The "Filles du roy" Sent to New France: Protestant, Prostitute or Both?

Author(s): Nelson-M. Dawson

Source: Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques , Spring 1989, Vol. 16, No. 1
(Spring 1989), pp. 55-77
Published by: Berghahn Books

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41298906

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Historical Reflections /
Réflexions Historiques

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 The Filles du roy Sent to New France:
Protestant, Prostitute or Both?

Nelson-M. Dawson

In a previous study of the feminine world in seventeenth-century France,1

I attempted to determine the environment of the filles du roy prior to their
emigration to New France. That study, employing Mary Douglas's theory
of pollution,2 concluded that the filles du roy could be said to be from the
rank of "polluters." The frame of reference, culturally speaking, which was
conditioned by member communities and geographical areas, resulted
from a "polluted world," that is, from a world situated at the limit of trans-
gression.3 In that study I suggested a double triangulation to sum up the
popular feminine social reality in seventeenth-century France. This
diagram was constructed as follows:
milieu mendicity marginality
pauperism prostitution perdition
These elements were linked in a logical but implacable chain.
Originating from the manual labour stratum (textile, domestic service),
these women lived on the brink of pauperism. Any major disruption
might plunge them into mendicity. This often, in turn, led them to prosti-
tution. Whether beggars or prostitutes, they were second-class citizens,
who were not tolerated in seventeenth-century France.
Influenced by recent observations on popular piety,4 I would like to
extend that previous analysis and go deeper into the religious aspects of
the pre-emigration feminine world. Since the French religious climate of

Nelson-M. Dawson is finishing his dissertation at Laval University. His current research focuses on
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France with a secondary interest in Canada's French regime. This
article is from his first-year dissertation entitled , "Les fiUes du roy au Canada: Une emigration protes-
tante ? " University of Paris IVSorbonne, 1985.
1. Nelson-M. Dawson, "Les filles du roy: des pollueuses ? La France du XVIIe siecle,"
Historical Reflections/Reflexions historiques 12 (1985):9-38.
2. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: A Comparative Study of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo
(London: Roudedge, 1966).
3. Dawson, "Filles du roy," pp. 31-34.
4. Marie-Aimee Cliche, Les pratiques de devotions en NouvelleFrance: Comportements popu-
laires et encadrement ecclesial dans le gouvernement de Quebec (Quebec City: Laval University
Press, 1988); and Anne-Marie Desdouits, La -vie traditionnelle au pays de Caux et au Canada fran-
fais: Le cycle des saisons (Quebec City: Laval University Press, 1987).

HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS/REFLEXIONS HISTORIQUES, Vol. 16, No. 1, 1989

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
56 Historical Reflections, /Refleocions Historiques

this period was one of competition for indoctrination between Catholic

and Protestant proselytes,5 we must consider the influence of this competi-
tion upon the common feminine world from which were recruited the
women sent to New France.

My hypothesis of a Protestant influence in the pre-emigration environ-

ment of the filles du roy is based on the study of their places of origin: the
analysis of these places reveals in fact a great number of women from
Aunis and Normandy. The traditional explanation for this is simply the
closeness of their places of origin to the seaports from which ships left for
New France. However, it must be noted that mid-seventeenth-century
Aunis and Normandy contained some important pockets of
Protestantism.6 This fact deserves further attention. First, the recruitment
of women in the Huguenot milieus would be entirely plausible in view of
the fact that an anti-Protestant climate largely prevailed in France in the
years 1 655-1 670.7 Second, a Protestant environment - if not a Protestant
origin - could explain certain discontinuities in the popular pietistic prac-
tices in Quebec.
Indeed, some recent research on these practices in Quebec points out
its specificity. The series of colloquia on popular religion held in Quebec
from 1973 to 1984 and particularly the report of the last colloquium en ti-
ded, Religion populaire, religion de clercs ?8 all evoke the unique character of
popular religion in Quebec. When we examine the bibliography of
popular religion in Quebec edited by Benoit Lacroix and Madeleine
Grammond,9 we find the same clerical dominance upon popular piety.
My previous research on thaumaturgist saints in Quebec also noted the
canalization of popular religious needs by the clerical institution.10 The
noted predominance - almost the exclusive presence - of general practi-
tioner saints, to whom the main places of pilgrimage are dedicated, illus-

5. Jean Delumeau, Le catholicisme entre Luther et Voltaire (Paris, 1971); and Bernard
Dompnier, Le venin de Vheresie: Image du protestantisme et combat catholique au XVIIe siecle (Paris:
Le Centurion, 1985).
6. Jean-Pierre Bardet, Rouen aux XVIIe et XVI He siecles: Les mutations d'un espace social, 2
vols. (Paris, 1983); Samuel Mours, Les eglises reformees en France: Tableaux et cartes (Paris, 1958);
and Louis Perouas, Le diocese de La Rochelle, de 1648 a 1 724: Sociologie et pastorale (Paris, 1964) .
7. Janine Garrisson, L 'edit de Nantes et sa revocation: Histoire d'une tolerance (Paris: Seuil,
1985); and Elisabeth Labrousse, La revocation de Vedit de Nantes, Uune foi, une loi, un roi? "
(Paris: Payot, 1985).
8. Benoit Lacroix and Jean Simard, eds., Religion populaire, religion de clercs?, Culture
populaire," no. 2 (Quebec City: Institut Quebecois de recherche sur la culture, 1984).
9. Benoit Lacroix and Madeleine Grammond, Religion populaire au Quebec: Typologie des
sources: Bibliographie selective ( 1900-1980 ), "Instruments de travail," no. 10 (Quebec City:
Institut Quebecois de recherche sur la culture, 1985).
10. Nelson-M. Dawson, "Correlation entre la structure cultuelle et l'organisation famil-
iale au Quebec," Culture and Tradition 6 (1982):6-20.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 FiUesduroy 57

trates the particular nature of medico-theurgical practices in Quebec.11

To compare bibliographical work on popular piety in France with that
of Quebec is quite amazing because of the notable differences between
the two societies.12 The contrast is even more astonishing when one
considers that folk songs and tales, sayings from meteorology and popular
sciences all crossed the Atlantic with the French emigrants unscathed.
Even folk dances, condemned by the church, remained alive. Why did
popular religion alone as a particular aspect of culture fail to survive the
voyage?
This sole distortion in the transmission system of popular knowledge
induces us to consider more closely the pre-emigration religious environ-
ment. Therefore, the notion of religion and, more specifically, the notion
of popular piety must be added to the previous diagram proposed to sum
up the popular feminine social reality. This new diagram is constructed as
follows:

milieu mendicity marginality

acquaintance acculturation apragmatism
pauperism prostitution perdition
Beyond the notion of honour (an omnipresent ide
raphy of the colonization of New France), we can
framework of the daily life of women in the poor m

