Meet your great-grandparents, Louis and Marie!

Louis Gaston Hébert (pronounced ay-bare) was the 8th great-grandfather of Thomas Joseph Vallier, who was the father of Edmund Joseph Vallier.  The plaque shown below honoring the first residents of Quebec City, New France, has Louis and his wife Marie Rollet listed as the first of these European settlers.

Louis Hébert was born in 1575 at “no. 129 de la rue Saint-Honoré“, St-Germain-L’Auxerrois, in the Île de France, Paris, France.  He married Marie Rollet in 1602 in Saint-Sulpice, Faubourg Saint-Germain-des-Près, Paris, France.  Louis was an apothecary in Paris, taking after his father.  

Louis’ parents were Nicholas Hébert and Jacqueline Pajot.  Jacqueline Pajot died on July 15, 1580, as a result of a fall, and not long after, apothecary Nicholas Hébert married Marie Auvry. Nicolas was physician to Queen Catherine de Medici, (1519-89), Queen of France (1547-59).  The Pajot family turned against Nicolas and his new wife, accusing them before the provost of Paris of owing them money and objects from Jacqueline’s estate.  They settled out of court and some of his goods were seized.  This added to his strapped financial situation and he was near bankruptcy.

Nicolas had to borrow heavily.  He was taken to court and forced to sell his remaining shares in Mortier d’or, his house near the Louvre in Paris, France.  He wasn’t able to meet his commitments when the sale wasn’t enough to pay his debts and he was sent to prison for two years . 

Because he was still considered a member of the upper class, his family had to pay for his keep.  By the time of his release he was very ill.  His second wife Marie had passed away so he left Paris and settled in Saint-Germain, marrying for a third time to Renée Savoreau.

The last record of Nicolas’ life was on January 8, 1600, when he conducted a transaction for a tennis court.  His hand was shaky and his signature incomplete.  There is no record of his death, as there was no will, and he died penniless and without property.  Therefore, his son, Louis Gaston Hébert, had no inheritance and had to make his own way.

The niece of Nicolas Hébert’s second wife (Marie Claude Pajot) married Jean de Biencourt de Poutrincourt, in 1590.  This relationship would explain Louis Hébert’s interest in the early settlements in Acadia and his presence in Du Gua de Monts’s expedition.

In the summer of 1606 Louis Gaston Hébert sailed with Champlain and Poutrincourt along the coast from Port Royal (Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia) to the southwest, seeking other sites suitable for settlement.  Jean Poutrincourt and Louis Hébert were so attracted by what is now Gloucester, Massachusetts, that they planted a clearing there to test the soil’s fertility.  He had a lifetime love of plants and herbal medicines.

In 1617 Louis and his wife Marie Rollet brought their family to New France and settled in the new Quebec City.  Marie was a midwife and she is credited with bringing the first French-Canadian lives into the world.  Louis was the only medical professional in New France at the time and was very highly regarded in the colony.  Almost eerily, he slipped and fell (just like his mother) on the ice in 1627 and later died of an infection.

There was a monument erected in their honor in a park in Quebec City, and there have even been Canadian stamps made in his honor.

You can find out more about him on Wikipedia.  Going to Quebec?  The monument carved by Alfred Laliberté is in Montmorency Park behind the Notre-Dame de Québec Basilica next to the Côte de la Montagne, about 300 meters north of Château Frontenac.  Louis Hébert had his concession of about 30 acres in this part of the upper town.  The monument is not there to mark the place of his burial but to honor the memory of the first settlers in the city of Quebec.

Our Quebec City Pioneer Ancestors

Of all the people listed on the plaque, we are directly descended from the people listed below, and many more on the plaque are our cousins, aunts, and uncles.  Links go to biographies about them from different sources.

• Louis Hébert and Marie Rollet
• Zacharie Cloutier, Sr, and his wife Xainte (Sainte) Dupont
• Abraham Martin (and here and here and here) and Marguerite Langlois (and here)
• Noel Langlois and Francoise Garnier
• Robert Druin (and here and here) and Anne Cloutier
• Robert Caron (and here) and Marie Crevet (and here)

Coming up next: Who were your ancestors, the Filles du Roi and Filles au Marier?