Part 5
Isabelle Couc / Madame Montour
and two of her husbands
Joachim Germaneau & Pierre Tichenet
Suzanne Boivin Sommerville
When I have spoken about Madame Montour in the last few years, I have frequently been asked after presenting her story: "How many times was she married?" My reply has been: once to a Frenchman; once to a French-Canadian; and once to an Oneida sachem. Only the marriage contract for the marriage to the Frenchman survives, with proof for the next two marriages from testimony found in more than one primary document. The allegations made by Cadillac in one document and the presumptions made by more recent writers concerning other "husbands" cannot be substantiated. In this section I will consider the Frenchman and the French-Canadian.
There is no doubt that Isabelle Couc, in April of 1684, married Joachim Germaneau from the parish of Saint-Maxime de Confolans, diocese of Limoges in Limousin, France. He was a veteran of the Carignan Regiment from the company of Lafouille.1 After several years experience as a voyageur and employer in the legal fur trade in the pays-d'en-haut, Germaneau was about forty to Isabelle's seventeen when they married. Most commentators have made the mistake of jumping to conclusions about the character of this much-older man married to a young woman, assuming he must have been dull, lifeless, and unable to satisfy the "vivacious" young Isabelle, twenty-three years his junior. Cadillac's comments about "la femme de Tichenet" abandoning her husband after a year of marriage seem to be the sole source for this interpretation. Other extant documentation presents a more complex image of Germaneau.
At the end of the regiment's service in 1668, Joachim Germaneau decided to remain in the colony and joined his Carignan comrades at the seigneurie of an enseign in the company of Lafouille. This enseign, Charles Dugey, vicomte de Manereuil, was conceded a seigneurie in 1672, naming it Manereuil. It was also called Rivière-du-Loup 2 (now Louiseville). Sometime before 1674, Germaneau associated himself with Francois Banliac dit Lamontagne,3 another veteran of the company of Lafouille and inhabitant of Rivière-du-Loup, and with a man named Aymard, who drowned during a trading voyage with a "sieur Dupas". Banliac and Germaneau canceled their association and settled their account on 7 February 1674, Banliac owing him 90 livres, a debt that was satisfied the following year.4 One year later, 5 June 1676, Joachim Germaneau, now himself definitely personally involved in the fur trade, owed 310 livres and 9 sols for merchandise to Jean Petit dit Bruneau.5 As Bruneau was absent, Germaneau made the agreement with Bruneau's wife, Marie Cheney, one of the many examples of a wife handling business affairs during her husband's absence. Germaneau promised to pay in castors (beaver skins) after his own voyage to the Outaouais.6 The year 1676 is thus the earliest I can now document him as engaged in the fur trade. In 1676, Isabelle was only nine years old, and her family was established at Saint-François- du-Lac across Lac Saint-Pierre from Rivière-du-Loup.
Germaneau did not totally neglect his property during his voyages, though, because on 2 September 1680, in a document written at the home of Nicolas Geoffroy at Trois-Rivières, Joachim Germaneau settled his business with Jean Gerlaise de St.-Amand, to whom he was renting his land at Rivière-du-Loup. Gerlaise, also a veteran of the company of Lafouille, owed him 13 minots de blé (wheat).7 Germaneau had arranged for Gerlaise to work his land in a contract passed between them by the notary Severin Ameau.8 Michel Langlois reports that Gerlaise also promised Germaneau "deux boeufs", two oxen, in the autumn and also "trois journées de boeufs", which I understand as three days of work by oxen, when planting began in the spring.9 This gives the impression that Germaneau may have worked the land in 1680-81, but his name does not appear in the census of 1681, probably taken there before June. I have located no further documentation for Germaneau after this one until his 1684 marriage.