11. Paule Lerou notes the importance of using correct re

methods to adequately grasp a subject as sensitive as the cult of
was a majority of people affiliated with the ecclesiastical institu
studies, she hypothesizes that the silence surrounding this questi
a lack of popular worship but to clerical ideology. See her rec
Roger Lerou, La confrerie de Saint-Fiacre de Dijon (Dijon, 1986);
normands en l'honneur de saint Fiacre" in Foi, croyances populaires,
pt. 2, Piete individueUe et collective: Le pays normand, 74e year, no
also below n. 12.
12. The differences between French and Quebec pietistic practices are readily noticeable
in the national and international works on popular piety conducted under the direction of
Bernard Plongeron and Paule Lerou by the modern religious history team at the C.N.R.S.
The thematic and annotated bibliographies compiled by these researchers are concerned
with different historical and cultural areas of France and other countries (including Quebec
and Canada) . Bernard Plongeron and Paule Lerou, La piete populaire en France: Repertoire
bibliographique, vol. 1: Jean Fournee, Normandie; Gilles Deregnaucourt, Picardie,
NordrPas-de-Calais (Paris: Cerf, 1984). Vol. 2: Rene Schneider et al., Ijorraine, Louis
Chatellier et al., Alsace (Paris: Cerf, 1984). Vol. 3: Dominique Dinet, Bourgogne, Pierre
Lacroix and Jean-Christophe Demard, Franche-Comte; Abel Poitrineau and Paule Lerou,
Massif central; Bernard Dompnier, Rhone-Alpes (Turnhout: Brepols, 1985). Vol. 4: Paule
Lerou, Bretagne, Paule Lerou, Michele Menard, and Madeleine Sauzet, Maine Touraine;
Robert Lauvriere, Anjou Poitou (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986). Vol. 5: Jean Delmas, Rouergue ;
Jacqueline Roux, Languedoc Roussillon (Turnhout: Brepols, 1986). Bernard Plongeron and
Paule Lerou, La piete populaire au Canada: Repertoire bibliographique , vol. 1: Benoit Lacroix et
al., Le Quebec (Turnhout: Brepols, 1988).

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
58 Historical Reflections /Reflexions Historiques

majority of the French female emigrants came. In these milieus, popular

science, custom, and religion were common knowledge. When economic
disruption plunged these women into mendicity, or frequently into prosti-
tution, they were locked up by the state in local general hospitals where
they were separated from their cultural environment and subjected, at
various degrees, to acculturation.13 When they escaped confinement, they
continued their marginal lives, doubly condemned by the state and by the
church. However, when they underwent confinement, they secured social
status and salvation for themselves, but not without bringing certain
changes into their frame of reference. Traditional popular religious prac-
tices were purged by the religious communities who worked in the general
hospitals. A stay in one of these institutions for the poor made these
marginal women socially and religiously functional in accordance with the
values of contemporary dominant culture. Henceforth, they were able to
work, adding to the wealth of the state and at the same time embracing
the values of the church.14 Conforming to both authorities, they no longer
had to fear perdition.
The introduction of the controversial question of the ascendency of
Protestantism upon the lives of the filles du roy 15 would mean that there
would not only be one but two acculturations: a first one by
Protestantization, a second one by Romanization through the action of
conversionists trained in the spirit of the Council of Trent.16 Thus it would

13. All types of marginality were not tolerated in seventeenth-century France and efforts
were made to restrain them. Subsidized by royal funds, the general hospitals applied a
"treatment" to poor and beggars. Stubborn ones were sent to the galleys. Protestants were
forced to convert. Superstition was condemned. The mission civilisatrice and the setting up of
schools tried to suppress ignorance and illiteracy. The sheer size of the measures imple-
mented were already demonstrated in my article, "Filles du roy." Many works are concerned
with these different forms of acculturation. See Delumeau, Catholicisms entre Luther et Voltaire,
Michel de Certeau, "Une mutation culturelle et religieuse: Les magistrats devant les
sorciers du XVIIe siecle," Revue de Vhistoire de Veglise de France 55 (no. 155, 1969): 300-3 19;
Michel Foucault, Histoire de la folie a I'age classique (Paris: Gallimard, 1972); Jean-Pierre
Gutton, La societe des pauvres en Europe, XVIe-XVIIIe siecles (Paris, 1974); Emanuel Chill,
"Religion and Mendicity in Seventeenth-Century France," International Review of Social History
7 (1962): 400-425; Robert Muchembled, Culture populaire et culture des elites dans la France
moderne XVe-XVIIIe siecles: Essai (Paris: Flammarion, 1978); Bernard Dompnier, Mission de
Vinterieur et reforme catholique: Activite missionnaire en Dauphine au XVIIe siecle (Paris: These
d'etat, 1981).
14. On this subject, see Chill, "Religion and Mendicity," and Gutton, Societe des pauvres ,
especially pp. 136-157.
15. Some recent works point out the Protestant dimension in New France. Among
others: Marc-Andre Bedard, Les protestants en Nouvelle-France (Quebec City: Societe histo-
rique de Quebec, 1978), p. 22; Cornelius Jaenen, "The Persistence of the Protestant
Presence in New France, 1541-1760," Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the Western Society for
French History, San Francisco, 1974 (Las Cruces: University of New Mexico Press, 1975), pp.
29-40; and Gilles Proulx, "Prisonniers sous les murs," Cap-aux-diamants 2 (no. 4, 1987):47-48.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Filles du roy 59

no longer be surprising to find that popular religious practices in Quebec

would differ from those in France.

Therefore the 1663-1673 emigration of the filles du roy must be situated

(1) in a greater geographical space, i.e., considering New France as an
extension of France, and (2) in a longer chronology, i.e., taking into
account earlier facts which act upon this phenomenon and subsequent
events on which it acts in turn. With such spatio-temporal coordinates,
the feminine emigration becomes an event dependent on the politico-
socio-economic circumstances in France. Therefore, it is no longer
enough to say that Louis XIV, hearing the desperate cries from his far
away colony, decided to assist her by sending soldiers, workmen under
contract, and marriageable girls. The analysis of the French economy
under Colbert provides a reason for the colonial policy of military settle-
ment, and it is in this context that around eight hundred women were
sent to New France. Moreover, it is no longer enough simply to follow the
lives of these women from their voyage to their twelfth pregnancy, and to
make them "stones predestinated by God for the foundation of the
nation-building begun in 1608."17 The "unwittingly self-willed" enlistment
of these socially uprooted people demands a more exhaustive analysis of
the migratory phenomenon.

Male Settlement Policy in New France

The boom in New France started when Colbert, who succeeded

Mazarin as colonial secretary, noticed that the exploitation of colonies by
commercial companies was not appropriate to strengthen these settle-
ments. Profound differences existed between colonies planned for settle-
ment and those planned for commerce. If the latter expanded under
commercial company sponsorship, the former, on the contrary, were
doomed to failure. Populating a colony required funds and organisation
that only a government could provide. The state therefore took charge of
colonial affairs.

16. Jean Delumeau pointed out the complex reality of endoctrination in seventeenth-
century France. Catholic and Protestant missionaries often worked at the same time in the
same region, so it is more the double effect of antagonistic religious zeal on the population
than the chronology that is expressed here. This general statement must not overshadow the
chronology specific to the filles du roy story. In this particular case, it is indisputable that the
Protestantization preceded the Romanization since the girls sent to New France were, at least
officially, "good Catholics. w
17. Marc Labbe, Les Labbe de 1665 a nos jours (Pointe-aux-Trembles: Editions de l'Echo,
1978), p. 4. This and subsequent quotations are my translation.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
60 Historical Reflections /Reflexions Historiques

As early as 1663, various institutions were in place and the religious,

administrative, and judicial apparatuses were functioning. But was this
amount of organisation necessary in a territory where there were only
three thousand inhabitants?

