The Former Percheron Emigration Museum - Tourouvre
Perche - France
Tourouvre Town Hall next door to the museum
The Museum
The key to the Museum was kept at the town hall. We waited a good 10 to 15 minutes before someone would come to open the museum for us. She asked the name of the Tourouvre ancestor we were interested in. When we told her Michelle Mabille and her son Jean, she produced copies of Michelle's original baptismal and marriage acts.
Copy of Michelle Mabille's baptismal act - 1592
Copy of Michelle Mabille's marriage act to Guillaume Pelletier - 1619
Inside the museum the first item we saw was the board that lists the names of Tourouvians who left from 1634 to 1651. It also indicates their date of birth, the name of their spouse, the area in New France where they ultimately settled, the number of children they had, and their date of death. The details concerning the reason for their departure is given below.
Board displaying Tourouvrians who emigrated to New France
Closeup of board at left showing Michèle and her son Jean
The Company of New France - La Compagnie des Cent-Associés
Cardinal Richelieu begins his rise to power in 1616. Politics at home in France keep
him from looking across the Atlantic to France's colonies until much later. Finally, in
1627, Richelieu organizes La Compagnie des Cent-Associés, the Company of New France,
with one hundred associates or partners, made up mainly of trade leaders. As organized,
the Company is to own and exploit the vast regions of New France. It is to have perpetual
monopoly of the fur trade and monopoly of all other trades for fifteen years. Two or
three hundred settlers are to be sent yearly from France to the new colony. The Company is to
support each new colonist for three years in return for his labor, and each settlement
is to have three priests.
The Company owns all the land and has the right to grant estates to "Seigneurs" under
the feudal laws of France. Many such grants are made, some to religious orders of priests
and nuns, mostly to lay Seigneurs who, it is hoped, will settle on their estates and
gather about them a community under feudal rule. One such grant is made to Robert Giffard,
a pharmacist from the Perche region. Giffard originally comes to Québec in 1621 on his own,
returning to France in 1628. Later that year, after getting married, he signs on with the
Company as Navy Surgeon and begins a voyage back to Québec. The English, however, seize
the ships, capture the passengers and bring them to England. After the 1632 Treaty of
St-Germain-en-Laye, France formalizes its peace with England which guarantees France's
rights in New France, and all prisoners are exchanged. Giffard returns to France.
In 1634, Giffard is named Seigneur of Beauport, just northeast of Québec City on the St-Lawrence River, across from the Ile d'Orléans. Giffard recruits settlers from his own French Province of Perche. Among his associates and principal recruiters are the Juchereau brothers, Noël, Jean, and Pierre, from the town of Tourouvre in Perche. They are very active in their work for the Seigneur Giffard. Up to eighty families are recruited for New France from the Tourouvre area, among them Guillaume Pelletier, one of the major Pelletier ancestors, as well as the families of Gagnon, Giguère, Tremblay, and Cloutier.
Below is a recreation of the the room of the Hotel Cheval Blanc where the contract were signed. Below is a recreation of the room of the Hotel Cheval Blanc where the contracts were signed. To the right is a photo of a painting of the Cristerie, Guillaume Pelletier's home in Bresollettes, painted by Jacqueline Pelletier-Gaudet, who now lives in the house with her husband André.
Recreation of the Cheval Blanc "signing room"
Photo of Cristerie painting by Jacqueline Pelletier-Gaudet
UPDATE
A newer and much larger museum opened in late September 2006. To see links to the new museum and to Torouvre, click here
