Tragic Odyssey of Louis Morin

The Tragic Odyssey of Louis Morin
Moran Family Tree

The tragic odyssey of Louis Morin, the son of Francoise and Pierre Morin, which we are told of in the 腷 volume (1688) of our Reports (p.101 ss.) Part of the texts concerning " Morin d' Acadie", concerning the banishment and the confiscation of their properties. The family " Morin" was related to a large part of the population of Beaubassin. It is the history of Louis Morin, the son of Pierre Morin I. He was also the brother of Pierre Morin II, husband of Francoise Chiasson.

Marriage certificate of Francoise Chiasson daughter of Guyon Denis Chiasson recorded in Beaubassin, November 8, 1682:

This day, in the vault of Our-Lady of Good Help of Beaubassin, Pierre Morin, son of Pierre Morin dit Boucher and of Marie Martin, linked his intended to Francoise Chiasson, daughter of Guyon Denis Chiasson and Jeanne Bernard. If no document testifies that Pierre Morin dit Boucher was of Normandy, we know various sources that link him with Port-Royal, about 1661, under the English occupation, and that his wife, Marie Martin, was Acadian of birth. We know, moreover by the censuses and the acts of catholicity, that this couple had at least 9 sons and 3 girls, including two, Pierre and Marie, were actually married and each had two children. It is thus well this family " making three inhabitants ", as is expressed Sr of Fronsac, which, in spring of 1688, came to shelter in the shade of its house and its warehouse, to some steps of the micmacque mission.

To the remainder, if there remained some doubts about the identity of this group of 19 people with the family of Pierre Morin dit Boucher, two texts will raise them and will tell us at the same time why these people left Beaubassin. First is of Mr. de Menneval, the second of Mathieu Of Goutins, respectively governor and general lieutenant in Acadie.

"I was obliged," writes Mr. de Menneval, governor with the Minister, "to ship to France on the 'Fripone', a young boy named Louis Morin 26 years old, son of an inhabitant of Chignitou (Beaubassin). He had deserved a harder punishment for the things of which he was marked. This business looked at a considerable family, which was satisfied with this punishment, Because we did not have law officers here, we could not continue punishment by the ordinary forms, and to do it in Quebec was not possible. I believe that the Court will approve my control. He will make a good sailor in France where he will be able to serve Roy well, and it was dangerous to leave him in this country. "

These rather vague data are specified in another " Memory " emanating of Of Goutins:
The son of an inhabitant of Beaubassin, named Louis Morin, have make a child with a young lady known to this place. Monsieur Trouve, priest, hears the witness, and concludes against the known as Morin. The officer of Roy imprisons him. Enforced by Mr. de Meneval, governor of Acadie, that Pierre Morin, father and his close relations: Pierre Morin; sons, Jacques Cochu and Rene Deneau; his sons-in-law, Pierre Draper; his brothers-in-law, Pierre Gaudin and Pierre Pellerin; his nephews, Jean Chiasson and Michel Chiasson; brothers-in-law of Pierre Morin son, etc. be banish from Beaubassin and the colony. The goods of these families were confiscated with the profit going to the father of the young lady, without any formality of justice. The colony lost 19 people who are included in this banishment what returned the sior so odious Trouv� to the inhabitants of Beaubassin that they obliged it to give up the cure. It wanted to be withdrawn with the mines but the inhabitants did not want to receive it, this business caused a great deal of disorder, these nineteen people being related with the third of the colony and it was obliged to come to the Royal one, or the authority of Mister de Menneval choked all the complaints against the sior Trouv�.

As we found the Morin family at the bay of Chaleurs in the spring of 1688, it is probably during the previous winter that in Beaubassin the scandal burst with the reports of Mr. de Menneval, governor, and Mathieu Of Goutins, general lieutenant in Acadie, deliver the echoes to us.

Morin were considered between all. When Mr. de Meule, intendant of News-France, had made his round in Acadie, he had wanted to honor Pierre Morin, father, by holding on the baptismal funds the last of his sons, on which he imposed his own first name: Jacques (reg. of Beaubassin, March 2, 1686). Of Goutins does not exaggerate anything when it estimates that a third of the population of Beaubassin was banished. Allies of Morin were: the Draper, Pellerin, Chiasson-Lavall嶪 and Cochu. They formed, indeed, a manpower of 44 people out of 129, at the time of the census of 1686. They were, with the surplus, contented farmers. The same census registered with Pierre Morin, father, 15 animals with horns, 8 sheep, 12 pigs and 30 arpents in value.

Comment:
Pierre Morin, son of Pierre Moran, husband of Francoise Chiasson had, after 4 years of marriage 14 animals with horns, 6 sheep, 8 pigs and six arpents in value.
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In 1867, three of the 12 known children of Pierre Morin, father, were established; Pierre, city higher with Francoise Chiasson, daughter of Guyon Denis Chiasson, Marie, who had married Pierre Cochu, and Anne, recently married to Rene Deneau. Louis the elder, remained unmarried, for this reason, perhaps it had granted a little too much independence. Gracious in its relations, he had made the long voyage of Beaubassin in Quebec to attend the second marriage of Guyon Denis Chiasson with Marie-madeleine Martin, the father-in-law of Pierre Morin, his elder. The fact that Mr. de Menneval recommends him to the king as a " good sailor " classifies him in an extremely tasted profession with Beaubassin and in the Morin family in particular. Cochu was a navigator and a younger brother of Louis, Jacques-Fran蔞is Morin, will announce later as commander of the corsair the Misleading one. Furthermore, nothing gives rise to think that Louis Morin was a good-for-nothing. De Menneval does not fear to advance, on the contrary, that he will be able " to serve the king well ".

The two " Memories " which inform us that Louis Morin respectfully keeps silence the name of its accomplice. Admittedly, the family which " was satisfied " with the exiles abroad for the culprit and -- what of Menneval conceals carefully, -- banishment of the father, the brother and the two brothers-in-law, after having allocated to their "considerable" goods. The term " young lady " reserved, at the time, with the nobility, confirms our conclusion. Of the four girls of the lord of Beaubassin, only one, Marie-Joseph, baptized with the Three-Rivers on April 19 1671, was of age to have adventures. She appears to have been very intimate with the family of Pierre Morin, father. She appears as godmother of the two youngest children, of Simon-Joseph, January 8 1685, in company of Simon-Pierre Denys de Bonaventure, then of Jacques, March 2 1686, with the intendant of Grinding stone. Nobody will doubt the spirit undertaking of this young lady who, at 18 years, April 23 1689, one year hardly after her tragedy idylle, was made concede by Denonville and Bochard de Champigny, the Chicabenacady River, in bay of the Mines, " to make establishments there and to treat with the savages".

Unhappy circumstances explain, the painful incident, which was reported. Marie-Joseph the youngest of nine was only a teenager when she lost her mother. Had this girl of Nicolas Denys, high in the wood of Acadie, been able to exert on his daughter a sufficient supervision? Moreover, in this fateful year of 1687, the father was with La Rochelle (to tie new a hymen?): it is Marie on June 1, in Saint-Barth幨幦i. Not moral backup either. The Father Claude Moireau serving Beaubassin, recalled this in Quebec, in May 1686.

Under the terms the l'abb� Trouv�, of which right was instituted it judges out of criminal matter? We do not see, and one more will be carried to blame the excessive zeal of this suspicion. Mr. de Menneval, who takes upon himself only the sentence of exile, affirms that there were not in Acadie any law officers, while Of Goutins supports the opposite. With the truth, there was with Port-Royal a skillful general lieutenant to make civil and criminal matter assessments. Nevertheless, wrongly or rightly, the practice had been to carry the causes to Quebec. Still complicating the situation, Michel Boudrot, advanced administrator, had been replaced with lieutenancy by Mathieu Of Goutins, which could exert its functions only after being confirmed in its office by the Sovereign Council. This took place only on November 29 1688.
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He will not be without interest to take note of the sorrows which enacted the right of time against the offense which occupies us.

" In France, one pronounces against those which have sexual relations with the virgins. A crime subject to judgment and proportioned with the circumstances which accompanied it. " " If the girl gave up herself voluntarily with her corrupter and that its trade was followed of pregnancy, one pronounces against the author of the pregnancy only one judgment of damages, which is more or less considerable, according to the quality and the fortune of the parts. One condemns, moreover, that which made the child be taken care some, to make it nourish and raise in the catholic religion...

" Prison, confiscation, and banishment: all that exceeded in an obvious way the legislation of the time."

There is no doubt that the Morin family would have faired better if they would have taken their case to Quebec, where Governor Menneval would have had no say in the matter: it was even a current practice in Acadie. However, Morin, undoubtedly, did not make a point of going to spread out their miseries in the capital.

Courageously, while his son was inserted in the fogs of the ocean not to reappear any more, the old man Pierre Morin, with the help of his other children, tried to create a new establishment. Struck by a cruel injustice, they saw emerging on all sides much sympathy and the offers of help. They came from the proper brother-in-law of Michel LeNeuf de Lavalliere, Richard Denys who to repair the wrongs of his family, installed the outlaws with Ristigouche, in bay of Chaleurs, near his own residence.
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The Morin family had to take refuge in Quebec after the death of Pierre Morin I, deceased into 1690 and of his benefactor, Richard Denys deceased in 1691, Here is born a son of Pierre Morin II and Francoise Chiasson, the child has as a godfather and godmother: Denis-Riverin, adviser with the Higher Council, and Louise Douaire de Bondy, wife of the Sr Pineau, middle-class merchant of Quebec. Then they are the concessions of strongholds and seigniories: with Mathieu Martin, brother-in-law of Pierre Morin, father, as of March 28 1689; with Rene Deneau, his son-in-law (1696); with Jacques Cochu, other of his sons-in-law (1697); with Marie Martin, his widow (1697); with Charles Morin, his son (1707).

All things considered, if a momentary shade could pass on the Morin family by failure of one of its members, -- and which many a little family doesn't count " a black sheep "? -- Let us recognize that, by its courage, its know-how, its standing, it reached a social standing that many noble families had been able to envy to him.
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Branch notices in " a feudal colony " that the population of Beaubassin had dropped instead of increasing, from 1686 to 1693, " because, I think , Mr. LeNeuf of Valli鋨e, having ceased living in this country, his family and those which followed him to Canada left there a vacuum of more than 20 people ". The fact is that the lord of Beaubassin was not in the best terms with his censitaires and that the execution of 1688 was not likely to raise its prestige. It is with the remainder, towards this date, that they ceased living in Acadie. Rare, however were those which followed him. The temporary forfeiture of this locality is due, in major part, at the beginning of Pierre Morin and his close relations: Pierre Morin II, Jacques Cochu and Rene Deneau, his sons-in-law, Pierre Draper, his brother-in-law, Pierre Gaudin and Pierre Pellerin, his nephews, Jean Chiasson and Michel Chiasson, brothers-in-law of Pierre Morin wire.
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A fault, to which they were foreign, tore off these families with their fatherland; but it saved them consequently great cataclysm, which, one half-century later, was to disseminate their Acadian brothers on all the coasts of the Atlantic.
Here we speak about the great disturbance, of the massive deportation of Acadians to Grand-Pre in 1755.

Further readings from L'anc皻re Guyon-Denis Chiasson

A pioneer of Acadie, Pierre Butcher, known as Butcher, born towards 1634, is originating in Coulonges-the-Royal, today Coulonges-on-the Autize, commune located at the north of Niort, in d廧artment of Two-Sevres, in Poitou. Pierre Morin is engaged with the Small rock on January 7 1642, by Charles of St-Etienne of the Tower, for the St-Jean river, at 26 years as saddler of trade. Certain genealogists says it rather originating in Martaiz�, in the department of Vienna or even originating in Normandy, possibly close to Granville in the district of Handle. Ploughman with Port-Royal, Pierre Morin, known as Butcher, wife in 1661, under l.occupation English, Marie Martin, native of Acadie in 1637, girl of Pierre Martin and Catherine Vigneau of Port-Royal. Pierre Morin is with Port-Royal, city as ploughman having 3 animals with horns, 4 ewes and 1 arpent of ground in culture, with the census of 1671. In 1680, it lives Beaubassin, a colony founded into 1672, it now has 15 animals with horn, 8 sheep, 12 pigs and 30 arpents in value. Banished of Beaubassin in painful circumstances, this family takes refuge at the village of the Micmacs Indians of Ristigouche, in the content of Bay of Heats, into 1688. It is Richard Denys, sior of Fronsac which l.installe on a territory that it concedes to him, with a house and warehouses. C.est at this place that Pierre Morin, known as Boucher is deceased towards 1690. Its widow is in Quebec, September 25, 1702 and dies on September 16, 1714

At least twelve children are born from this marriage. L.a螽� of wire of the couple, born in 1662, Pierre Morin, marries on November 8 1682, in Beaubassin, Francoise Chiasson, born towards 1668, girl of Guyon Chiasson, known as Lavall嶪 and of Jeanne Bernard. It follows the family of its father, in Ristigouche, into 1668 and exerts the trade of Master of launch, at least jusqu.en 1692. It lives then Quebec into 1694, then is fixed at Saint-Thomas de Montmagny, into 1697, in the seigniory of the River-of-South, where the sior Couillard de Lespinay grants a concession to him. With the census of 1699, to the Mount-Louis, he is a Master of launch. He is buried in Saint-Thomas de Montmagny, April 15, 1741. He is father of a family of eleven children, from of which l.a螽� s.appelle also Pierre Morin, born on December 23 1683, which becomes fishing with the census of 1700 and Marie on January 10, 1707, in Montmagny, with Marie-Francoise Boul�, girl of Jacques Boul� and Francoise Fournier. He is deceased suddenly in 1767, " Sunday of the jubilee in the morning, by holding a book of full song with the hand "