76 



FISHERIES OF THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC 



the late king. The three daughters of Courtemanche were 

 given half the concession between them, in equal parts. One 

 quarter went to the widow, and the other to the Sieur de 

 Brouague, her son by her first marriage, in consideration 

 of the assistance which he had given his stepfather in his 

 fishing establishment on the coast. After her death, the King 

 conceded her rights in the grant to her son, Sieur Brouague, 

 iix 1725, and also provided in the following year that he 

 should inherit the rights to the conces- 

 sions of his sisters after their death. 



Abbe Ferland, the historian, men- 

 tions the fact that memories of Cour- 

 temanche were still green in his time 

 among the fishermen of that wild 

 coast, who had a tradition that his 

 wife was a daughter of Henri IV. 1 

 This tradition was given as a fact by 

 Mr. Robertson in his paper on Labra- 

 dor previously referred to. We have 

 seen, however, that Madame de Cour- 

 temanche was a granddaughter of 

 Francois Bissot. She was the widow of 

 Pierre Gratien Martel de Brouague, whose son succeeded 

 his stepfather, de Courtemanche, as commandant of the 

 coast, at the death of the latter in 1716, and who held 

 office until the end of the French regime. Like his step- 

 father he had considerable difficulty with the Esquimaux 

 of the coast. He was a man of mark in New France, having 

 married, in 1732, Louise-Madeleine Mariauchau-d'Englis, sis- 

 ter of the eighth Bishop of Quebec. It was his daughter 

 whose beauty, when she was presented at the French Court, 

 filled with admiration the young king, Louis XVI. Brouague 

 shared the control of Courtemanche 's establishment after the 

 death of- the latter, with Sieur Foucher, a son-in-law of 

 Courtemanche. One of Foucher 's sons added to his name that 

 of Labrador, and the Abbe Ferland is authority for the 



Henri IV. 



Voyage au Labrador, par 1'Abbe Ferland, pp. 37, 71. 