As for a kingdom, the strength of a colony lies for a large part in its
population. Colbert knew that an underpopulated colony would not fulfil
its assigned role in his economic system and set about to people this new
"French province." Settlement was however a considerable problem
because of the particular conditions in New France due especially to the
threat of the Iroquois. The obvious answer was a military colony which
would both pacify the Iroquois and populate the territory. The discharge
of soldiers and their subsequent settlement in the colony were all the
more desirable since the conquest and the defence of New France necessi-
tated a continuous presence of military forces. However, because the
mother country could not afford to keep troops in the colony, the best
solution was to send "soldiers-settlers," thus considerably reducing admin-
istrative costs. In the short term, France could initially send a lesser
number of settlers and could also economize on the costs of the eventual
return of soldiers to France. In the long term, if defence of the colony
was ever necessary, it could avoid the costs of sending contingents of
soldiers since a soldier-settler population, perpetuated from father to son,
was already in the colony.
The soldiers chosen for this project were from the Carignan-Salieres
regiment.18 The history of this regiment testifies to the presence of
foreigners and Protestants as well, even though some Canadian historians
have long held that they were all French, hiding the likely existence of
non-Catholics in New France. In support, these historians have pointed to
the absence of foreign names in parish registers.19 This argument however
is weak. First, as specialists in military history have demonstrated, there
were many soldiers who at that time either enlisted under borrowed
names or were known by nicknames.20 Second, spelling was not fixed.
Archival evidence persuades us that there was nothing more uncertain
than the spelling of family names. Tabellions used to write phonetically,

18. Enlistment took place in Savoie in 1644. After a few campaigns, the regiment was
merged with German companies to attain its projected strength. The German troops were
from the Balthazar regiment created in 1636. This amalgamation took place in 1659. See
Thomas Chapais, Jean Talon, intendant de la Nouvelle-France, 1665-1672 (Quebec City: Demers,
1904), pp. 63-64.
19. "It would appear that those who got married here were French because neither the
church registers nor the census give us ten names which have a foreign form.'' Benjamin
Suite, Histoiredes Canadiens-franfais, vol. 4 (Montreal: Wilson, 1882-1884), p. 47.
20. Georges Tricoche, La vie militaire a Vetranger: Les milices franfaises et anglaises au
Canada (1627-1900), (Paris: Charles-Lavauzelle, 1902).

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Filles du roy 61

and even foreign patronymics took on a French form.21 The conclusive

proof, on the contrary, raises many doubts, which are confirmed by
consulting religious archives. Indeed, Jesuits recognized that there were
some Protestants among the soldiers of Carignan-Salieres regiment since
they made many conversions upon the arrival of the troops. "A number of
heretics being of these troops, efforts were exerted, and successfully, for
their conversion. More than a score made abjuration of their heresy, with
a deep sense of their indebtedness to God, and caused them to find the
road to Paradise by way of Canada."22
Mgr. de Laval's repeated and insistent requests to home authorities to
prohibit Huguenots from entering the colony convince us further of the
presence of Protestants in New France. Upon his arrival in 1659, Laval
embarked on a heretic hunt. At the time of the first solemn mass, with all
the officials attending the celebration, he publicly heard the abjuration of
a Protestant.23
The increased flow of emigrants into the colony brought undesirable
elements with it, and Laval clearly saw the danger. The first recruitments
were done in Aunis, which was teeming with "official converts" who stayed
attached to Calvin's doctrine.24 The work done by the many religious
congregations established in La Rochelle soon after the siege of 1628
was not wholly efficient. Conversions were superficial.25 Mgr. de Laval
worried that the newcomers largely recruited in Aunis were hardly
"zealous for religion."
Laval's objections did not prevent Protestants from coming into the
colony, and in 1670 he was obliged to send a report on the Protestants in
New France. He accused them of threatening the security of both the
state and the church and suggested that both authorities help keep the
Protestant element out of the colony. Once again Laval's recommenda-
tions went unheard since the Superior Council of Quebec later in 1676

21. Among the filles du roy was Marie-Anne Phanseque. We know that this girl was born
in Hambourg and that her father was a nobleman. It is clear that the first letters of the name
Than" are the French spelling of 'Van." So she was not a poor girl from France but rather a
girl from a noble German family, and was probably captured during the war of Devolution.
Silvio Dumas, Les filles du roy en Nouvelle-France: Etude historique avec repertoire biographique
(Quebec City: Societe historique de Quebec, 1972), p. 311; and Rene Jette, Dictionnaire
genealogique des families du Quebec des origines a 1730 (Montreal: University of Montreal Press,
1983), p. 720.
22. "Relations des choses les plus remarquables... 1664-1665," in Reuben Gold Thwaites,
ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents , vol. 50 (New York: Pageant, 1959), p. 85.
23. Letter from Mgr. de Laval to Pope Alexander VII, 31 July 1659, mentioned in Bedard,
Protestants en Nouvelle-France, p. 22-
24. Letter from Arnoul, 18 December 1685, quoted from Louis Perouas, Le diocese de La
Rochelle de 1648 a 1 724: SocioUme et pastorale (Paris, 1964) , p. 326.
25. Ibid., p. 349.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
62 Historical Reflections /Reflexions Historiques

adopted a regulation forbidding Protestants to practice their religion.26

These various complaints from the clergy do not only demonstrate the
presence but also the relative vigour of the Protestant community. In
spite of the absence of Protestant ministry in New France as ruled by the
king's law, the Huguenot community could have survived because of their
ability to transmit their outlook in the family. Long accustomed to the
practice of an "illegal" religion, Protestants could easily replace public cult
by a family cult which gave the parents a major role in the perpetuation of
the faith making them "ministers" for their children and even for their
neighbourhoods especially if they were particularly skilled in reading the
Bible and saying prayers.27 The Protestant community could thus survive
in New France despite the watchfulness and the repeated attacks of the
church. Of course, these attacks were directed mostly at the merchants'
clerks, often Huguenots, who were temporarily living in the colony. But
they were not the only ones involved. For example, a miller accused of
having cast a spell on a young girl was found guilty of blasphemy, profana-
tion of the sacraments, and false conversion.28 It must also be pointed out
that in New France, not to be a good Catholic, i.e., a Catholic according to
the tridentine norms, often was enough to be suspected of Protestantism.
Is not this the thinly veiled hint that can be read in this bishop's letter to
the minister:

...People taken from La Rochelle have, for the most part, little
conscience and are almost without religion, idle and very lazy at work,
and very ill-suited to inhabit a country; deceitful, debauched and
blasphemous.29

There is such a slight distance from the accusation of being without

religion and blasphemous to the one of being labelled Huguenot, that
this hetero-interpretation of Protestantism probably helped perpetuate
the clerical vision of Protestants and pseudo-converts haunting the St.
Lawrence banks.
Colbert could not afford to expel the Huguenots from the colony even
though the religious authority did not want them in New France. France
needed men for commerce and settlement, and in certain sectors people