In the year after his marriage to Isabelle, he declared his debts, saying he owed Jean Boudor 531 livres 9 sols and 5 deniers for merchandise provided to him by 11 May 1685. He was ready to leave for a voyage to the Outaouis and would pay in castors on his return. He sold a birch bark canoe with six places, "canot d'écorce à six places", for 120 livres, on 22 August 1685, so he had returned from the Ottawa country by then or had not yet left. Joseph Aubuchon gave him 40 livres for the canoe and promised to pay the rest. In this document Germaneau says the canoe had been part of a convoy to "Katerakoui" (Fort Frontenac, modern-day Kingston, Ontario). He also states that the "Marquis de Denonville", the governor-general of New France, had promised him at La Chine that if the canoe was damaged, since he accepted it, the damages would be paid ("he" being ambigious, probably Germaneau).10 Another contract, 12 September 1687, which I have not yet seen, appears to be an evaluation of the condition of the canoe.11 Also in 1687, on 18 November, is a statement by "Jacques Gaultier dit L'orange", affirming that he was asked by Vincent Dugast, for Jacque Patron and Monsieur "Germanot", to go the the 8ta8ois in 1685 to get pelletries made into 150 robes, "Robbes". Gaultier had returned in 1686, and the robes had been taken to Sr. Pachot [sic] by Louis Pascault [sic], his brother [sic].12
On 24 February 1688, Joachim Germaneau's two properties at Rivière-du-Loup were confirmed by the new seigneur, Jean Lechasseur. Germaneau was present and accepting for himself and his heirs.13 It thus seems he was present in the colony during the winter of 1687-88. In just three months, though, in May of 1688, Lechasseur sold the seigneurie to Nicolas Perrot, the renowned explorer, emissary to the Western Nations, and author of an account of his exploits. Perrot, was not successful in paying the 4000 livres price for the seigneurie and it reverted to Lechasseur a few years later.14
I have located no additional documents concerning him until 1692, when there is a flurry of activity. Several contracts written in Montréal involving Joachim Germaneau are extant for 1692, including his hiring of Gabriel Lemieux to go to the Outaouis, specifically to Michilimackinac and Sault Ste. Marie, on 19 August.15 Germaneau was present for all of these transactions. Thus, Germaneau did not simply disappear into the pays-d'en-haut, abandoning his young bride, as has been suggested by some writers. It is even possible she traveled and worked with him. In the most interesting contract, on 21 August, Joachim Germaneau declared the extent of his debts: 500 livres to sieur Jean Boudor, but he says he has repaid Boudor even more in castors, 300 by Lalumière, 270 livres in two paquets de castor by Pachot dit Gargot, and 230 livres which "he Germano gave or loaned to the said Sr. Boudor by the intercession of his wife". "Luy Germano bailla audit Sr Boudor par l'intermédiare de sa femme", Germaneau's wife, at least according to Michel Langlois.16 When I read the document for myself, I saw that this transaction had occurred three years earlier (thus 1689), and "sa femme" could be (but does not have to be) Boudor's wife, Marguerite Seigneuret, who just happens to be Louis Couc Montour's godmother.17 The document then says Joachim asked the two of them to be willing to keep his money, the 230 livres, until he returns "from Chambly, where he had to go": "et les pria tous les deux de vouloir luy garder son argent jusqu'à son retour de Chambly ou il devroist aller".18 It is unfortunate that the pronoun "sa" / "his" in "his wife" is ambiguous; because if it truly refers to Joachim Germaneau's wife, Isabelle, it would be evidence that Isabelle and Joachim may have worked together in the fur trade. It would certainly be support for her involvement with him in 1689, five years after their marriage. This is important because a 1704 mémoire by Cadillac claims Isabelle abandoned her husband one year after their marriage.
The 1692 document also reports Joachim had given or loaned to Boudor "two hundred and thirty eight livres in castors and martins at Sr. Boudor's home in the presence of Sr. Pachot: "deux cent trente huit livres que luy Germano luy bailla chez le dit Sr Boudor en presence du Sr Pachot en castors et martins", which they would share, "partager". In addition he declares he owes 70 livres to Aubuchon; and "40 livres à Barbe-Émard", according to Michel Langlois. In examining the contract myself, I read "à Madame Babie environ 40 livres": to Madame Babie about 40 livres. Barbe Emard died by 1659, according to Jetté, whereas Madame Babie, born Jeanne Dandonneau, was involved in other transactions of this nature. Her husband Jacques Babie, a merchant, had died in 1688. Another 60 livres were owed to sieur Soumande; and 24 to sieur Saint-Romain.19 The image that emerges from this contract and the preceding ones is that of an upright man involved with his property, active in the fur trade, and willing to declare and satisfy his debts.
