Audax (or Odoart) Lambert and his wife Jacqueline Feuillard or Feuilliart lived in Tourouvre (parish of At-Aubin) in the Mortagne, the source of a number of French-Canadian families. Audax was a soldier in the Carignan regiment, compagnie de Grandfontaine, but unlike most soldiers he was already married before being stationed in Canada, and had at least one child. As far as we know he returned to France and died there.

Aubin Lambert (1632-1717), Audax's son, was born in Tourouvre and was in Québec by 1662 - without his parents, as far as we know. He settled in Beaupré near Château-Richer, and in September 1670 he married a "fille du roi," Élisabeth Aubert, at Nôtre-Dame de Québec. The couple had nine children, most born in Québec, some at St-Nicolas or St-Augustin parishes near there. At some point the family became "dit Champagne," though they were not from that part of France. At the time of the 1681 census, Aubin owned an 8-arpent farm in the seigneurie de Maure.

Children: Françoise-Marguérite (1671-1703, married Jacques Gauthier, nine children); Catherine (1673, died young); Jean-Aubin (1675?-1727, married Marie-Anne Houde, twelve children); François (1676, see below); Marie-Florence (1678, married Pïerre Renaud); Catherine-Élisabeth (1682, married Jean Gatin dit Saint-Jean); Anne (1685, married François Dubois dit Lafrance); Louise (1687, married Henri Louineau, seven children); and Pierre-François (1689, married Marie-Louise Houde, seven children). The two Houde brides were sisters of our ancestor Claude Houde.

François Lambert dit Champagne (1676-1699-1731), born in Sillery, married Marguérite Pilote (daughter of Léonard Pilote and Denise Gauthier) at St-Nicolas, Beaupré, in November 1699. They had ten children. After Marguérite died about 1723, François married Thérèse-Françoise Bonhomme dit Dulac in 1724 and had six more children before he too died in 1731. The children by the first marriage were: Marie-Josephte (1700?, died young); Marie-Marguérite (1703); Marie-Françoise (1705); Pierre (1705); Marie-Angélique (married Joseph Bouchard dit Dorval, died 1774); a second Marie-Josephte (see below); Louise-Élisabeth (1711-1753); Jean-François (1713); Jacques (1715?) and another Marie-Françoise (1719). Children by the second marriage: Marie-Thérèse (1725, married René Metot and Jean Gagnon but died at age 27 in 1752); Joseph-François (married Marie-Anne Metot in 1747); Charles (born and died 1729); Jean-Baptiste (born and died 1729; perhaps twins); Jacques (born and died 1730); and a third Marie-Josephte (1731?-1732).

Marie-Josephte Lambert was born in April 1709 in Beaupré and married Nicolas Boucher at St-Nicolas de Lévis on September 3, 1726. They were the paternal great-great-grandparents of Louise Boucher Martin.

The photo at the top is the old basilica of Ste-Anne de Beaupré. The spot has been a place of pilgrimage since the settler Louis Guimond was miraculously healed there during the building of the first church in 1658, a few years before the Lamberts settled there. The present shrine was built in 1923. Aubin Lambert would have helped built the 1676-1876 building, pictured here.