26. On this subject, see Bedard, Protestants en NouveUe-France, and Jaenen, "Persistence of
the Protestant Presence."

27. Philippe Joutard, La legende des camisards: Une sensibilite au passe (Paris: Gallimard,
1977), p. 40.
28. Jonathan L. Pearl, "Witchcraft in New France in the Seventeenth Century: The
Social Aspects," Historical Reflections/Reflexions historiques 4 (no. 2, 1977) :4 1-55.
29. Letter from Mgr. de Laval to Colbert, 1663. France, Archives nationales (hereafter,
A.N.), Colonies Oll-A-2, fol. 95.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Filles du roy 63

of the Reformed Church were absolutely necessary. The charter, granted

to the Compagnie des Indes Occiden tales in 1664, gives a clue to Colbert's
policies. Let us remember that, in 1627, the charter granted to the
Compagnie des Cent-Associes formally proscribed Huguenots from New
France. Articles 2 and 3 specified: "However, the forsaid associates and
anyone else will not be quite free to make any stranger pass to New
France, but to settle the forsaid colony with Catholic native French
people."30 In 1664, under Colbert's pressures, the article about religion in
the new charter of the Compagnie des Indes Occidentals, only spoke of
matters concerning the Amerindian evangelization. Fanatic Catholic
members of the Parlement of Paris worried about the omission. Even
thbugh the minister's agents tried to hasten the parlement agreement, th
passing of the project was not accelerated. Six days after Colbert intro-
duced the charter, Bechameil, the minister's secretary, announced to him
that the recording was finally through. Nevertheless, to the first charter
article on religion written by Colbert in which was specified that the
company would be obliged to send a required number of missionaries for
the Amerindian conversion, Lamoignon added that there could not b
any practice other than the Catholic one, and in order to avoid illega
Protestant cult, that the company was forbidden to let any Protestant
minister embark for the colony. Bechameil asked Lamoignon to delete
his addition but was not able to overcome the president's firmness. Thu
Colbert had to use his authority to enjoin Lamoignon to change his mind.
Two days latter Bechameil could report to the minister that with great
difficulty he finally overcame Lamoignon 's way of thinking. In fact, this
was a half victory. On one hand, the first part of the addition relating to
the prohibition of Protestant practices was withdrawn; on the other hand
the ban on sending Protestant ministers to preach Calvin's doctrine still
remained. Colbert's attitude on this affair sheds light on his aim, and the
article's wording shows the implications of the compromise solution
Even though Protestant ministers would not be permitted to emigrate, th
restriction was not directed against Protestant settlers.31 To inject by
homeopathic doses Huguenot workers into the colony would be of benefit
for both France and New France, as Bechameil wrote to Colbert: "It is
more worthwhile to attract Huguenots among Catholics from which the
example could convert them than to let them live mistaken."32 These
30. Act for the establishment of the Compagnie des Cent-Associes for commerce to
Canada, 29 April 1627, in Edits, ordonnances royaux, declarations et arrets du Conseil d'Etat du roi
concernant le Canada, vol. 1 (Quebec City: E.R. Frechette, 1854), p. 7.
31. On the passing of the charter in 1664, see Colbert's correspondance. Bibliotheque
nationale de Paris (hereafter, B.N.), Melange Colbert, vol. 122, fol. 206, 359, 360, 407 and
465.

32. Letter from Bechameil to Colbert, 11 July 1664, B.N., Melange Colbert, vol. 122, fol.
360.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
64 Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques

policies were applied in France and in New France as well.33 "Concerned

with protecting the economy in which they play an appreciable role
[Colbert] carried out a preferential and exceptional policy for merchants,
manufacturers and businessmen, even though they were Calvin's
followers."34 We can venture further and say that Colbert made similar
exceptions for the apprentices, the workmen, and the soldiers-settlers
because they were as valuable to the project of colonization as merchants
and businessmen were to the home economy.

Female Settlement in New France

Since Protestantism plays a role in the history of male emigration,

would it not be logical to look for Protestants among the filles du ray ? The
need for men compelled Colbert to recruit in the Huguenot milieus. Did
he have to face the same constraints concerning the need for women?
Part of the answer may be obtained from Dumas' s biographical cata-
logue.35 An analysis of the 774 biographies identifies only two disciples of
the Reformed Church: Marthe Quintal (or Quitel) from Rouen and
Catherine Basset from Saint-Ouen de Longpaon, near Darnetal, in
Normandy. However, it is impossible to reach a decision from this sample
since the sources used by Dumas, parish registers, marriage contracts, and
census material, do not provide the specific sort of information we need.
The biographies reconstituted by Dumas often give only parents' names
and birthplaces as details about the lives of the filles du roy before emigra-
tion. The few other more elaborate biographies only reveal facts about
their lives in New France and nothing about their lives in France. This
makes identifying Huguenots all the more difficult.
A further clue comes from Bedard's study of the registers of abjuration
for the Quebec government during the French regime.36 In the list
furnished by Bedard, we find thirteen Protestants.37 This is too small a

33. For example, in August 1664, Molse Hilaret and Daniel Beau petitioned the Conseil
Souverain de Quebec for their return to France since their enlistment as carpenters had
been over for three months. They argued they had to go back because they were Protestant
and not allowed to stay. The Conseil Souverain rejected the petition, permitted them to stay,
and hired them for the shipbuilding yard. Jugements du Conseil Souverain de la Nouvelle-France,
vol. 1 (Quebec City: Cote, 1885), pp. 262-263, 271.
34. Garrisson, L'edit de Nantes, p. 168
35. Dumas, Filles du roy en Nouvelle-France.
36. Bedard, Protestants en Nouvelle-France.
37. From La Rochelle: Catherine Barre, Isabelle Doucinet, Marie-Leonard, Marie
Mazouer, Barbe Menard, Marguerite Navarre, Marie Targer and Marie Valade; near
La Rochelle, Anne Lepine; from Nevers, Madeleine Delaunay; from Normandy, Marthe

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Filles du roy 65

number from which to determine the realities of the emigration policy.

However, in the Archives de la Marine, there is a strange letter which
could quite easily be related to the subject and shed more light on filles du
roy emigration. These archives contain letters Colbert sent to his cousin
De Terron, intendant of the Marine, in Rochefort. De Terron was
responsible for supplying "ammunition for mouth and war"; that is,
supplying tools, livestock, seeds, soldiers, and both skilled and unskilled
workers for New France.

In a first letter of 29 March 1669 sent to the intendant, Colbert gave

guidelines on the recruitment of workers for Canada.38 That year, 225
people were levied and taken on board at La Rochelle. This contingent
was comprised of 80 workmen, 125 heads of families, and 20 marriageable
girls.39 Colbert's letter clearly indicated certain rules to be applied in the
recruitment of workers and male setders but nothing concerning the
methods to be used in recruiting girls. These methods are virtually
unknown except for the levies at the General Hospital of Paris (and even
then, litde is known). However, more details are available for the 1669
contingent. First, we know that Mrs. Bourdon, a devout woman of New
France, took charge of the group of girls from the General Hospital.40
Secondly, we also know that her contingent sailed from Normandy, not
from Aunis. This indicates that the girls sailing from La Rochelle were
not recruited by Mrs. Bourdon and that they were not from Paris. So were
they volunteers, or were they among the people De Terron had to
recruit? If it were not for a second letter (written the same day from
Colbert to De Terron) litde further would be known. However, the
contents of this second letter still leave us somewhat confused:

We send every year an order of £3000 in the name of Damsel

Mauriette, for the "entertainment" of girls newly converted to the
Catholic faith in the city of La Rochelle. Will you please inquire
about the use of this sum, about how many girls there are in their
house and if his Majesty's charity is thus correcdy used.41

