38 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



mouth of the river, includes in its bounds the present city of St. 

 John and its suburbs. Another, the seigniory at Nachouac, includes 

 within its limits the sites of Fredericton, the capital of New Brunswick, 

 and the neighbouring towns of Marysville and North and South 

 Devon. The third seigniory, "Fort Gemsek," (midway between 

 St. John and Fredericton, at the mouth of the Jemseg river) was the 

 residence of the Sieur de Soulanges, and for ten years the head- 

 quarters of French authority in Acadia. Here in 1673 was born 

 Louise Elizabeth de Joibert, daughter of Soulanges, who, at^the early 

 age of seventeen years, became the wife of the Marquis de \'audreuil, 

 Governor General of Canada. She was baptized at Jemseg (probably 

 by the Recollet missionary, Claude Moireau), and Count Frontenac 

 was, by proxy, her godfather. Later she was educated at the convent 

 of the Ursulines in Quebec. As Marquise de Vaudreuil she is de- 

 scribed as a beautiful and clever woman, of rare sagacity and exquisite 

 modesty and possessed of all the graces needed to shine in the most 

 ex;,alted circles. She was the mother of 12 children. Her husband 

 was for twenty-two years Governor General at Quebec, and her son, 

 the second Marquis de \'audreuil, was the last Governor General of 

 New France at the time of the conquest in 1759. 



In the year 1674 a Dutch buccaneer named Aernouts pillaged 

 and dismantled Fort Jemsek and carried off the commander. Fron- 

 tenac at once sent a party in canoes to the River St. John to ascertain 

 the state of affairs and to bring to Quebec the wife of the Sieur de 

 Soulanges and her child, his god-daughter. The journey of the 

 mother and her infant from Jemsek to Quebec, 400 miles, in an Indian 

 bark canoe two centuries and a half ago is an incident unique in the 

 recorded wilderness journeys of the time. The mother before her 

 marriage was Marie Françoise, the daughter of Chartier de Lotbenière, 

 attorney general of Quebec. The daughter, as Marquise de \'audreuil, 

 visited France in 1708 in a ship which was captured by the English, 

 who, however, treated her with distinction and allowed her to proceed 

 to her destination. She attracted much attention at the Court of 

 Versailles and became a favourite both of Louis XIV and of Madame 

 de Maintenon. The Marquise survived her husband and died in 

 Paris in June, 1740. A romantic story truly is that of the little 

 Louise Elizabeth Joibert, whose infant slumbers were disturbed by 

 the rude Dutchmen at Fort Gemsek in the summer of 1674. 



The first known representative of the English race to become 

 acquainted with the route to Canada, so far as we know, was a lad, 

 John Gyles by name, who was captured by St. John River Indians 

 at Pemaquid, on the coast of Maine in 1689 and brought by his 



