Olivier de la Beauregard

Olivier de la Beauregard

a novel

by

Lionel Lizee

Published by Lionel Lizee at Smashwords

copyright 2012 Lionel Lizee

ISBN 978-0-9881674-0-7

http://www.lionlizee.com

gtl10n@wordpress.com

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my ancestors , the central characters, Jacque Beadoin and Françoise Durand (Durant), who were known to me only by the dates and place of their birth, marriage and death. When I first met them, I wanted to know what environment they survived in, and, the reasons for their actions. What they told me, or, what I conjured was at once more satisfying and interesting than the bland statements found in the notations of history. I so enjoyed meeting them and listening to their stories that I had to share the parts of their lives that no one could substantiate.

Disclaimer

This is a book of fiction based on some elements of the past. Many of the names of the characters in this book do not represent in any fashion the ancestors of any present day living persons. Some characters are historically significant, but again, whether their involvement as described here occurred is a matter of my conjecture. What is meant by this work is to describe with a good plot the kind of things that could have occurred, and, the reasons for it. It is meant to make the past enjoyable and pleasant reading.

Particular Appreciation

There are many sources of inspiration, and many individuals who have assisted in the development of this novel. In particular I would single out Barbara Floyd who has expended considerable energy to edit and suggest improvements to the work. And my wife, Claire Lacasse, who made room in our joint lives for me to spend countless hours tapping away at the keyboard.

http://www.lionlizee.com

gtlion@wordpress.com

Table of Contents

Chapter One Broquemont, France 1669

Chapter Two The Voyage

Chapter Three Tawdoo sake

Chapter Four Quebec City

Chapter Five Ville Marie Mid August 1669

Chapter Six Auhaïtsic

Chapter Seven Rue de La Carnardière

Chapter Eight December 24, 1669

Chapter Nine New Year’s Eve

Chapter Ten Return to Ile d’Orlean

Chapter Eleven All the King’s Men

Chapter Twelve Matrimonial Bliss

Chapter Thirteen The Three Pierres

Chapter Fourteen Harvest

Chapter Fifteen June 1708

Epilogue

Part One

Françoise

Chapter One Broquemont, France 1669

The heavy dew on the tall grasses that lined her path dampened the lower edges of her several ankle-length dresses she wore. It also dampened the lower portion of the heavy bundle of things she was carrying in one hand. It was early, very early. The darkness of night lingered everywhere. She could almost see the ocean, to her right, glassy dark, and, upon it in the far distance ahead of her, some darker chips, images of the sailing ships at anchor in the harbor at Dieppe. She wasn’t much concerned with the view. She had seen it often in her young life. She stomped along catching glimpses of thorn bushes which grabbed at her dress and bundle, hoping to tear the weak fabric into shreds, and, disrupt her plans. Yet she struggled this way and that to avoid them, in her rush.

She knew the dangers of the path she followed. Off to her right, a few meters, was the top of the cliffs which stretched from the small town of Dieppe northward far past the land her parents held as serfs of the seigneury. She strode with a determination and a sternness that was measured, calculated, yet forceful. Her bulky dresses pushed the growth on either side of her away. She was on a mission.

The desire to look over her shoulder to glance one last time at the lands and the stone house she had occupied since her birth was interrupted by a thorn bush grabbing at her bundle, threatening to tear the fragile cloth from which it was made. She would have yanked it free, but the threat of spilling its contents, and, destroying her voyage, forced her to take the time to free it, carefully, without tearing it. She again gazed at her destination, the port at Dieppe, feeling a bit of fear that her mother was stalking her, and, forcibly, if necessary, to take her back to the home ground, to spend the remainder of her days in the servitude of the Lord of the seigneury and her parents.

The bundle she carried contained a number of things she considered important to achieving her goal. It contained an an additional dress, blouse, stockings, cloths to absorb the curse, a spoon she had taken from the cupboard, a few 'livres', dried crusts of bread and a letter. An important letter.