Quintal and Catherine Basset. Madeleine Dutault's case is not clear. Dumas includes this
Protestant girl from La Rochelle in his list of filles du roy, but her filles du roy status is
contested by Archange Godbout. Ibid., pp. 53-54.
38. "With regard to the levy that you are doing for Canada, even though I believe that
what has to be done is already done, I must not fail to tell you that Mr. Talon has let me
know that it would be better to send men between 20 to 35 years old rather than families, all
the more important since men work as soon as they get there and families are always depen-
dent upon the country and languishing in the hospitals very often for five or six months
before working. And I consider this advice most excellent, we might use it for coming years,
if you cannot for this year." A.N., Marine B 2-9, fol. 69v.
39. Letter from Patoulet to Colbert, 1 1 November 1669, A.N., Colonies C-l l-A-3, fol. 62v.
40. Report dated 22 June 1669, A.N., Colonies C-l l-A-2, fol. 95.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
66 Historical Reflections /Reflexions Historiques

The two letters seem inspired by the same concern: recruitment. In

the first letter, Colbert touched on the levy of workmen which seems to
cause problems for De Terron; and in the second one, he seems to
allude to the places of recruitment of marriageable girls. This interpreta-
tion would explain why the minister's recommendations concerned only
male recruitment and were silent about the girls sailing from
La Rochelle. The first letter is not concerned with guidelines since
there are no problems with the levy of girls. He no longer has to worry
about those women since "what has to be done is already done."
Colbert's first letter might be seen as a set of rules to be used for the
coming years and not as instructions for the current one. If so, the second
letter becomes very significant for it could indicate the minister's inten-
tion to use Damsel Mauriette's house for the next levy of women. Let us
further examine the facts.

The year 1669 is the first that Colbert used the General Hospital of
Paris for recruitment of women. The first systematic levy at the hospital
did not proceed without incident. The atmosphere in the institution
while 160 girls anticipated the great departure was electric. If the girls
were volunteers, the task of the people in charge was lightened. If they
were not, troubles could be expected at the hospital where the locked-up
population could show its disapproval, or in the streets where beggars,
showing their solidarity, could rise up against the ill-treatment of their
people. Let us remember that in 1663, during a wave of kidnapping of
men and women intended to be sent to America, the alarmed population
of Paris vented its anger on the General Hospital patrols. The crowd held
the patrols responsible for these kidnappings, whether or not they were in
fact. For ordinary people, confinement at the hospital and deportation to
the colonies were two parts of a single policy.42 Moreover, the Parisian
population usually reacted to the hospital's beggar hunt preventing the
patrols from doing their duty.43 Considering these facts, are we not led to
believe that the contingent of girls leaving for New France in 1669, incited
the people of Paris to demonstrate their disapprobation?
In the event of a rebellion or of an uprising of Parisians opposed to this
deportation, the emigrants were to be accompanied. As it can be reconsti-
tuted from the registers of La Salpetriere for a similar departure ten
years later, the leaving of the 1669 contingent of fllles du roy must have
gone as follows: At least two weeks before boarding, the selected girls left

41. Letter from Colbert to De Terron, 29 March 1669, A.N., Marine B 2-9, fol. 69v.
42. Michel Felibeau and Guy-Alexis Lobineau, Histoire de la ville de Paris, vol. 5 (Paris:
Guillaume Desprez etjean Des Essartz, 1725), p. 194.
43. See the list of decrees related to these incidents. Henri Sauval, Histoire et antiquites de
la viUe de Paris, vol. 1 (Paris: Charles Moette & Jacques Chardon, 1724), pp. 535-536.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 FiUes du roy 67

the hospital. Early in the morning, they walked down to the Seine where a
waiting riverboat brought them to the Pont-Rouge on the other side of
Paris.44 Just like it would be done for the safety of the girls sent to the
island of Martinique in 1680, girls sent to New France were accompanied
by the superior of the hospital, volunteer ladies from charitable organiza-
tions, and female hospital officiers and guards. At seven o'clock they were
safely sailing to Dieppe.45
Mrs. Bourdon, who was in charge of the girls, came especially from New
France for the recruitment and was well known among people working in
charitable organizations. She did not really need to be recommended by
Marie de Tlncarnation to the directors of the institution. Mrs. Bourdon,
assisted by her son, Mr. de Dombourg, and by people named by the
directors of the hospital,46 took 160 girls from Maison de la piete in Paris
and brought them to New France.
Faced with the problems of sending girls from Paris to Dieppe, Colbert
then considered appealing to asylums situated on the coast for women. In
his search for other ways to manage, he asked De Terron to find out how
many girls were available from Damsel Mauriette. All in all, this source
presented the same advantages as the General Hospital in providing
"numerous and various goods." Moreover, choosing asylums in the coastal
provinces was of double benefit since it permitted (1) the recruitment of
girls easily able to reach the ports of embarkation, and (2) the levy of
country women "able to support the fatigue to which one is subjected in
New France."47
For the same reasons, the next year, Colbert asked Mgr. de Harlay,
archbishop of Rouen, about the possibilities of levying fifty to sixty girls in
parishes under his authority.48 First, the recruitment of young country
women in Norman parishes would fulfil the requirements of the colonial
authorities who insisted that girls be sturdy and capable of farm work,
qualities which the damsels from the General Hospital did not have.
Second, this expedient avoided the difficulties of a levy at the General
Hospital of Paris.

44. This is written according to the notes recorded in the register of the hospital about
the departure of 128 girls to Martinique in November 1680. Musee de l'assistance publique
de Paris, Register of La Salpetriere, p. 76.
45. Concerning the departure of the 1669 contingent, see letter from Colbert to
Subleau, 29 March 1669, A.N., Colonies B-l, fol. 103v; another letter from Colbert to
Dumont, 14 May 1670, A.N., Marine B-7-50, fol. 22; and Talon's report, 22 June 1669, A.N.,
Colonies C-l l-A-3, fol. 43.
46. Marie de 1 'Incarnation's letter to her son, October 1668, in her Correspondance, ed.
Guy Oury (Solesmes: Abbaye St. Pierre, 1971), pp. 832-835.
47. Colbert's letter to Mgr. the Archbishop of Rouen, 27 February 1670, A.N., Colonies
B-2, fol. 16.
48. Ibid.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
68 Historical Reflections /Reflexions Historiques

Colbert's second letter of 29 March 1669 to De Terron contained the

first mention of a method for female recruitment. Resorting to asylums
for "new converts" or for girls "on the road to perversion" would explain,
in the case of Protestant emigration to New France, why we find so few
filles du roy in the registers of abjuration in Quebec. If the girls were levied
from those houses of charity, Canadian registers would show only "good
Catholics." The girls changed religion in France, so nothing appeared in
the colonial listings. They converted either of their own accord or under
duress. In order to avoid a relapse, they were sent to work in New France.

