“I had goosebumps when I realized that these were documents from Jeanne Mance,” says Paul Labonne, the general director of the Musée des Hospitalières at the Hôtel-Dieu in Montreal. “This is huge news. We have before us, with these documents, an almost unpublished portrait of Montreal in 1650. At that time, the Hôtel-Dieu was barricaded. […] Iroquois attacks were numerous. The chapel is used as an artillery store. »
Jeanne Mance takes refuge in a fort. At the windows of the attics, to resist the numerous and repeated attacks, she says, we placed at least two swivel guns, an arm cannon mounted on a tripod, more or less the equivalent of today’s bazooka. On the ground floor are placed two cannons. Loopholes are drilled everywhere to allow shooting. The establishment of Montreal is not happening calmly and gently.
Paul Labonne had these rare documents in hand for the first time last spring.
Everyone repeated that these original documents about the founding of Montreal had burned in the fire at the Hôtel-Dieu, that there was practically nothing left. “But no one understood that the documents were sent to Quebec when Jeanne Mance died, according to her wishes. » The documents were still there, more or less well classified, and therefore invisible unless you paid attention.
“The documents were not identified with Jeanne Mance,” explains Paul Labonne, even if they come from the papers left at her death according to her wishes.
In a letter several pages long, Jeanne Mance explains the reasons which led her to give the sum of 22,000 pounds, the equivalent of approximately $700,000 today, to Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve. It was necessary to recruit around a hundred settlers in France to help establish this religious project that was Montreal, she explains in this document.
Jeanne Mance writes that she had to invest this money in order to “save a country where God would infallibly be greatly honored, by removing an infinite number of souls from the darkness of infidelity in which they were”. His particular relationship to the indigenous world appears clearly in this text. She considers the Iroquois as “barbarians”, “insolent furies”. It’s the war.
In fact, this letter written by Jeanne Mance had already been spotted in 1953 by her biographer, the historian Marie-Claire Daveluy. But for lack of having been exploited, it had, so to speak, fallen back into oblivion. In fact, “this was always the summary given [François] Dollier de Casson in his history of Montreal which was cited. Never the original. He was deemed lost. Because the hospital had burned down. »And yet here it is, this original finally found…
Among the papers found, there are also a dozen contracts attesting to the engagement, in 1644, of French peasants and artisans by Jérôme Le Royer de La Dauversière, attorney for the Society of Notre-Dame de Montréal, so that They are heading towards the New World. “We clearly understand for the first time,” explains Paul Labonne, “that it is Maisonneuve who sets out in search of settlers,” thanks to a document dating from around 1665. And it is clearly indicated that Montreal will be abandoned if a number sufficient settlers are not found.
Investigation
A new examination of the rich archives of the Musée de la civilization in Quebec has brought to light important documents in the handwriting of Jeanne Mance. The co-founder of Montreal, as she is now known, had bequeathed to Ms.gr François de Laval, founder of the Seminary of Quebec and first bishop of Quebec, all of his papers.
Where had these papers gone, all these papers that she said she was giving him on condition that he was willing to “pray to God” for the rest of his soul?
The general director of the Musée des Hospitalières de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, Paul Labonne, asked himself this, with the archivist Peter Gagné of the Musée de la civilization, at the time of the 350e anniversary of the death of Jeanne Mance. A new exhibition dedicated to this determined mysticism was in preparation. Celebrations around Jeanne Mance take place until June 2024.
Some documents found bear the classification letter affixed by the notaries at the time of the inventory of Jeanne Mance’s property after her death. Which confirms the origin of the documents and their authenticity. “The ratings are behind the documents. They were affixed on June 19 and 20, 1673, after the death of Jeanne Mance, after her death at the Hôtel-Dieu. »
Archives directly linked to the co-founder of Montreal are very rare. The Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, run by Jeanne Mance from 1642, suffered three terrible and devastating fires, in 1695, in 1721 and in 1734. The latter decimated a considerable part of the hospital’s archives. For a long time, it was considered that almost all of his papers were lost.
A discovery like this is important, because it can encourage new perspectives on the origins of Montreal.
It is above all stimulating, affirms Paul Labonne, to the extent that it allows us to open “new avenues of research which will enrich our collective memory”.
Jeanne Mance’s correspondence is deemed lost. For a long time, only a few very rare written traces were known from his hand, including a “memoir of wood”, a simple letter which gives an account of his borrowing of materials for the construction of his Hôtel-Dieu. This rediscovery of old documents gives new impetus to the idea that we can have of our action.
Born in 1606 in Langres, France, she died in 1673 in Montreal (Ville-Marie). Jeanne Mance is considered one of the most important pioneers of New France. How many newborns will receive the first name Jeanne-Mance, after the celebrations of Montreal’s tercentenary in 1942, in homage to the importance given to her in the telling of the history of this colony?