Talk:Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac

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"He also borrowed the latter's coat of arms that he had seen on the gates of the Bardigues estate near St. Nicolas. It is a variation on that coat of arms that has graced the Cadillac automobile for close to 100 years."

Surely the car company's version is the variation on the French original.
—wwoods 02:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

An anonymous user just changed all instances of Mothe to Mothé with out explanation or citation. I am reverting that change. That it was anonymous and unexplained makes many a change suspect. Additionally, I cannot find any reference to "Mothé" with the diacritic. It doesn't appear on the French Wikipedia article, and and you'd think they know something about the proper use of those marks. In the book The Time of the French in the Heart of North America 1673-1818 (3rd ed.) by French scholar Charles Balesi the name is given as "Antoine de Lamothe Cadillac" without the diacritic, and also "La Mothe-Cadillac", likewise unadorned. Other names are given with "é" and "è" by the same author. I admit that I don't know the first thing about the difference between "é", "è", "ê", etc. But I'm reverting based on all the above. --Kbh3^rdtalk 02:38, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the clause stating that Cadillac discovered the straits between Lakes Huron and Erie in 1695. The first European through the straits was Adrien Joliet in 1669. See, Dunbar and May, Michigan: A History of the Wolverine State, p. 32. RedJ 17 (talk) 16:11, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am interested in thoughts on whether it is correct to refer to the subject using the falsely-assumed titles of nobility, "de la Mothe" and "sieur de Cadillac". Maybe I have the terminology wrong, but the "de" and "sieur de (sire of)" are associated with nobility, right? A person should be referred to by whatever name they choose to use, but I don't believe that practice is supposed to extend to titles. It seems to me the name should be "Antoine Laumet". I can even understand accepting the "de"s. But "sieur" just looks incorrect to me. So maybe "Antoine Laumet de la Mothe de Cadillac". I got here from talk:Detroit.--Taquito1 (talk) 03:58, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

He was just Antoine Laumet, that 's correct, and he added de la Mothe according to an usuel tradition in the ancien régime. La Mothe is a common place-name and there is a la Mothe 30 km away from Saint-Nicolas-de-la-Grave where he was maybe born. I suppose he was really born at la Mothe, a very unsignificant hamlet or he owned a land there. Concerning sieur de, it does not mean sire of, but sir of, sire of is seigneur de. Sieur de was a regular title given in 17th and 18th to respectable men belonging to the upper class, like lawyers (the job of his father), sometimes they did buy a charge of nobility and were really ennobled, but not always. Your proposal Antoine Laumet de la Mothe de Cadillac would mean the opposite : he was a lord. De Cadillac may mean that he owned a place there or his father did. There is a Cadillac, now Cadillac-sur-Dordogne 160 km further north.Nortmannus (talk) 12:11, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the explanation. I started this discussion at

Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac) has an interesting note in the "Le Detroit" section: "his name was cleared in 1705, and the king guaranteed him all his titles". I wish that was sourced. It seems to say that the assumed titles could have been made legitimate at that point. In any case, perhaps it is all a moot point...the simple fact of long practice gives its own sort of legitimacy.--Taquito1 (talk) 01:39, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply

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