Geographical Milieu

To test my hypothesis, I have correlated geographically as well as histor-

ically two phenomena, the provenance of the filles du roy and
Protestantism in mid-seventeenth-century France.
My mapping analysis shows that areas of low Protestant density,
Bretagne and Champagne, are also areas from which there is little emigra-
tion. Zones of high Protestant density coincide with zones of high density
emigration (Charente-Maritime and Seine-Maritime). The lie de France
region is an exception because the levies at the General Hospital interfere
with the results. The particularity of this region is entirely understandable
since the policy of recruitment there was different.
Let us look further at the two main regions of female emigration,
Normandy and Aunis, and examine the social climate prevailing in these
provinces in the years 1655-1670.
In both regions Protestants formed influential communities. In
La Rochelle, Huguenots comprised 45 percent of the population and in
Rouen the 5500 Protestants comprised 7 percent of the population. In
both areas the Protestant communities were continuously harassed by
conversionists. In Aunis, soon after the Siege of La Rochelle, many
Catholic congregations established themselves in the defeated town and
began missionary work. The Dominicans of La Rochelle handed out 150
dozen rosaries and recorded many conversions.49 In Normandy, "there
are not many incidents in spite of the hostility of the Jesuits and their
henchmen."50 However, these henchmen had been working since 1640,
when the Compagnie du Saint Sacrement was established in Rouen. In
1642, while Father Eudes opened the missions in the capital of Normandy,
the canon of the parish of Notre-Dame bought some buildings for the new

49. Garrisson, V edit de Nantes, p. 107.

50. Jean-Pierre Bardet, Rouen aux XVIIe et XMIIe siecles: Les mutations d un espace social
(Paris: SEDES, 1983), p. 218.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 FiUes du roy 69

Catholics in the parishes of St. Vivien and St. Nicaise.

Touched by sentiments for the new Catholics, aided in his zeal by many
people of piety, he allots part of the buildings for the creation of a
house of prayer for the young Protestant girls recently converted or on
the way to conversion.51

In both regions then, people of the Reformed Church were continually

asked to renounce their faith.

Family Milieu

Some recent works on Protestantism52 have noted a disparity between

northern and southern France. Demographically different, the Protestant
regions north and south of the Loire were not subjected to the same
repression. Protestants in the south constituted important communities.
Their protests, were more violent, and the authorities reacted more
violently to them. Huguenots in the north were fewer in number and
more submissive, expecting their good conduct to mollify the king's atti-
tude. The royal authority also played the game according to the northern
Huguenot rules, rejecting open violence using instead on-the-spot fines,
banishments, and monetary incentives for conversion. In the north, the
strategy of conversion was henceforth directed toward isolated individuals.
The conversionists chose children as their specific target. Long before
Mrs. de Maintenon recorded it in her diary, the zealous missionaries had
seen that if they were unable properly to convert parents, they could hope
to succeed with their children. The king agreed to this method. In
February 1663, the state council ruled that, from then on "every child
whose father is Catholic and whose mother is Protestant will be brought
up in his father's religion.53 The conversionists had done a thorough anal-
ysis of the problem and by requesting legislation for this particular case
brought most of the "heretics" into line.
Let us examine the various cases:

51. MA. Ferron, Introduction a I etude des societes secretes catholiques dans le diocese de Rouen
aux XVII et XVIIIe siecles (Rouen: Academie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Rouen, n.d.),
p. 29.
52. See Garrisson, Ledit de Nantes', Joutard, Legende des camisards; Labrousse, Revocation de
Vedit de Nantes.

53. Arret du Conseil d'Etat, February 1663, according to Garrisson, L 'edit de Nantes, p.
141.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
70 Historical Reflections /Reflexions Historiques

a) Catholic father and mother.

For this case, legislation was unnecessary. The Roman Catholic religion
was already ensured. However, in the context of mixed relatives such
legislation became a guarantee: if both father and mother died,
Huguenot relatives would not be able to act as legal guardians of the
orphans; the devots thus pushed for a stretching of the law.

b) Protestant father and mother.

In this case, the legislation has no immediate consequences but rather

a latent impact dependent on the father's conversion. The conversionists
knew that it was much easier to make a man abjure than a woman. A
woman's beliefs seemed more firmly fixed, and conversion for profes-
sional gain was important almost only in the case of men.

c) Protestant father and Catholic mother.

Here too the legislation had a latent impact, and the conversionists did
all they could to make it work in their favour. Children from these mixed
marriages were brought up either in their father's religion or in their
mother's. However, more often sons were raised in their father's religion
and daughters in their mother's.54 Using the same strategy as in the
second case, Catholics thus converted both sons and daughters.

d) Catholic father and Protestant mother.

This is the case that motivated the passing of legislation. Children from
these mixed marriages were rarely of the same faith as their father. The
tendency to bring up sons in the father's religion was short-circuited by
the dominating influence of a Protestant mother since female piety
usually was more ardent than male, and women were often the faith
keepers in the family. In addition, women had an important part to play
in the modes of transmitting religious knowledge. The upbringing of chil-
dren in their formative years was left entirely to them, so male and female
children from such couples were most likely brought up as Protestant.55

The conversionists profited fully from the measure decided by the

king's council and also from the extension they gave to it. However, they
seemed to concentrate their efforts on girls. The number of asylums for

54. Labrousse, Revocation de Vedit de Nantes, pp. 83-84.

55. Ibid., p. 84.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Filles du roy 71

the Nouvelles Catholiques and the ratio of girls to boys declared kidnapped
lead us to believe that the Catholic missionaries were aware of the domi-

nating role of women in the transmission of religion.

The watchful ladies from charitable organizations thus took over the
care of the daughters of relapsed heretics. Daughters of newly converted
fathers were placed either with Catholic relatives or in asylums, where on
need not fear for their souls. In the name of religious security, legal nice
ties were dispensed with. When parents cooperated, the conversionists
worked without hindrance; but they resorted to kidnapping the children
when parents opposed conversion. This kidnapping was essentially
confinement of children to convents or monasteries without ever

returning them to their parents.56 The practice of kidnapping Pr

boys and girls continued from the 1650s to the 1680s. These w
types of underground measures characteristic of the repre
Protestantism north of the Loire. This kidnapping seemed more f
in Normandy. Here, the state council in the edict of 28 Septemb
took action against this procedure, which was especially prev
Rouen. In the edict of 24 April 1665, the five kidnappings th
specifically denounced were in northern localities, and three
Normandy.57
It is well known to Canadian historiography that marriageable girls sent
to New France were mainly from Aunis and Normandy. However it is not
so well known that these were precisely the provinces which were
subjected to intense conversionists' actions. These girls came from
regions where intolerance was rife, towns where conversionists tracked
down Protestants for conversion. The analysis of these localities allows us
to conclude that a part of the female emigrants were from Protestant or
mixed families to whom this strategy of conversion on an individual basis
was applied.

A Motivation to Leave

The secondary effects of this manipulation of the family by the conver-

sionists should be examined. The family was destabilized. People found
themselves at odds with traditional communities. A new convert was no
longer in the Protestant community and was not automatically a member
of the Catholic community either. In their will to bring back religious

56. Garrisson, L 'edit de Nantes, p. 142.

57. In Normandy, the denounced kidnappings occurred in Dieppe, Rouen, and
Alan ton. The two other cases took place in northern France at Loches (Touraine) and
Chaolons-sur-Saone (Bourgogne).

