract before the Montréal notary Bénigne Basset with Lucas Loiseau, a settler originally from France.⁴ The marriage followed soon after. Together they established their family at Boucherville, one of the seigneurial communities along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River.
Their children were baptized in the parish of Sainte-Famille de Boucherville:
- Marie-Madeleine, baptized 25 April 1671
- Joachim, baptized 28 February 1673
- Jeanne, baptized 31 January 1675, buried 5 November 1687
- Roger, baptized 30 April 1677, buried 4 January 1689
- Marie, baptized 7 June 1680
- Françoise (recorded in the parish registers)⁵
These parish entries place Françoise firmly within the rhythm of colonial life: repeated pregnancies, the baptism of infants within days of birth, and the burial of children lost young.
Lucas Loiseau died at Boucherville on 4 March 1704.⁵ Françoise survived him by nearly five years. She was buried at Boucherville on 19 January 1709.⁵
Her life traces the path of many of the king’s daughters: from a small parish in northern France to the growing rural settlements of the St. Lawrence valley, where marriage, land, and family created the permanent foundations of New France.
Sources
- Parish registers of Saint-Martin de Grévillers (Artois), burial entries for Pierre Curé and Barbe Charles, 19 December 1669.
- Peter J. Gagné, King’s Daughters and Founding Mothers: The Filles du Roi, 1663–1673 (Pawtucket, RI: Quintin Publications, 2000), 165–166.
- Yves Landry, Les Filles du roi au XVIIe siècle (Montréal: Leméac, 1992).
- Bénigne Basset, notary, marriage contract of Lucas Loiseau and Françoise Curé, 19 December 1669, greffe de Montréal.
- Registres paroissiaux de Sainte-Famille de Boucherville (baptisms of the Loiseau children; burial of Lucas Loiseau, 4 March 1704; burial of Françoise Curé, 19 January 1709), Drouin Collection; Cyprien Tanguay, Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes, Loiseau family.