Anguille

or L'Anguille

Jeanne L'Anguille, like many of our Québec ancestors, was a "fille du roi." She was born in Artannes-sur-Indre about 1643, the daughter of Michel Anguille and Étiennette Toucheron, who were married in Artannes in July 1642. Jeanne first appears in the records in 1671, at her marriage (in January, at Nôtre-Dame de Québec) to François Alard (see Alard for descendants).

The church at Artannes also records the baptisms and marriages of several of Jeanne's siblings. Étiennette, born 1645, married Claude Lejude in 1667 and later Jean Porcheron in 1671; Marie, born 1649, married Aimé Esnault and later Étienne Brosseau (1691); Michelle, birth year not recorded, married Jean Esnault in 1671; and Urbain, born 1651, no marriage recorded. None of these families crossed the Atlantic. As Jeanne seems to have been neither poor nor an orphan, we might assume she was a prostitute - many were rounded up in Paris and Rouen and sent to Québec in the 1660s and 1670s.