King's Daughters
The King's Daughters (French: filles du roi, or filles du roy in the spelling of the era) is a term used to refer to the approximately 800 young French women who immigrated to New France between 1663 and 1673 as part of a program sponsored by King Louis XIV. The program was designed to boost New France's population both by encouraging Frenchmen to move to the New World, and by promoting marriage, family formation, and the birth of French children in the colony. The term refers to those women and girls who were recruited by the government and whose travel to the colony was paid for by the king.[1][2] They were also occasionally known as the King's Wards.
Origins
New France, at its start, was populated mostly by men: soldiers, fur traders, and missionary priests. Settlers began to develop farms and by the mid-17th century, there was a severe imbalance between single men and women in New France. The small number of female immigrants had to pay their own passage, and few single women wanted to leave home to move and settle in the harsh climate and conditions of New France. At the same time, officials noted the population growth of the competing English colonies, which had more families, and they worried about France's ability to maintain its territorial claims in the New World.[3]
To increase the French population and the number of families, the
Marguerite Bourgeoys was the first person to use the expression filles du roi in her writings.[4] A distinction was made between King's Daughters, who were transported to New France and received a dowry at the king's expense, and women who emigrated voluntarily using their own money.[5] Other historians used chronological frameworks to determine who could be called a fille du roi.[6] Research by the historical demographer Yves Landry determines that there were in total about 770 to 850 filles du roi[7] who settled in New France between 1663 and 1673.[8]
The title "King's Daughters" was meant to imply state patronage, not royal or noble parentage; most of the women recruited were commoners of humble birth. As a fille du roi, a woman received the king's support in several ways. The king paid one hundred livres to the French East India Company for each woman's crossing, as well as furnishing her trousseau.[9] The Crown also paid a dowry for each woman; this was originally set at four hundred livres, but as the Treasury could not spare such an expense, many were simply paid in kind.[10]
Those chosen to be among the filles du roi and allowed to emigrate to New France were held to scrupulous standards, which were based on their "moral calibre" and whether they were physically fit enough to survive the hard work demanded by life as a colonist. The colonial officials sent several of the filles du roi back to France because they were deemed below the standards set out by the king and the intendant of New France.[11]
As was the case for most emigrants who went from France to New France, 80 per cent of the filles du roi were from Paris,
Integration into New French society
Year | Arrivals[19] |
---|---|
1663 | 36 |
1664 | 1 |
1665 | 80–100 |
1666 | 0 |
1667 | 109 |
1668 | 80 |
1669 | 149 |
1670 | c. 165 |
1671 | 150 |
1672 | 0 |
1673 | 60 |
Total | 832–852 |
The women disembarked in
The marriage contracts represented a protection for the women, both in terms of financial security if anything were to happen to them or their husband, and in terms of having the liberty to annul the promise of marriage if the man they had chosen proved incompatible.[26] A substantial number of the filles du roi who arrived in New France between 1669 and 1671 cancelled marriage contracts; perhaps the dowry they had received made them disinclined to retain a fiancé with whom they found themselves dissatisfied.[27]
An early problem in recruitment was the women's adjustment to the new agricultural life. As Saint Marie de L'Incarnation wrote, the filles du roi were mostly town girls, and only a few knew how to do manual farm work. This problem remained but, in later years, more rural girls were recruited.[citation needed]
There were approximately 300 recruits who did not marry in New France. Some had a change of heart before embarking from the ports of Normandy and never left, while some died on the journey. Others returned to France to marry, and a few remained single.
Integration in Ville-Marie
Prior to the King's Daughters, the women who immigrated to Ville-Marie, otherwise known as Montreal, had been recruited by the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal founded in 1641 in Paris.[28] Amongst these women were Jeanne Mance and Marguerite Bourgeoys.[29] When the first filles du roi arrived in Montreal, they were taken in by Bourgeoys.[30] Initially, there were no comfortable lodgings to receive them, but in 1668 Bourgeoys procured the Maison Saint-Gabriel, a large farmhouse in which to house them.[31]
End of recruitment and growth of the settlement
The program was a resounding success. It was reported that in 1670, most of the girls who had arrived the previous year, 1669, were already pregnant and by 1671, a total of nearly 700 children were born to the filles du roi. The colony was expected to gain population self-sufficiency soon afterward.[32]
By the end of 1671, Talon suggested that it would not be necessary to sponsor the passage of girls for the next year, and the king accepted his advice.[19] The migration briefly resumed in 1673, when the king sent 60 more girls at the request of Buade de Frontenac, the new governor, but that was the last under the Crown's sponsorship.[19] Of the approximately 835 marriages of immigrants in the colony during this period, 774 included a fille du roi.[33] By 1672, the population of New France had risen to 6,700, from 3,200 in 1663.[33]
Rumors and legends
The idea that the filles du roi were prostitutes has been a rumor ever since the inception of the program in the 17th century. It seems to have arisen from a couple of misconceptions, both contemporary and modern, about immigration to French colonies in the New World. The first of these, which took root long before the first fille du roi emigrated, was that Canada was a penal colony. While there were two campaigns in the mid-17th century that involved the immigration of French criminals to Canada in exchange for their records being expunged, they were both short-lived. These programs resulted in little more than setting a precedent for viewing Canada as a place where those "of questionable morality" could be sent for one reason or another.[34]
The popularization of the idea that the filles du roi in particular were prostitutes can be traced to an account by the
Out of nearly 800 filles du roi, only one, Catherine Guichelin, was charged with
The ships carrying the filles du roi would travel up the
Notable descendants
- Saint André Bessette, descendant of fille du roi Anne Le Seigneur.[40]
- Hillary Clinton, descendant of filles du roi Madeleine Niel[41][42] and Jeanne Ducorps dite Leduc.[41]
- Angelina Jolie, descendant of fille du roi Denise Colin.[43]
- Hall of Fame ice hockey player Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion was a direct descendant of Marie Priault, a King's Daughter. She married Pierre Joffrion, a farmer and former grenadier from the Carignan-Salières Regiment, shortly after her arrival in 1669.[46]
- Louis Coutlée, one of the descendants of Catherine Guichelin, became a founding father of Anglo-American War of 1812 with his father.[47])
- Coutlée's son, Dominique-Amable Coutlée, served as a member of Parliament in Canada.[48][49]
- Who Do You Think You Are?
