Intendant’s Montreal visit wasn’t all business

Entourage enjoyed extraordinary social season in 1753

Early in February 1753, François Bigot, the intendant or chief civil administrator of New France, swept into Montreal from Quebec City. His considerable entourage included his young mistress, the beautiful and manipulative Angélique Péan.

The governor general, the Marquis Duquesne de Menneville, had arrived a few weeks before, in part to prepare for a military campaign against English traders spreading into the Ohio Valley from the Thirteen Colonies. But it wasn’t all business. As well, Duquesne’s arrival had signalled the start of an extraordinary social season, which picked up in tempo with the advent of Péan. She already ruled over a lively salon in Quebec City, and that winter would bring its brilliance to Montreal.

Her husband, a rising army officer and colonial official, was also there. When Bigot had established himself in her affections five years earlier, Michel- Jean- Hugues Péan didn’t object, confident the connection would benefit his own career. His complaisance — and subsequent gilded circumstances — would continue for some years yet.

In Montreal that winter there were dinners and other soirées, and the liveliest were put on by Bigot and his mistress. As many as 20 people would sit down to dine, and in the first two weeks alone Duquesne was happy to be the guest of honour six times. But one of the most remarkable events came in the last week of February.

Duquesne decided to visit the Sulpician mission at Oka, where a considerable number of Mohawks had settled. Feb. 27 was the date of departure, though days in advance Duquesne dispatched supplies and staff from his kitchen to Oka to make sure all would be ready.

Come the 27th, Bigot was in his element, circulating amiably as the haut monde gathered that morning at Duquesne’s residence for tea, coffee or hot chocolate. Among them was Louis Normant du Faradon, the Sulpicians’ superior.

Finally, they were off, Duquesne’s guests in about two dozen carrioles and many servants in a dozen more. The long, horse- drawn train followed a well- travelled track out to Lachine. There it left the land and ventured onto the frozen surface of Lac St. Louis to Pointe- Claire, where the party paused for lunch — and to warm up — with the local curé, Father Louis Perthuis.

Louis Franquet, a military engineer, would note in his memoirs that five or six teenage girls looked in, curious to make what they could of the likes of Duquesne and Bigot. Franquet’s delight became astonishment when the girls took the men’s heads in their hands to “apply a kiss, and where? — on the mouth.”

Franquet was assured this was the custom among people in the countryside. He is silent on how Angélique reacted to the scene.

Arriving in a snowstorm at Oka, members of the party were assigned rooms with the priests, with a local merchant and even, in the case of two Frenchmen, with a Mohawk named Abraham. However, the banquet that evening was a letdown. Franquet says the food itself was acceptable, but because they were divided into two pokey, crowded rooms, confusion and discomfort prevailed. The card- playing, the smoking and the conversation afterward were apparently more enjoyable.

The next day, Duquesne held a council with the Mohawks. Medals were distributed and there was more feasting, followed by another crowded banquet at the Sulpician mission that evening. Perhaps it’s no wonder that, as Franquet records, Duquesne was not feeling well.

They returned to Montreal on the 29th. Their route was the same, and the weather was just as bad as it was when they set out two days before.

Most of the colony’s clergy were already scandalized by the Bigot circle’s profligacy. Normant, the Sulpicians’ superior, in particular had already had his own run- ins with Bigot, so we can guess that those few days in February did little to ease his unhappiness.