Occasionally, with a sweaty nervousness she patted the bundle to feel the crinkle of the letter. The letter was by far the most important item for without it her plan could not be carried out at all. She could not read it for she was illiterate, but she knew, or believed, its contents almost by heart because the writer, the Parish Priest of Broquemont, had read it to her before folding it, and, sealing it with red wax and stamping it with his eccliastical ring. He had read these words to her, which were almost indelibly written inside her skull:

Captain:

The bearer of this letter is Françoise Durand, born of Pierre Durand and Noelle Asselin of the Parish of Broquemont in the year of lord sixteen hundred fifty-one. She is chaste and of good character and is recommended for transport to New France to marry an officer of the Carignan-Salières Regiment to whom she is betrothed.

Attested to this 20th day of April 1669.

Fr. Simon Lacroix

Again, she stopped momentarily to pat her bundle to reassure herself that it was still amongst her things. Feeling the crispness of the parchment, and, the sound of its stiffness beneath her young fingers renewed her resolve to accomplish what she had, this morning, begun.

She smiled to herself with satisfaction at what she had accomplished, so far, to achieve her goal. She recalled the discussion she had had with the good priest as it replayed itself again.

My child, it is not my practice to give this kind of a letter without the parent’s consent. He had emphatically placed his black sleeved elbow on the table, to couple his hands in prayer.

They stared at one another, she praying with her eyes for the letter.

Why do you want this letter? You need it to board the ship, don’t you? Have you been accepted by the King’s Minister, to go to New France?

She had begun to sob in his presence, dabbing her tears as ladylike as she knew how. The priest looked at her, thinking, to himself how ugly she was, how could she ever believe herself desirable enough to be one of the King’s girls to populate New France.

Father, I have been with a young man. He has promised to marry me. That was three years ago. His term of duty is complete. He said he would come back for me. He has not. I must find him.

And, are your parents aware of this, my Child? He was turning away from her in a dismissal sort of way, pushing the parchment away from the both of them.

He continued, We cannot always have what we want in this life. We must accept the will of God. Go back to your parents. I shall say nothing about our visit here this morning.

She bit her lip, now, glaring at him. Meekly she had uttered to him, leaning slightly over the table towards him, Father, I shan’t say anything about what you done to Caroline. She told me everything. Would you like me to give you the details you already know about? Are you not sworn to celibacy? She felt stronger.

He glared at her, considering whether he should dismiss her, or, give her the letter. It was a standoff. Both waited for the other to make a move. Their breaths were audible. Both stared at the parchment on the table. His bulbous nose reddened, as did his ears above his white roman collar. Slowly his hand reached for the parchment.

My parents will never allow me to marry. I overheard them say that during the silence of the night many times in the past. They believe that I am too ugly to marry, and, they want someone to look after them in their old age - an only child am I. There is no other to keep them. Father, I am so ugly. He loves me. There will never be another.

The priest already knew that Françoise was an only child. The priest had exhaled loudly through his nose casting the smell of tobacco about her.

Again, in a barely audible voice, while staring at her clasped hands, she sighed, And Father, I know about you.

In a stoned silence, he looked at the teenager sitting before him, somehow stifling the embarrassment he felt. The silence broke as he reached for the quill and dipped it in the ink pot.

The priest’s feet shuffled lightly, as he stirred his hand to reach across the table for the parchment on the table. His quill pen screeched out the letter. Without a word, he huffed upon it to hasten the drying process, folded it and softened the wax over the candle, smudging it across the fold, and sealing it with his ring.

He cautioned her in a quiet, but deep voice, not to show the letter to anyone but the ship`s captain, and, not to tell anyone that he had given this reference. As she stood up to leave, he had muttered that he would never admit to having given the letter.

A frigidness shivered through her as she caught sight, with her one good eye, more clearly now, of the several tall masted ships with their sails rolled up like muscles on a sailor’s arm. She was in fear of how she might locate her ship, and, in fear of seeing her parents, or either of them at the wharf to impede her plans. Tugging the edges of the old yellowed cloak she wore for warmth, she wondered what her father would say when he could no longer find his cloak. It was a bit long for her, the cuffs, torn and worn, reaching down past her knees. While she thought she might look odd in it, she knew it would keep her warm. She could imagine her mother, overbearing and bossy as she was, ordering her back to the farmhouse to gather the eggs, water the cow, and, tend to the chickens, before entering the long rows of potatoes, leeks, and carrots that stretched from the farmhouse to the cliff’s edge. Weed-picking, hilling the potatoes whose leaves had already begun to appear with a heavy awkward wooden hoe constructed from a root of a tree. Almost daily, she worked her way from the farmhouse to the cliff. The cliff, for her, had been a reward for the toil of getting there. She would sit on a huge boulder, or, an outcropping, and enjoy the view of the infinity of water that spread forever before her; sometimes almost glassy, sometimes in a violent foment, sometimes blanketed by a sky so blue and sun so warm, sometimes wrapped in a comforter of clouds, sometimes decorated with sailing ships with sails billowing and seagulls circling like a halo.

Until she had met Olivier, she had never considered the ocean as anything but part of the scenery. She had never regarded it with the fear and the awe it now held for her now, now that she had to cross it to be with her lover. It had become both an attraction to her and a source of wonder. A lonely feeling developed as she felt she had no other option but to face this fear, to enjoy the attraction, to think about the happiness she would share with him. It had become one of the greatest challenges she had encountered in her life to this moment. The blockade to her desires. The ocean.

The sun was warming up to the day, and, she was beginning to feel heavy with clothes. The several dresses she wore protected her from the heat that was enveloping her, but the moist weight of the woolen apparel was sapping her energy. The town or port of Dieppe was just over the edge of the cliff, still a considerable walk away as she followed the path along the crevice downward, joining midway with the road that brought many people and things to Dieppe where they would board the sailing ships. She caught her breath, holding onto it. She caught herself thinking that it was the ocean and the cliff, also, that had given her the companionship she had never known before in her short life. It had introduced her to Olivier de la Beauregard.

She renewed the strength of her steps as she saw him in her mind’s eye, slightly taller than her, adorned with muscular biceps protruding proudly from his short sleeved shirt, a bright, angular face with apple red splotches underlined with the first traces of a moustache accenting his upper lip, lips which she had tasted. A warmth had grown within her, her good eye slid reluctantly shut as her lips opened to accept his tongue. It was a dream, a recollection, a reality in the mind. The other eye, the left one, saw nothing, the pupil always drooping down, showing a bit of the iris at the bottom of the white orb.

Her countenance revealed the faintest resemblance of a smile, but crooked smile. The smile disappeared as she heard in her mind her mother saying how her face was a conjunction of her parents. She would say that one eye came from her father, the other from her mother, and that they would never become co-ordinated. The nose began strong like that of her father, but faltered to a small nob like her mothers. The excessive upper lip was her fathers’ and the weak lower lip and chin bore resemblance to her mother. One ear was large and higher on the head than the other. The smile had brought back all of these memories.

The smirk or smile, returned as her mind slid back to him. She could never, nor would ever forget the day she met Olivier de la Beauregard. That day, like so many others, she was sitting on the edge of the cliff after having worked her way there along the long rows of legumes, staring over the ocean wondering about the beauty of the scene, the serenity of the ocean, the light breeze that seemed to sweep up the cliffs to ruffle her hair, when she was distracted by a voice far below her. She leaned cautiously over the cliff’s edge to see a boy, a man, someone, on the bench of land below waving his arms at her, and, shouting something. She could not make it out because of the breeze and the sound of the waves. But, even so, so far away and indistinct, this form had moved something inside of her. She watched with interest as he made his way toward Dieppe long the narrow bench of land, between the cliff base and the ocean, stopping occasionally to wait for the waves to retreat to permit him dry passage to the next patch of dry land. She had lost sight of him without ever considering she would see him again.