- Chloë Sevigny, descendant of fille du roi Marguerite Lamain, as revealed on the PBS series Finding Your Roots[50]
- Andrée Champagne, descendant of fille du roi Marguerite Samson and husband Jean Beaugrand dit Champagne.
- Rodolphe Girard , descendant of fille du roi Isabelle Aupe and husband Pierre Lavoie.
See also
Notes
- ^ Lanctot 1952, pp. 9, 102.
- ^ Gagné, Peter J. (2002). Before the King's Daughters The Filles à Marier, 1634-1662. Quintin Publications.
- OCLC 54971866.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 19.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 20.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 21.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 44.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 33.
- ^ Landry 1992, pp. 73–74.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 75.
- ^ Lanctot 1952, p. 212.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 54.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 108.
- ^ Landry 1992, pp. 57–58.
- ISBN 9781851094110.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 51.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 68.
- ^ Lanctot 1952, pp. 22, 103, 115, 117, 126.
- ^ ISBN 9782762118681.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 131.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 145.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 146.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 140.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 149.
- ^ Landry, Yves (1992). Orphelines en France pionnières au Canada: Les filles du roi au XVIIe siècle. Montreal: Leméac Éditeur Inc.[page needed]
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 150.
- ^ Landry 1992, p. 152.
- ^ Beaudoin & Sévigny 1996, p. 8.
- ^ Beaudoin & Sévigny 1996, p. 12.
- ^ Beaudoin & Sévigny 1996, p. 60.
- ^ Beaudoin & Sévigny 1996, p. 61.
- ^ Juliana L’Heureux, "Les Filles du Roi", Portland (Maine) Press Herald, March 19, 1998.
- ^ a b "Le peuplement d'un pays". Musée de la civilisation. 1998. Archived from the original on November 1, 2013. Retrieved March 21, 2012.
- ^ Lanctot 1952, pp. 20.
- ^ a b "King's Daughters, Casket Girls, Prostitutes". Library of Congress Global Gateway. Retrieved 2 November 2007.
- ^ Lanctot 1952, pp. 159.
- ^ Lanctot 1952, pp. 25, 33, 192, 195.
- ^ Les Filles du Roy, Section 3 Archived April 28, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Bachand, Pat. "Filles du Roi" (PDF). Our Family Heritage. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 5, 2021. Retrieved September 18, 2016.
- ^ "Frère André - Alfred Bessette, 1845 - 1936".
- ^ a b "Hillary Rodham Clinton's French-Canadian Ancestry" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 23, 2012.
- ^ "SFRSC-King's Daughters". 2021. Retrieved September 11, 2021.
- ^ "Ascendance d'Angelina Jolie".
- ^ "Madonna and Lady Gaga" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on November 3, 2013. Retrieved March 31, 2013.
- ^ "Ancestry of Madonna". Perche-Quebec.com. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
- ^ Geoffrion Family Genealogy
- ^ Irving, L. Homfray (1908). Officers of the British Forces in Canada during the War of 1812-15. Welland Tribune Print.
{{cite book}}
:|work=
ignored (help) - ^ "Bytown or Bust". Archived from the original on 2010-09-18. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
- ^ Généalogie du Québec
- ^ "Season 5, Episode 8: Hard Times". PBS Finding Your Roots. February 26, 2019. Retrieved March 5, 2019.
References
- Beaudoin, Marie-Louise; Sévigny, Jeannine (1996). "Les premières et les filles du roi à Ville-Marie". Montreal: Maison Saint-Gabriel.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) - Lanctot, Gustave (1952). "Filles de joie ou filles du roi". Montreal: Les Éditions Chantecler Ltée.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) - Landry, Yves (1992). "Orphelines en France pionnières au Canada: Les filles du roi au XVIIe siècle". Montreal: Leméac Éditeur Inc.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help)
Further reading
- King's Daughters and Founding Mothers: The Filles du Roi, 1663-1673, Peter J. Gagné, 2 volumes, Quintin, 2000
- King's Daughters, The, Joy Reisinger and Elmer Courteau (Sparta, 1988)
- Alone in an Untamed Land: The Filles du Roi Diary of Hélène St.Onge, Maxine Trottier (fiction)
- Bride of New France, Suzanne Desrochers (fiction)
- Promised to the Crown, Aimie K. Runyan, Kensington Publishing Corp. (fiction)
- Duty to the Crown, Aimie K. Runyan, Kensington Publishing Corp. (fiction)
External links
- La Société des Filles du roi et soldats du Carignan: Organization for the descendants of the Daughters
- "A list of the Daughters and their husbands, Andre Therriault". Archived from the original on 2010-04-14.
- The documentary, The Scattering of Seeds: the Creation of Canada
- The Kings Daughters by Thomas J. Laforest[permanent dead link], first published in Heritage Quest, issue #22 May/June 1989.
- Silvio Dumas (1972). "Les filles du Roi en Nouvelle-France, étude historique avec répertoire biographique". Québec, Québec: Société historique de Québec.
- A list of the King's Daughters compiled by the Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH)