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Françoise Gosse
was the wife of Robert de la Berge.
She arrived in Québec in late April 1661 from Noyon
in Picardie,
about 55 miles north east of Paris. On 12 September 1661 she
married
Nicolas Durand. After Nicolas died
unexpectedly on 01 April 1663,
Françoise
Gosse (who had a 1 year old daughter) married Robert de la Berge on
28 May 1664.
Françoise Gosse dit Le Borgne - Robert's Wife
Les Filles à Marrier (1634 - 1663) A total of 262 women arrive.
Anne Boyer, was a Filles à Marrier
who came over in 1657, four years before Françoise
Gosse. She took the Le Taureau which we know was the boat
that Robert & Thomas took out of La Rochelle.
Before the French government
started
sending over Filles du Roi, the
Compagnie des Cent-Associés
recruited marriageable young girls to
start families with the many single men.
About 262
of such girls
were
sent over between 1634 and 1663. They would
sign a
marriage contract
and then be given a dowry and passage to New
France.
They could,
upon arrival and meeting their intended, refuse to marry
and be
sent
back to France. Like Anne Boyer, Françoise Gosse was a
Filles à Marrier.
Les Filles du Roi (1663 - 1678) A total of 768 women arrive.
Arrival of the Brides in 1667, by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale
Intendant
of Nouvelle France, Jean Talon, proposed to King
Louis XIV to sponsor
passage of 500 women named Les Filles du Roi
between 1663 and 1673.
It was recognized that the new country
was not growing because of the
lack of women.
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Robert de la Berge & Thomas Touchet arrived in
August, 1658 on the
Le Taureau from La Rochelle.
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Françoise Gosse arrived in late April, 1661. Four ships
arrived within
about a week of each other: The Le Taureau out of La Rochelle,
the La Marie, La Marguerite, and the Saint-Pierre out of Rouen.
Pierre-Lionel LaBerge believes that she took the Saint-Pierre
because
Noyon was close to Rouen and its captain was from nearby Amiens.
She could also have taken the Le Taureau out of La Rochelle which
was the boat Robert & Thomas took which Anne Boyer and other
Filles à Marrier took. |
French Merchant Ships at Anchor, c. 1670, Willem II van de Velde
In 1658, Robert de la Berge and Thomas Touchet, arrived on the Le
Taureau.
In March of 1665 the boat was sold to La Compagnie des Indes Orientales
and
in July of that year it arrived at Saint-Paul on Reunion Island off the
coast
of Madascar on the east coast of Africa.
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