She was making careful steps in her descent down the narrow path that would join the road into the small village of Dieppe, avoiding the loose pebbles that could cause her to fall and perhaps injure herself, holding her long dress up and to the right to help her avoid them, while balancing her bundle with her left. She could feel her heart thumping beneath her breasts, and, sensed her hands in a cold sweat so that she frequently shunted the bundle from one hand to the other. She wanted to run down the embankment, through the town, to the wharf. She wanted this part of her plan to be over.

As she walked past the church she remembered the Priest’s sermon several weeks earlier in Broquement about the King’s wishes to populate the New France with stalwart members of the Catholic faith, the need for women to risk the passage and the hardships in the Nouvelle Province, and, who could marry soldiers and others, to have families and to populate a homogenous colony of France. King Louis XIV would provide a dowry for each women who was transported over at his expense, and, who married within three weeks of their arrival. The dowry was fifty livres, in addition to the seventy-five livres he paid for the transportation, for every union contracted and consumed, and, an additional fifty livres for a marriage with an officer of his Regiment.



As she neared the wharf, she saw scattered about, here and there on the wharf and on the shore, piles of trunks, bundles of things, in all manner of shapes and sizes. Men with bulging muscular bodies were hoisting these and putting them in the dories, and, in an irregular stream, the dories were paddled out to the ships in the harbor. The waves were shallow, the landward wind light and the morning sun had followed her down the slope into and through the town.

The grasp of her bundle, weakened, and, she felt lightheaded. She wiped her brow with the back of her arm, sighed as she made her way cautiously towards two sailors in the process of loading a dory with a heavy trunk.

Clearing her throat to gain their attention, she asked in a timid voice, Are any of these ships going to New France?

In a deep basso voice, with a half of a chuckle, he looked up at her as he replied, Most o’em, Miss.

She was aware the sailor had a Dutch accent. It startled her. Looking about her, she asked, Where do I go to board a ship bound for New France?

Well, miss, you presents yore credenshals to de Captain, and he dezids if he vill take you..

Where is the Captain? she asked she almost whispered.

Mos’ o’ dem Captains spend derr time at de counting house o’r der nodding his bushy haired head in the direction of the buildings on the shoreline.

As she turned and began to walk in the direction the sailors had told her, the breeze delivered the conversation of the two sailors. They were saying something like, the King was selecting the uglier ones for his colonies these days, or was return passage guaranteed for the hideous, and, one was asking the other if he had noticed how one of her eyes was always looking down, while the other looked about. Françoise features flushed with shame. She knew she was not pretty, but had not been told she was ugly. Her mother repeated it any number of times over the years that Françoise was not pretty enough to marry. She predicted that her only child would be an old maid.

Just as well, her mother would say in her bed with her father in the single roomed house, We need her to look after us in our old age. She works well, helps me pull the plough. She weeds well, hills the potatoes, and, seems happy enough to stare at the sea to rest.

But hearing the sailors say these things was a dagger in her heart. He shoulders slumped forward, and, her chin fell to her bosom. Olivier had never, not even once, said she was ugly, nor, even, that she was not pretty. He accepted her the way she was. What a wonderful feeling that was for her. They talked of many things, their dreams, the flowers, the scenery, their accomplishments. He gloated about his future in the King’s new regiment.



Several days after he had waved at her from the base of the cliff, she had seen him sitting on her rock outcropping at the end of the field mesmerized by the ocean view. She quietly approached him, and, when a few meters distant, she said something, something she could not recall exactly, something like What sailor have we here? He had turned abruptly, his eyes widening in a flash, and, almost with fear. He stood up as quickly, The young girl who waves from on high! He stood as if holding his ground against a foe. They stared at one another for a few