On the same day, 21 August 1692, Germaneau served as counsel for his "brother" Louis Couc Montour. Germaneau's name does not appear in the index to the notary's documents, so this reference has been missed by earlier researchers. (See Part 4.) Montour signed an agreement with "Claude Fezeret, sieur de Guilbot, fils de René Fezeret, bourgeois de Ville Marie", to form a société for common profit from a voyage they would make to the 8ta8ois to trade. The merchandise was provided by René Fezeret, and Sr Guilbot would be concerned with "la forge". Sr Montour (and other individuals?) were to work it as long as the source was available, which could take three years. The sale of the merchandise to the Indians was to be shared equally between these two and a quarter would go to Fezeret for the advances he made to them and to the boutique (store) of Guilbot. The agreement was passed at the home of Fezeret, in the presence of Joachim Germano, "frere et assistant du sr de Montour". Once again, the image of a responsible older man, this time helping his younger brother-in-law, here identified as brother, seems to indicate that Joachim and Isabelle were not alienated. He had at least maintained ties with the family.
Germaneau filed yet another contract on 21 August 1692, receiving 1810 livres 7 sols of merchandise from Pierre Lamoureux dit St. Germain, a former Carignan Regiment soldier, as was Germano himself. As guarantee for the loan, Joachim named Lamoureux dit St. Germain his heir in case of death. Germaneau declared he was doing this because of the friendship St. Germain had always shown him. The potential donation, however, should not be construed as Germaneau's disinheriting Isabelle. The Custom of Paris decreed that only property owned prior to his marriage and the couple's community property - not including Isabelle's douaire or the property given to her by her parents - would qualify for such a last will and testament. If their son Michel Germaneau's age in the year of his marriage in 1717 is truly twenty-two, it would appear no known children had yet been born to the marriage. In the case of his death, Isabelle would retain her douaire préfix of 300 livres and the trousseau and the property given her by her parents. This donation did not eliminate her as an heir to the community property remaining after all debts were satisfied.20 Again in 1693, on leaving once more for Ottawa territory, Germaneau named St. Germain his beneficiary because of the "affection and good friendship that he has always held for him".21
More contracts exist for 1692 and 1693, including a loan of 183 livres from Germaneau to Louis Couc de Montour on 11 September 1693,22 to be repaid at Michilimackinac or in Ville Marie, and one involving his association with Claude Greysolon, sieur de LaTourette, the brother of Daniel Greyselon, sieur Du Lhut, after whom Duluth, Minnesota was named.
The last known reference to Joachim Germaneau as definitely alive that I have found was made on 24 September 1694. On this day he was absent from a hiring contract written in Montréal that stipulated "Joachim Lucas, de Boucharville [sic]" would go to Michilimackinac on "Germanau's" business.23 Acting for "Germanau" was his friend, Pierre Lamoureux dit Saint-Germain. Joachim Lucas was to go to the 8ta8ois with a canoe of merchandise and to return in 1695 with pelletries.
September of 1694 is the same month Lamothe Cadillac began his voyage to Michilimakinac to assume his position as commandant. Some of the canoes in this convoy turned back, although I do not see Lucas' name listed among those who did.24 Isabelle's sister Madeleine, Madame Maurice Ménard, gave birth to son Antoine at Michilimackinac; at least he was baptized there in April of 1695, perhaps having Antoine Laumet dit de Lamothe Cadillac as godfather and giving the child his first name.25 It is likely Marguerite Couc was also there in these years with her husband Jean Fafard dit Maconce. Isabelle and Joachim's son Michel was born about 1695-94, according to his age of twenty-two at his marriage in 1717, although no baptism record survives.
Then, in 1696, Joseph Moreau referred to having a promissory note, "un billet", from "Germanau" for 200 livres in beaver skins; a debt, "une obligation", from Maconce (Jean Fafard dit Maconce, Germaneau's brother-in-law); and yet another from Jean de Beauvais for 1600 livres, also in beaver, financial papers which Cadillac unlawfully seized from Moreau at Michilimackinac.26 Since Moreau petitioned to have that note returned, he must have had some expectation of collecting the amount due.
I concluded Part 4 by saying Joachim Germaneau / Germanau / Germano, Isabelle's first husband, was deceased by 1700 when his property at Rivière-du-Loup was sold.27 Germaneau thus probably died between 1696 and 1700, about fifty-four to sixty years old: Soldier, voyageur, trader, friend, husband, and father of at least one son, Michel, born in the last years of his life, about 1695-94.28 And, as will be seen, his wife, Isabelle Couc, would still be known as "la Germano": the wife of Germano, "la femme de Germano" in 1720.
As well as being "la femme de Germano", Isabelle / Madame Montour is also "la femme de Tichenet"29 or La Tichenette, the abbreviated French feminine form of "the wife of Tichenet", or, in the truncated version used in 1708, Lachenette (La [ ti ] chenette);30 but she is not "commonly" (or ever in any primary document I have seen) known as "La Chevrette" (kid or young nanny-goat)". As I see it, "La Chevrette" may be someone's gross misreading of "La Chenette" from d'Aigremont's November 1708 report on Fort Pontchartrain, "n's" and 'v's" and 'u's' often being misread one for the other.32 In 1707 Minister of the Marine Pontchartrain commissioned François Clairambault d'Aigremont to inspect the posts of Michilimakinac, Fort Pontchartrain at Le Détroit du Lac Érié, Fort Niagara, and Fort Frontenac during the summer of 1708.33 The Michigan Pioneer Historical Collection translation of d'Aigremont's report, the one most commonly used by English language writers, names her "Le Chenette" and "La Chenette".34
The author of the web site alleging the "common" name of "La Chevrette" also proclaims: "For many years, she was at odds with Cadillac, the founder of Fort Pontchartrain who spread the word to all who would listen that she was kept by more that [sic] a hundred men." It is true Cadillac claimed that la femme de Tichenet, whose brother-in-law he identifies as Maurice Ménard, had 100 lovers at Michilimackinac, but he made the allegation in his long 1704 mémoire to Pontchartrain when he was defending himself during his trial for mismanagement at Fort Pontchartrain, a mémoire also read by Intendent Jacques Raudot at the request of Pontchartrain, who wanted Raudot to find out what was really going on.35 I know of no proof that Cadillac, or anyone else, made these allegations to others or "spread the word to all who would listen". I have not seen any of these details in any other eighteenth-century documents. Only modern writers who cite the mémoire and take it out of context "spread the word", at times with a good deal of prurient interest. Isabelle, in fact, could not have read the mémoire herself to challenge it. For the same time period Cadillac alleges she had a hundred lovers, 1694-1697, Cadillac also claims there were no significant illicit relationships at Michilimackinac between Native women (or any other women) and Frenchmen during his tenure there.36 Jesuit Father Carheil had another version of the licentiousness at the post at the time.37 Cadillac seems to have changed his story after-the-fact, so to speak, when it was convenient for him to do so. More than once his contemporaries declare him to be incapable of telling the truth when his self-interest is involved.
Also in the 1704 mémoire, Cadillac "married" La femme de Tichenet to Jean Leblanc (Outoutagan, called Jean Leblanc (the white one) because of the lightness of his skin), an Ottawa Chief of the Sable sub-group of the Michilimackinac Ottawas / Odawas, and claimed that she left him to marry someone else. Jean Leblanc was a significant actor in the Great Peace of 1701.38 He was definitely at Fort Pontchartrain at the same time as Isabelle, so some historians turn either him or Étienne Véniard, sieur de Bourgmont,39 who served as temporary commandant at the fort in 1706, into the jealous lover who "killed" Pierre Tichenet, good material for a romance novel but not very good history, even if every word written by Cadillac is taken as absolute fact, as it conveniently ignores the complicated political situation at the fort. I will consider Bourgmont subsequently.
Whatever the truth of Isabelle's relationships with men, Récollet Father Constintin Delhalle did not object to her serving as a godmother twice at the fort, 1704 and 1706, both after Étienne Veniard de Bourgmont's arrival, first in 1702 and in 1703,40 and then again in January of 1706,41 nor did Récollet Dominique De La Marche (recorded here as he usually signed the records) in the fall of 1706 after he had been there almost two full months.
The La Germano and La Tichenet(te) of the French colonial records is the same woman called, in the United States colonial records, Madame, Madam, Mistress or Mrs. Montour, wife of the Oneida Iroquois, Carondowana, aka Robert Hunter.
You would not know this from some of what is available about her on the web, especially on the county or state pages for New York and Pennsylvania. Do a search sometime on http://google.com. Many misinterpretations still remain to trap unsuspecting readers, both on the web and in published secondary sources. Nevertheless, all the fantasizing done by primarily male writers in the past cannot be supported by any extant evidence I have located to this date. Unfortunately, their "histories" read like romance novels.42
What can be supported - not just invented - about the men associated with her for which there are no extant marriage records?
Tichenet was killed during the Ottawa / Miami conflict at Fort Pontchartrain in 1706, according to none other than Jean Leblanc (Outoutagan), Ottawa, speaking in June 1707 to Governor-general Vaudreuil at Montréal.43 The Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collection translation of his speech spells the name TECHENET, and it is this spelling I used in my 1999 and 2000 articles in Michigan's Habitant Heritage. I had not then read the French originals, which definitely read TICHENET, nor had I yet seen the microfilm of the original registers of Sainte-Anne du Détroit, which Pierre Tichenet signed "pierre tichenet" and "tihenet"; Pierre Tichenet served as a godparent 1704-1706 at the fort, once with Isabelle as godmother.44 Nor had I examined the two notarial documents at Batiscan, which he also signed "pierre tichenet" when he served as a witness for concessions of property granted there by the Father François Vaillant, the Jesuit who later accompanied the first convoy to Detroit in 1701. Both documents were written on 4 May 1697, one granting property to François Fortage and the other to Jean Lemoyne.45 Until my search for and reading of documents concerning him and his family, Tichenet has been misidentified and misrepresented because of the "guesses" writers fabricated in the absence of documentation.
In August of 1691, he, along with Ignace Durand and Charles Couturier, all from Batiscan, where Isabelle's father, Pierre Couc, at one time had property, were loaned 300 livres, some of which was for merchandise to trade in their voyage to the Outaouas, to be repaid by August of the following year.46 The loan was granted by Jean Péré, an important and interesting merchant, a witness at Pierre Couc's marriage, godfather at the baptism 5 June 1664 of Marguerite "Lafleur" Couc at Trois-Rivières. Godmother was Jeanne Crevier, wife of the Pierre Boucher who visited France and wrote a history of the colony. Péré also served as godfather for the two-month-old son of Louis Couc dit Montour and Jeanne Quigesigoucoué, a child believed to be Joseph Montour.47 And, identified as formerly a bourgeois from La Rochelle now present in Canada, he was witness on the same day for Louis Couc's marriage to Jeanne, both events on 7 January 1688.48 Godmother was Marie Magdeleine Couc, daughter of Pierre Couc, habitant of Rivière Saint-François. Acting for Péré at the 1691 contract was Joseph Delestre, Péré's nephew. It is not unlikely the Couc family knew Pierre Tichenet; they at least had mutual acquaintances.
There is one more hiring contract on record for Pierre Tichenet but it is missing, as is one between "Sr. Fafard and Sr. Tinchenet", whether the father(s) or the son(s) bearing these names cannot be determined in the notation in Antoine Roy's index of Adhémar's works.49 Pierre's father, Alexandre, was associated with Nicolas Perrot in voyages made to the 'MasKoutains and Nadouassous [Sioux]" prior to 1687, and he transferred to Perrot all of his rights and profits resulting from their society.50 As previously noted, in 1688 Perrot bought the seigneurie of Rivière-du-Loup, where Germaneau had property. It is quite probable they worked and traveled together. Several other notarial documents exist for Alexandre, one for another son, Joseph,51 and then Alexandre, his wife and family simply drop out of sight.52
My point in citing these details is that Simone Vincens in her Madame Montour et son temps had not consulted all the extant documents when she suggested Tichenet was a soldier.53 At this time, soldiers in the Troupes de la Marine came directly from France, except for the sons of current officers, who petitioned to have their sons appointed.54 Isabelle could easily have met Tichenet, possibly at Michilimackinac before or after the death of Joachim Germaneau, or even earlier. Tichenet must have had some integrity since Father Vaillant asked him to witness concessions of land, and he was definitely involved in the legal fur trade or in voyages to the pays-d'en-haut, as were Isabelle's husband, brother Louis, and all of her brothers-in-law at one time or another, even Angélique's husband, who is usually characterized as simply a stay-at-home farmer.
On 19 August 1692, at the home of Henri Tonty, rue Notre-Dame, François Delpé dit "St. Serney" and nineteen others, some of whom would later travel to Fort Pontchartrain, were hired to go to Fort Saint-Louis55 by Henri Tonty, brother of Alphone Tonty, second in command under Cadillac at Detroit, 1701 to early 1706, and commandant there from 1717 until his death in 1727; and also with François Daupin de Laforest, later to be second in command at Detroit in 1706 and named commandant to replace Cadillac in 1710-11, although he did not go immediately to the fort.56 Delpé dit St. Serney's sons also served as voyageurs, as did the Ménard sons.
As for Jean Leblanc / Outoutagan "marrying" Isabelle: If he did marry her, he had another wife at Michilimackinac in 1712, as reported by Peter N. Moogk, one more historian who appears to have swallowed without question Cadillac's 1704 anecdote. In his 1969 Dictionary of Canadian Biography article about "Outoutagan", Moogk says: "In 1712, Father Joseph-Jacques Marest indicated that a perpetual feeling of insecurity [at Détroit] caused most of [the Ottawas of Détroit], including the wife of Outoutagan (probably Mme Techenet) [sic] to return to Michillimakinac. As for Outoutagan, he stayed at Détroit."57 A later revision of this article, however, now omits the reference to "(probably Mme Techenet)".58 La femme de Tichenet / Madame Montour, the wife of an Oneida sachem, was definitely interpreting in New York in 1712 and cannot be this 1712 wife of Outoutagan.
Moogk also writes, in 1969, as I translate it from the French: "Cadillac describes Outoutagan as a hypocritical traitor, and his wife, Mme Techenet [sic], as a bigamous person who sought amorous adventures ['coureuse bigamé'], who, moreover, exhibited support for the English." The word "coureur" literally means "runner", but it has the sense of "womanizer" when joined by "de jupons": runner after skirts. Le Petit Larousse Illustré 1996, gives a non-gender definition for coureur / coureuse: a person who seeks amorous adventures, "recherche les aventures amoureuses", hence my translation. The revised English version of the 2000 CD-Rom59 calls her "a slut".
Moogk is careful to grant Cadillac motivation for maligning Outoutagan: "The testimony the sister of Outoutagan gave about the activities of Cadillac and Radisson at Détroit [concerning the events for which Cadillac was accused of malversation in 1704] could be the origin of this hostile attitude." Moogk does not, however, question Cadillac's "hostile attitude" toward "Mme Techenet" nor his definitely exaggerated, if not entirely false, claims about La femme de Tichenet and her 100 lovers.
More than anyone else in the family, Isabelle / Madame Montour is maligned and misidentified in books and articles, old and new, particularly in the older English language works. Many writers even now refuse to admit this woman is Madame Montour, preferring other guesses, suppositions, and romantic fictions developed in the last two centuries without any-or little-knowledge of New France records or customs. Some of these perpetuated errors will be the subject of my next article.