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
72 Historical Reflections /Reflexions Historiques

marginals to the Roman Catholic faith, conversionists produced social

marginals. Huguenot girls in the north, who were subjected to contin-
uous "popish pressures," were excluded from their original religious and
family milieus.
The most fortunate of these girls benefited from the assistance of the
ladies of charity who fed and housed them temporarily. The ladies then
put them into service with "either a widow woman or a devout spinster to
take care of them, to keep a watchful eye on their behaviour, to educate
them, and to have them work at what they could."58 The ladies thus inte-
grated a religious education service and an employment agency.
This care required money because many girls could not go into service
immediately and had to be supported. Furthermore, many who did go
into service could not provide entirely for themselves. The ladies had to
pay for purchases such as shoes, clothes, and medicine. The waning of
initial enthusiasm, fewer offers of money, the increasing number of girls
coming from northern provinces, and the competition with the Huguenot
milieu whose members knew how to put pressure on Catholics to get them
to soften their reactions against Protestants,59 all made it necessary for
these charitable organizations to have recourse to judicial power in order
to secure their incomes. In 1664, the Conseil d'Etat pronounced a first
judgement giving them the right to demand the Huguenot parents to pay
board for their kidnapped children.60 The Protestant community wanting
neither to indemnify the kidnappers nor to give alms to Catholic institu-
tions, chose to ignore the judgement. Burdened by the task and financial
need, the ladies of those organizations were not able to take care of all the
girls on the way to perdition.
Employment was very limited for girls left on their own but still closely
watched by the ladies of the charitable organizations. Indeed, as soon as
Protestant, mixed, or Catholic girls went into the service of Protestants,
the ladies intervened in order to shield these girls from the influence of
heretics. Frightening the girls with the dangers to their souls, the ladies
recommended strongly that they leave their work.
This was of great consequence. For example in La Rochelle, as we
have noted previously, 45 percent of the population was Protestant. The
probability of going into service with Protestants was very high. In Rouen,
Protestants were less numerous but wealthy, and thus most likely to hire

58. Statuts pour etre gardes par les dames [ca. 1659], Archives, Departement of
Seine-Maritime, D-485.
59. According to the ladies, the Huguenots did not grant loans to Catholics without
requiring future consideration favouring the Protestant cause to the point of demanding
abjuration of papism; Registres des dames charitables de Rouen, Archives, Departement of
Seine-Maritime, D-485, fol. 73 and fol. 89.
60. Garrisson, V edit de Nantes, p. 142.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Filles du roy 73

girls. In both towns, the exclusion of Huguenot employers dangerously

reduced employment opportunities for women. For many of them, mend-
icity became the only way to get food. With only a bleak future ahead of
them, girls from these regions were ideal candidates for emigration. "One
leaves because of the hope for fortune and a better life or simply because
he cannot remain where he is being almost certain to live in extreme
misery."61
Psychologically, the pre-emigration environment for a majority of the
filles du roy encouraged this desire to leave for Catholic as well as for
Protestant girls. We must, however, remember that in the mixed milieus,
a Catholic status did not mean a practicing Catholic. The number of true
converts stayed very low as can be judged by the number of mass-goers,
regular communicants, and people taking communion and confession at
Easter. Those who were the most obedient to Catholic gestural came
from the poorer milieus. They had limited means and unlike merchants,
nobles, and businessmen, they could not resist Catholic pressures.62 The
female emigrants mostly originated from the poor milieus of these regions
converted under pressure. It is most probable that these Catholic emig-
rant girls came from forced Catholic families rather than from good
Catholic ones.
It was the former and not the latter who suffered from the climate of
intolerance and the disruption in traditional solidarity, as we can see in
the story of a certain Marie Dubois, identified in the registers of the
Company of the Ladies of Charity in Rouen. Marie Dubois was noticed by
the ladies in their weekly visit to the hospital at the end of January 1663.
From that moment, this Protestant girl was under the ladies' surveillance.
When she was discharged from the hospital in April, the ladies appren-
ticed her for a few weeks to Sieur d'Avranche, who hired girls sent out to
work by the ladies. Two weeks later Marie was sent to work for Mrs.
de Ronfrechon, a good Catholic lady. We can now presume that Marie
Dubois was definitely out of danger, but two months later her name still
appeared in the company registers. The ladies had apparendy then
decided not to take care of her anymore, and no more was said of Marie
Dubois.63
But was the story really finished? We find a girl named Marie Dubois
also from Normandy enrolled in the contingent of 1670 leaving for New
France. Marie Dubois, fille du roy, born around 1643, was twenty-seven
when she came to New France. If this is the same person, she would have

61. Pierre Chaunu, La peste blanche: Comment eviter le suicide de I'occident (Paris: Qallimard,
1976), pp. 150-151.
62. Perouas, Diocese de La Rochelle, pp. 348-351.
63. This is written according to registers no. D-485 and D-486, Archives, Departement of
Seine-Maritime.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 74 Historical Reflections /Reflexions Historiques

been around twenty in 1663, when she was taken in charge by the ladies.
This would be entirely plausible, since the girls taken in were usually
around twenty years of age. Moreover, it was just in 1670 that Colbert
required the collaboration of the Norman clergy for the recruitment of
female emigrants.64 Left to herself since 1663, without belonging to any
community, without a future, Marie Dubois probably easily persuaded
herself or let herself be persuaded by some charitable priest that she
would be happier on the banks of the St. Lawrence.
The "French" and the "Canadian" Marie Dubois story could easily be
two episodes of the same novel. This reconstitution is based on little data,
but it withstands a confrontation with the facts already known about the
female emigration to New France, and it illustrates the probable scenario
of the filles du roy recruitment in the French provinces. How many girls
like Marie Dubois preferred to take a chance on emigration rather than to
stay in France and live in poverty and perhaps in mendicity?
Altruism does not explain emigration on a large scale. Those Maries
did not cross the ocean and risk their lives on so dangerous a voyage
simply to satisfy Colbert's colonial plans. The settlement policy funded by
Colbert and by Louis XIV could only motivate people who had reasons to
leave.65
For Huguenot, mixed, or forced Catholic girls all the possibilities
focused invariably on the colonies. To stay in their native towns was to live
without family solidarity and without the assurance of a job because of
Catholic watchfulness. Emigration toward bigger towns presented the
same future, and perhaps an even worse one. If the more fortunate girls
were able to join the unstable textile trade or domestic services, the less
fortunate were forced to beg in order to survive.
In these circumstances, opportunities in New France were tempting.
The promise of a husband and a home seemed a great reward in return
for only populating the country. In New France one's past hardly meant a
thing: only the fact of one being already married was an important
enough reason to consider one's past.66 In New France there were no
foreigners since that was already the common status with people from
everywhere. In New France, it was the assurance of solidarity, but on a
new basis: the common goal was not to maintain traditional communities

64. Colbert's letter to the archbishop of Rouen, 27 February 1670, A.N., Colonies B-2,
fol. 16.

65. Examining the status of the emigrants from the dioceses of La Rochelle,
Angouleme, and Saintes, we established the following facts: out of 75 girls, 43 were either
orphans or widows. A similar study of central France (Berry, Beauce, Orleanais, and
Nivernais) furnished data even more significant: out of 52 girls, 38 were either orphans or
widows.

