Lereau

properly, L'Heureux

also L'Héros, L'Hérault, Levreau

The immigrant ancestor, Simon Lereau (1626?-1670) has a number of famous descendants, including Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Céline Dion, the Dionne quintuplets, the novelist Jack Kerouac, Parti Québecois leader René Levesque, Madonna, and the Québecois "national poet," Louis-Honoré Fréchette. See this website by another descendant.

The earliest known ancestor is René Lereau, who with his wife Marguérite Guillin or Guillemin lived in the parish of St-Cosme-en-Varais, a village near Le Mans. (The photo shows the village church of SS Cosmas and Damian.) Their son Simon was born there about 1624, and first appears in Québec in 1655; we do not know why he emigrated or what his profession was. An older brother Charles was baptised at St-Cosme in November 1618. There was also a sister, Marie, who married Gervais Bisson in France; they later emigrated too, and are the ancestors of a large Bisson family.

Simon Lereau married Suzanne Jaroussel in a newly built chapel on the Ile d'Orléans, near Québec city, in November 1655. She was the daughter of Pierre Jaroussel (deceased at the time his daughter married) and Jacquette Touraude, but there is no record of this family coming to Canada; Suzanne was born in 1641 in Perigny near la Rochelle, but could not have been a "fille du roi" at that early date. Her mother Jacquette was buried on the Ile d'Orléans in April 1670, so we must assume the two women came alone. According to the "Grandes Familles" website, Jacquette was the daughter of François Touraude and Marthe Noire of St-Amand-de-Boixe in the Angoumois, and was married a second time in Québec to Jacques Prévirault (1653).

The marriage record has survived; here is is in the original:

Le 27 de novembre 1655, après publication faite de trois bancs le 9, 11 e 14 du mesme moys, ne s'estant trouvé aucun empeschement, le r.p.rené Menard de le Compagnie de Jésus, ayant pouvoir, a marié Solemnellement Simon Leureau, fils e héritier de rené Leureau e de Marguerite Guillin avec Suzanne Jaroussel, fille de Pierre Jaroussel e de Jaquete Touraude, dans la Chapelle de l'Isle d'Orléans, en presence de temoins cognus Jean baillargeon e Pierre petit.

Simon acquired a farm in the area of Ste-Anne-de- Beaupré, and eventually was prosperous enough to have a house in Québec city, and to hire farmhands and sell property to other settlers. He and Suzanne had seven children, mostly baptized at Château-Richer. Tthe first four must have been born between 1655 and 1671, but their baptismal records are lost. They were two Catherines, both died as infants in 1663 and 1664; Marie, probably the eldest, who married Jean Guy dit LeRouvier (7 children); and Pierre, who married Marguérite Badeau in 1689 (11 children); he was killed when a load of hay fell on him in 1711. Anne, born in May 1655, married our ancestor François Fréchette in 1680. Her brother Sixte (1667-1717) married Reine Deblois in 1694 and is the answer of nearly all the L'Heureuxes in North America. The youngest child, Marie-Madeleine, married twice: first Jean Laroche, and then Louis Leduc, who (according to Tanguay) was an Indian. Simon died in the hospital in Québec city in November 1670, ten days after signing his daughter Marie's marriage contract (she was very young; the marriage did not take place until 1683).

After Simon died, his wife Suzanne married (in February 1671) Robert Coutard; she was still living in 1694.

See Fréchette for descendants.