66. Letter from Colbert to Talon, 11 February 1671, A.N., Colonies B-2, vol. 3, fol. 26.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Filles du roy 75

as in the old country but to build new ones with people facing the same
new environment and adapting to the same new life. New France also
meant that one would be materially secure: promised in marriage to a
landowner or a skilled worker, fed and boarded at the king's expense
until the wedding day, provided with a royal dowry, and even taken in
charge by the intendant after marriage if necessary. One had nothing to
lose by signing up to go to Canada.67 In seventeenth-century France, the
Reformed Church was regarded as an abomination. Like other forms of
marginality such as mendicity and vagrancy, Protestantism was confronted
with the will of the state which tried to disinfect itself by "restraining
heresy."68
When the level of ambiguity rises above a prevailing threshold of toler-
ance, societies impose sanctions that usually include avoidance, discrimi-
nation, and pressure to conform.69 A colonial entreprise built with such
"sterilized" elements would be, to be sure, of a particular nature. The
religious element of culture in this growing society ruptured with cultural
practices in the mother society. Subjected to such intensive conversionary
discipline in both France and the New World, the past Protestant culture
carried on by the filles du roy did certainly not survive the trip. And then
my aim is less to establish that Protestantism directly took part in the
emergence of a specific popular religion in Quebec than to shed light on
Protestantism's underground influence on emigrants' attitudes toward
popular piety. Very few popular pietistic practices sprang from popular
needs; and the rare exceptions were immediately quelled. For example,
in 1681, the Recollets started erecting a hospice in Quebec's upper town.
Built at the limits of the town, this chapel was exempted from continuous
surveillance by religious authority. Without the bishop's authorization,
the Recollets opened the chapel to the public "who went there to pray like

67. The colonial correspondance gives many proofs of this material security. "It is urgent
to inform Sr Talon before his departure that the houses he bought to board the girls from
France should be achieved and preserved," letter from Tracy to Colbert, 1667, A.N., Colonies
C-l 1-A, vol. 2, fol. 328; "the 90 girls passed by the king's command are all married but six to
whom I have to come in help every now and then; it is the same for the married ones in need
who suffer the first years of their marriage," letter from Talon to Colbert, 13 November 1666,
A.N., Colonies C-l 1-A, vol. 2, fol. 221; as soon as each girl got married, the intendant
received an order to pay her the amount of £50, letter from Patoulet to Colbert, 11
November 1669, A.N., Colonies C-l 1-A, vol. 3, fol. 62; the girls also received clothes equalling
the amount of £30 before leaving, letter from Colbert to Colbert de Terron, intendant in
La Rochelle, 4 April 1669, A.N., Marine B-2, vol. 9, fol. 75.
68. Douglas, Purity and Danger, p. 175.
69. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2d ed. (McMillian and the Free Press,
1968), s.v. "art." "Pollution" quoted according to Lionel Rothkrug, "Peasant and Jew: Fears
of Pollution and German Collective Perception," Historical Reflections /Reflexions historiques 10
(1983):68.

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
76 Historical Reflections /Reflexions Historiques

in all other churches in Quebec."70 Furthermore, people went to the

chapel to thank Saint Antoine de Padoue, to whom this chapel was
popularly dedicated, for helping them find lost things.71 As this anecdote
shows us, the emergence of popular piety was possible despite the
geographic dislocation. However, these popular religious drives had
already been curbed twice in France (once by Protestantization and once
by Romanization) and were doomed to failure under the watchful clergy
in New France. So many disruptions in religion and such emphatic efforts
to reduce all to Roman Catholic orthodoxy dried up almost all sources of
inspiration or innovation in popular religious matters. The filles du ray
were more alienated from traditional forms of piety (either Protestant or
Catholic), more prone to relinquish these forms, and thus became more
receptive to pietistic practices elaborated by the clergy. Thus, popular
piety could easily be rechanneled by the Canadian church.
One could argue that the ease with which the Canadian clergy laid
down its mark on popular piety was the result of a successful acculturation
in France; thus people were prepared for an obedient acceptance of the
new religious practices. This hypothesis of the missionaries' works,
however, still has to be proved and goes against the conclusions of studies
concerned with popular piety in France.72 One could argue, on the
contrary, that both Protestant and Catholic acculturations were "too light"
and had no real influence on migrant people. Setded in a new world, the
immigrants would have found in the religious framework proposed by the
Canadian clergy a suitable way to express their piety. Even though inter-
esting, this explanation omits the fundamental need for ordinary people
to have understandable cultural practices directly related to their daily
lives.73 Finally, one could put forward the hypothesis of popular indiffer-
ence toward religion to explain the clerical ascendency on popular piety.
If true, this hypothesis would testify to the success of prior Protestant and
Catholic acculturations which would have annihilated the need of human
beings to resort to supernatural forces when confronted with situations

70. Letter from Bishop Laval to Henri Leroy, superior of the Recollets, 24 October 1683,
published in Quebecen. Beatificationis et canonizationis ven. Servi dei Francisci de
Montmorency-Laval episcopi quebecensis. Altera Nova Positio. Super virtitibus. Ex officio critice
disposita, 1956 (Sacrum rituum congregatio. Sectio historica, no. 93), pp. 276-277.
71. This letter from Bishop Laval to Henri Leroy is analysed in Nelson-M. Dawson,
"Nouvelle-France, 1683: Francois de Laval et la question des autorites coloniales" in Bernard
Plongeron, ed., L'autorite et les autorites en regime de civilisation chretienne, vol. 8 (Paris: Institut
catholique de Paris, 1985), pp. 237-261.
72. Marie-Helene Froeschle-Chopart, "Les devotions populaires d'apres les visites pasto-
rales: Un exemple, le diocese de Vence au debut du XVIIIe siecle," Revue de I'histoire de Veglise
de France 60 (no. 164, 1974):85-99. See also above n. 12.
73. Mircea Eliade, Images et symboles: Essai sur le symbolisme magico-religieux (Paris:
Gallimard, 1952).

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Filles du roy 77

where their analytic capacity, powers of endurance, and moral insight

were saturated.74 This unlikely result would fail to explain the specificity of
French Canadian popular piety, and the strategy of the religious authority
in the colony, which laid the foundations of French Canadian pietistic
practices by creating "decent" outlets, responding to what the clergy
considered to be the popular need for piety.75
Henceforth popular religion in French Canada would have to remain
within the bounds fixed by the local clergy. So, popular piety in Quebec
would have very litde in common with popular piety in France, and even a
province such as Normandy, which provided New France with a fair
number of emigrants, would not leave a mark on it.76 Taking for granted
that women played a major role in the transmission of popular religious
knowledge,77 the cultural contribution of the filles du roy, which represents
more than 50 percent of the female emigrants,78 certainly had a signifi-
cant influence. Is not the historical background of these women, revealed
in this essay, one of the main reasons for the distortion in the transmission
system of popular cultural knowledge?

74. Clifford Geertz, "Religion as Cultural System," Michael Banton, ed., Anthropological
Approaches to the Study of Religion (London: Tavistock, 1966), pp. 1-46.
75. Analysing the different ouuets set up by the Canadian clergy during the French
regime, Marie-Aimee Chiche also concluded that "La principale preoccupation des eveques
de la Nouvelle-France n'etait pas de lutter contre la religion populaire, mais d'en poser les
fondements, creer les cadres a l'interieur desquels elle pourrait se developper sous l'oeil
attentif du clerge." Cliche, Pratiques de devotions en Nouvelle-France, p. 318.
76. Desdouits, Vie traditionelle , pp. 406-410.
77. Gabriel Lebras, Histoire de la pratique religieuse en France, vol. 8 (Paris, 1945), p. 54; and
Francois Laplantine, La medecine populaire des campagnes franchises d'aujourd'hui (Paris:
Delarge, 1978).
78. From 1663 to 1673, about 800 fiUes du roy came to New France, whereas there were
only about 420 female emigrants from 1632 to 1663, and about 265 from 1673 to 1730.
These statistics are from Jette, Dictionnaire genealogique, and Marcel Trudel, Catalogue des emig-
rants, 1632-1662 (Montreal, 1983).

This content downloaded from

206.172.40.217 on Mon, 31 Jul 2023 20:46:51 +00:00
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms