Crossdressing and Courage in French Canada: The Trial of Anne Edmond

History Jan 25, 2022

By Jonah Kidd

Cover Image by Wikimedia Commons.

Abstract:

Placed on trial in 1696 New France for trying to convince the authorities of a (fictional) English invasion, French Canadian historians have largely portrayed Anne Edmond as an impulsive and besotted girl trying to save her lover. Through an analysis of the context, court documents, and other primary sources, this paper argues that it is more appropriate to view Anne as a courageous young woman. Despite living in a society with restrictive and conservative gender roles, Anne bravely tried to save her male family and friends from having to participate in a dangerous conflict against the Iroquois. Anne’s attempt to stand up to the authorities of New France was far-fetched and ultimately unsuccessful, but it should not be ridiculed.

Before the Trial:

In the summer of 1696, a young man travelling by canoe arrived in Quebec City. Almost immediately after he disembarked, a frightful rumour spread throughout the town. The English had launched an invasion, and were on their way to attack the city.

The young man had a remarkable story. He claimed that four English frigates were plying the River Tadoussac, and that these ships would likely be followed by a fleet of thirty-two ships (if not more) and a force of over ten thousand men. While in Boston, where he had been imprisoned for the last three years, he had seen these ships being loaded with powder and prepared for war. He stated that the English had forced him to aid in the burning of the Sieur d’Iberville, who had been captured before Boston along with three hundred of his men (most of whom had decided to join the enemy). Knowing that an invasion was imminent, the young man bravely escaped his English captors in order to warn the authorities. Crossing into Acadia during his flight, the Sieur de Saint Castin had given him a canoe and an Indigenous guide, who travelled with him up to Île St. Laurent, where the canoe was stolen. The young man then convinced Dorval, an inhabitant of the island, to transport him to Quebec so that he could warn the authorities.

It was the young man’s appearance that first provoked suspicions. In the governor’s office, someone remarked that he was a woman or a girl. Faced with his indignant refusal to let them verify, a man by the name of Lacroix grabbed the young man's chest, shouting “its a girl!”

The ‘young man’ was in fact Anne Edmond, a sixteen year old girl who lived in the parish of St. Francois on the Île d’Orleans. She had never been imprisoned by the English, and the male clothing that she wore belonged to her brother.

Québec circa late 17th century (via John Carter Brown Library).

The Trial:

On the fourteenth of June, Anne Edmond was interrogated in court for the first time. When the prosecutor asked Anne why she had engaged in this elaborate scheme, she claimed that she had been pressured to do so by Joseph Gaulin, Robert Gaulin, Jean Laviolette, and her older brother René. Anne stated that in giving this false warning, she hoped to prevent the governor general from leaving to wage war with the Iroquois ― a campaign in which the aforementioned co-conspirators were expected to take part. She described the two Gaulin brothers, Laviolette, and René as telling her that “they were being led to the slaughter,” and that “she would never see them again.”

The inhabitants of Canada at the time were faced with the constant threat of war. The colony and its Indigenous allies had been at war with the Iroquois confederacy since 1687, and settlements along its Western boundaries had been subjected to a series of deeply traumatizing Iroquoian raids. Iroquoian warriors also forced the French to temporarily abandon Fort Frontenac and other western posts. As part of this conflict, French militia forces and their Indigenous allies engaged in repeated offensives against the Iroquois. The 1696 campaign against the Onondaga was one such offensive. The colony was simultaneously embroiled in King William’s War, a conflict between the French, English, and their respective Indigenous allies.

Anne’s lies about an English invasion heading to Quebec City were credible. The English had unsuccessfully attacked Quebec in 1690 with 2300 men and a fleet of 32 vessels. Like Anne’s fictitious invasion, the 1690 expedition departed from Boston. Furthermore, as recently as 1693, a seventeen-vessel fleet sent from England had landed in Boston with orders from the Crown. The fleet was to aid the New Englanders in another attack on Quebec City. However, two thirds of the 4500 men aboard these ships had died of yellow fever before reaching Boston, and William Phipps (the commander of the failed attack in 1690) staunchly refused to launch another invasion. It is unclear whether Anne or her friends would have been aware of this specific incident. Nevertheless, rumours of an English invasion circulated nearly every spring in French Canada.

The additional details of Anne’s story reflect an impressive knowledge of local actors. Le Sieur d’Iberville had indeed departed Acadia that spring with two vessels, and the idea that he could have been captured by the English was plausible, even if the detail of his having been burned alive was rather lurid. Le Sieur de Saint-Castin was well known for his close ties with Indigenous groups. At the time of the trial, he was an Abenaki chief and was married to at least one daughter of the Penobscot chief Madokawando. Anne’s description of the Sieur de Saint-Castin as having granted her “a canoe and an Indian guide” would have been consistent with his Indigenous connections.

French Canada was a complex society, and Anne's knowledge of local actors was impressive (via Osher Map Library).

The plot that Anne and her co-conspirators had concocted was therefore rather impressive. Indeed, faced with Anne’s insistence that it was Joseph Gaulin and the others who forced her to act, the prosecutor asked her, “why didn't she want to reveal those who had truly devised the plan [...] and those who had made her enact it?" In response to this question, Anne exasperatedly replied, “that she had already told them three or four times.” It was likely difficult for the authorities to believe that a group of peasants could have formulated such a plot.

It was reasonable for Anne and her co-conspirators to believe that the plot would have prevented governor general Frontenac from sending the militia to attack the Iroquois had it been successful. Militia forces from Beaufort, Beaupré, and the Ile d’Orleans had played an important role in harassing the English landing force in 1690. As such, if the authorities had believed Anne’s story, the young men from the Ile d’Orleans that had been conscripted to wage war against the Iroquois likely would have stayed in defense of Québec.

English and French sources alike have glorified the martial spirit of habitants. Pierre-François Xavier de Charlevoix, an influential historian of New France, described young French Canadians as hating peace and having a natural affinity for war. George F.G. Stanley described Canadian militia activity during the 1680s and 1690s as having “served to develop a martial spirit among the people of the country,” with every man turning out readily for service.

The Anne Edmond incident challenges this perception of habitants as having been eager to engage in war. Indeed, the entire affair is indicative of the degree to which the individuals involved sought to avoid it. As the prosecutor stated and Anne affirmed, opposing oneself to the orders and projects of individuals acting under the King’s authority was “one of the greatest crimes that one could commit.” Considering the seriousness of this scheme, why did Anne and the others engage in it?

There are three main reasons. The first reason is that as previously mentioned, René Edmond, Joseph Gaulin, Robert Gaulin, and Jean Laviolette were deathly scared of having to go on campaign against the Iroquois. Anne’s older brother Robert had been part of a militia offensive in 1693 against the Mohawk, and his unit had suffered terribly as it retreated. Robert likely would have recounted the horrors of war with the Iroquois to his family and friends. The Iroquois had a reputation for brutality, and French militiamen would have been terrified at the prospect of being captured. Furthermore, campaigns were difficult for habitants even when they never made contact with the enemy. Sickness was the primary cause of death on campaign, and militiamen frequently went hungry due to a lack of food. The danger, as well as the discomfort, would have provided ample motivation for Anne’s male co-conspirators to try and avoid going on campaign.

The second reason is that they had limited personal incentives to engage in a raid against the Iroquois. The Iroquois generally preferred attacking poorly defended settlements on the margins of French Canada rather than centrally located and well-established settlements like those on the Île d’Orleans. The security of Anne’s community is evident in the fact that the Île d’Orleans had not experienced an Iroquoian raid for over thirty-five years at the time this conspiracy took place. Additionally, the Iroquois only raided settlements infrequently by 1696. Indeed, these raids had ended almost entirely in the early 1680s because of a truce between French Canada and the Iroquois, only restarting after the colonial authorities broke the truce by sending military expeditions into their territory in 1684 and 1687. This ending of the peace and renewal of the war had not been well received by the common people of French Canada. To quell discontent, the state had been forced to publish mandates justifying the war, and they also partnered with the Church to convince the population of the war’s necessity. Contrary to popular narratives about French Canadian colonists, they were generally not eager to fight when they did not feel personally threatened.

They also viewed the state’s perpetual wars with the Iroquois with skepticism. As Dechene notes, it was commonly said by the end of the 17th century that the wars only continued because influential military officers feared losing their positions if the King was to withdraw his troops, and that the governor no longer wanted peace because he would lose his war powers.

The complex nature of Anne’s story indicates that the conspirators had an excellent understanding of goings on around the colony. They therefore would have heard such rumours about the war with Iroquois being motivated by the material concerns of select individuals rather than the security of the entire colony. René Edmond, Joseph Gaulin, Robert Gaulin, and Jean Laviolette may have believed that being forced to fight in the 1696 campaign represented unfair persecution on the part of the colonial state. Viewed from this perspective, hatching a conspiracy designed to prevent the campaign would have been entirely justified.

An analysis of the trial indicates that gender norms greatly affected both how Anne was perceived and how she justified her actions.

The final reason that Anne and the others engaged in this conspiracy was their assumption that a sixteen-year-old girl was unlikely to face consequences if discovered. Anne described both Joseph Gaulin and her brother René as reassuring her that nothing would happen to her, as “what could one do to a girl?” While this assumption was incorrect, an analysis of the trial indicates that gender norms greatly affected both how Anne was perceived and how she justified her actions.

Gender norms in French Canada dictated that women were in subordinate and inconsequential (via Canadian Museum of History).

The prosecutor’s questions reflect a deep concern about Anne’s transgression of gender norms. After Anne stated her name, age, social status, country of birth, and residence, the very  first question that the prosecutor asked was why she claimed to be a girl while wearing male clothing. This question may have been both an admonishment and a warning. Anne’s best defence for having attempted to trick the governor general into changing his military plans ― a serious crime ― was that she was only a girl. However, she had done so by wearing male clothing and laying claim to a male identity. It was therefore important for Anne to establish that she was indeed a girl, with all the potential protections that this implied.

This interpretation is supported by the fact that Anne frequently referred to her actions as “what she had been made to do,” rather than “what she had done.” In particular, she blamed the entire escapade on Joseph Gaulin, a young man that was likely her lover. The prosecution appeared to believe that this was the case, as they repeatedly asked Anne whether she had engaged in the plot out of her love for Joseph Gaulin. They were skeptical of Anne’s claims that she had done so in order to prevent her brother from having to go to war against the Iroquois. It is possible that they found it easier to believe that Anne was a young girl addled by love rather than a young woman making a calculated attempt to save her male loved ones. However, Anne repeatedly denied that she had engaged in the conspiracy out of her love for Joseph Gaulin. She maintained that she had been motivated by the desire to protect her brother. In fact, while crying, Anne said that the court would be doing her a great grace if she did not have to see Joseph Gaulin. She asserted that he was the one who had placed this in her head, and that “a poor girl couldn't know any better.” This was in addition to Anne’s earlier statement that she did not wish to marry Joseph Gaulin as he was too ugly and unintelligent.

These were not the actions of a young girl who was merely the puppet of conniving men.

Anne’s argument that she had been pushed to engage in the plot by men ― with the implication that she was therefore not responsible ― is contradicted by her highly independent actions. She was ultimately the one who chose to dress in her brother’s clothing, travel to Quebec, and brazenly attempt to mislead the authorities. Even after being unmasked as a woman, Anne initially continued to lie about having seen four English vessels at Tadoussac. When her interrogators told her that this was impossible, she insisted, telling her interrogators “that they could go there and see.” Anne was just implicated (if not more so) as her male co-conspirators in the plot that they hatched together “in the bushes behind the church” on the Sunday before the Pentecost. These were not the actions of a young girl who was merely the puppet of conniving men.

Anne demonstrated agency despite her gender. While female gender roles were arguably less rigid in Canada than those in France at the time, it was undeniably transgressive of Anne to attempt to interfere in the traditionally male domain of military affairs by wearing male clothing. Consequently, by punishing and humiliating Anne for her actions, the court made it clear to her (as well as the public) that failing to conform to gender norms was unacceptable. The focus of court officials on Anne’s sexuality and cross-dressing is illustrated by the following sequence of events during her questioning.

Anne testified that she had finally decided to put the plot in action despite her fears, due to a displeasure that her younger sister Suzanne had inflicted upon her. She cried when asked to tell the court exactly what this displeasure had been, saying “that it is unpleasant to say it in front of everyone.” Anne refused to say what had happened publicly, but she whispered what had occurred to the intendant. Despite having already told the intendant, the subject was revisited in a later interrogation, potentially as a way of making her sex life a matter of public record. This time, the prosecutor directly asked Anne “if  her sister had discovered her lying with some man?” Anne responded to this pointed question by saying that she would not answer, as the matter was only suited to her confessor. She then refused to elaborate despite pressure from the prosecutor. It should be noted that admitting to engaging in premarital sex could have had serious social repercussions for Anne, and that the prosecutor would have been awareness of this when he pursued this line of questioning.

"Die Rübenputzerin" (the Beet Cleaner), 1738 oil painting by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, via Wikimedia Commons.

This was not the only time that Anne was subjected to questioning that appeared to be aimed at chastising her rather than addressing legal concerns. Later, Anne was asked whether “she is in good reputation in l'île St-Laurent.” She responded that she was, and that the court could assure itself of this. The prosecutor then stated that honest girls do not wear men’s clothing, a remark to which Anne only responded by bowing her head.

The public and unusual nature of Anne’s punishment appears to have had a dual purpose -- dissuading others from attempting to thwart the designs of the state, and warning women that breaking gender norms like Anne did would end in humiliation.

The judgment of the court reflected its moral concerns. For having attempted to deceive the governor general and disturbing the public peace, Anne was sentenced to be beaten with twigs in all the squares and public places of the city. The judgment specified that she was to be nude shouldered while this punishment was carried out, likely in order to emphasize that she was a woman despite having dressed as a man. The public and unusual nature of Anne’s punishment appears to have had a dual purpose -- dissuading others from attempting to thwart the designs of the state, and warning women that breaking gender norms like Anne did would end in humiliation. Anne was also fined the significant sum of twenty-five louis, and her parents were ordered to watch over her conduct better than they had in the past, under the threat of penalty. Finally, the judgment stated that the male clothes she had worn were to be sold to the public, with the proceeds being distributed to the poor of the l’Hôpital-Genéral. The fact that Anne’s family was not allowed to keep the clothing adds further support to the notion that upholding gender norms was one of the court’s primary concerns. Confiscating her brother’s clothing sent the message that by wearing them, Anne rendered them no longer suitable for a man to wear. Dorval, the man who had transported Anne to Quebec, was discharged and absolved. René Edmond, Joseph Gaulin, Robert Gaulin, and Jean Laviolette were sentenced to be tried. These trials likely would have occurred in the event of their return from war with the Iroquois, but they have not been preserved.

After the Trial:

This begs the question: what happened to Anne, René, Jean Laviolette, and the brothers Gaulin? This trial is the most detailed source of information on their lives that we have available, but there are some details that we can glean from records. All four young men survived the 1696 campaign against the Iroquois, and any sentence rendered in their subsequent trials cannot have been mortal.  Jean Laviolette (referred to as Jean Blouin dit Laviolette in records) married Madeleine Langlois in 1700, and they had three children together, only one of whom appears to have lived to adulthood. He died in 1745. Joseph Gaulin married in France at some point before 1711, and he is listed in the 1716 census of Quebec as a navigator. He died in 1718 with no children. Robert Gaulin had already been married to Elisabeth Le Tourneau for eight years by the time of the trial, and they had seven children together, with all four daughters named some variant of Marie. After the death of his first wife, he married Marie-Anne Soucy in 1716 and later died at an unknown date. René Edmond married Louise-Semelle in 1697, and they had one daughter, Marie Charlotte. He remarried to Marie Dompierre in 1727 and died that same year. As for Anne Edmond, she married François Bretonnet dit Montargis in 1706. One can only hope that Anne found the aforementioned François more attractive than her former beau. Her life appears to have been difficult. She had five children with François, two of whom may have lived to adulthood. Anne’s first son, Jean-Baptiste died at 6 years of age in May of 1714. Two months later, Anne’s infant twins (a boy and a girl) both died within the span of two weeks. What was responsible for so much grief in such a short time? Sickness? Hunger? Cruel chance? Did Anne ever wonder whether these tragedies were punishment for what she had done in 1696?

We will never know. Her date of death is unknown, as are her personal thoughts. However, this trial immortalizes Anne Edmond as a courageous young woman who chose to dress in male clothes, hop in a canoe, and attempt to radically change the summer plans of everyone in the colony. Her actions were ludicrous, but they should not be ridiculed. Anne Edmond did what she did in order to protect her loved ones, and that deserves to be remembered.

The rest of Anne's life is shrouded in mystery, as well as her own thoughts on what occurred in 1696 (via Wikiwand).

Endnotes

Pierre Georges Roy, “Un Procès Criminel au Dix-Septième Siècle." Bulletin des Recherches Historiques, July 1904: pp. 205. https://archive.org/details/rechercheshistor10roypuoft/page/196/mode/2up?view=theater

Ibid., pp. 237.

Ibid., pp. 232

Ibid., pp. 207.

Ibid., pp. 232.

Barthélemy-François Bourgonnière (a secretary to the governor general) described her as wearing “[un] capot brun, une chemise blanche avec de la dentelle aux poignets, un chapeau noir, des gants et le reste d’habillement d’homme.”

Ibid., pp. 198.

Ibid., pp. 206.

Louise Dechêne, edited by Hélène Paré, Sylvie Dépatie, Catherine Desbarats, and Thomas Wien. Le Peuple, l'État et la Guerre au Canada sous le Régime Français, (Québec: Les Éditions Du Boréal) 2008., pp. 157-162.

The trauma that the Iroquoian people experienced as a result of conflict with the French and their allies must also be acknowledged.

Dechêne estimates that around 250-300 men were killed because of these raids, approximately 10% of the colony’s male population. She states that most attacks occurred around harvest season, a time when farmers were reluctant to distance themselves from their fields.

Daniel K Richter. "War and Culture: The Iroquois Experience." The William and Mary Quarterly 40, no. 4 (1983): pp. 546-548. doi:10.2307/1921807.

It should be noted that the French were not the greatest contributors to the war against the Iroquois. The Indigenous allies of the French repeatedly raided Iroquoian villages, inflicting heavy casualties.

Dechêne et al. Le Peuple, l'État et la Guerre... pp. 153.

Dechêne notes that King William’s War was referred to as “La Guerre des Anglais” by French Canadian colonists.

Ian Steele. Warpaths. (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 1994. pp. 143.

The attack was disastrous, partly due to the fact that all of the 32 English ships were smaller than practically any European battleship.

This is notable because when Anne was interrogated, she said that Joseph Gaulin had insisted that she should claim to have seen “quatres navires en passant à Tadoussac” (Pierre Georges Roy, 199). When her feminine identity was revealed, she completely changed her story except for the detail of having seen these four ships. Later in the trial, it is established that she referred to these four ships as being frigates (Pierre Georges Roy, 237). Joseph Gaulin might have insisted on the detail about four frigates at Tadoussac because he was aware that part of the reason why the 1690 invasion failed was the small size of the English vessels.

Steele, Warpaths. pp. 147.

Dechêne et al. Le Peuple, l'État et la Guerre... pp. 154.

Ibid., pp. 57.

Pierre Daviault, Le Baron De Saint-Castin, Chef Abénaquis (Montréal: Éditions De L'A.C.F., 1939), pp. 30-39.

The topic of Saint-Castin’s love life is hotly debated. Menneval, the governor of Acadia at that time, insinuated in 1687 that Saint-Castin was married to two of chief Madokawando’s daughters. Baron Lahontan explicitly denied this in an account written a decade later, saying that “[Saint-Castin] n’a jamais changé de femme, pour apprendre aux Sauvages que Dieu n’aime point les hommes inconstants.” However, no one denies that Saint-Castin had close ties with the Abenaki and other indigenous groups.

Roy, “Un Procès Criminel au Dix-Septième Siècle..." pp. 237.

Ibid., pp. 206.

Richter. "The Iroquois Experience..." pp. 547.

When the campaign against the Onondaga ultimately did occur, the aged Frontenac was reportedly carried into the field on a chair. Seeing that the people of Onondaga had deserted the city and destroyed their homes, Frontenac ordered that any remaining crops be burned in order to starve them when they returned.

Dechêne et al. Le Peuple, l'État et la Guerre... pp. 165;

Stanley, George F. G. "The Canadian Militia during the Ancien Régime." Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 22, no. 88 (1943): pp. 163. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44220868.

Charlevoix, Journal (Berthiaume [dir.], v. 1, p. 235.) in Dechêne et al. Le Peuple, l'État et la Guerre... pp. 86.

Stanley, “The Canadian Militia…” pp. 163

While this incident is clearly an example of individuals who wanted to avoid war, we should be cautious about using this single example to make generalizations about French Canadian attitudes about war. It does support the idea that habitants were not as enthused by the prospect of war as writers like Charlevoix and Stanley have claimed.

However, officer positions were always in high demand during the 17th century, indicating that at least some French Canadians glorified war. Indeed, R.L. Chartier de Lotbinière (the very individual who transcribed this trial!) wrote a burlesque poem when he was young that glorified his experience on a winter campaign against the Iroquois (Dechêne, 170).

Roy, “Un Procès Criminel au Dix-Septième Siècle..." pp. 206-207.

Dechêne et al. Le Peuple, l'État et la Guerre... pp. 56.;

Roy, “Un Procès Criminel au Dix-Septième Siècle..." pp. 238.

When asked about his links to the Edmond family, Dorval responded “de toute cette famille il ne connaît qu’un nommé Robert pour avoir été avec lui en voyage à Sonnontouan,” specifying that “[Robert] n’était pas cependant de même cabane ni de même canot.”

Richter. "The Iroquois Experience..." pp. 529-530.

This reputation for brutality needs to be placed in context. The Iroquois did commit atrocities, but it would be a mistake to characterize them as being exceptionally warlike and cruel relative to the French and other Europeans. The Iroquois engaged in acts of violence for rational reasons. However, there is a significant degree of truth to the notion that being captured by the Iroquois would have been a terrifying, if not fatal, experience.

Dechêne et al. Le Peuple, l'État et la Guerre... pp. 171, 321. Militiamen were only lightly provisioned, and they were expected to hunt for food. Given the difficulty of hunting while on the march, hunger was almost inevitable. This may have also increased the risk of dying of sickness while on campaign.

Dechêne et al. Le Peuple, l'État et la Guerre... pp. 131.;

Dechêne et al. Le Peuple, l'État et la Guerre... pp. 147-48.

Roy, “Un Procès Criminel au Dix-Septième Siècle..." pp. 199.

Ibid., pp. 194

Ibid., pp. 211, 233. When asked whether his sister loves Joseph Gaulin, René stated that “oui, elle l’aime beaucoup à ce qu’elle peut montrer au moins.” Barthelemy-François Bourgonnière also testified that Anne had told him that Joseph Gaulin was her lover.

Unfortunately, the court’s interpretation has been unquestioningly accepted by at least three older accounts of this trial. These three older accounts are from Bacqueville de La Potherie in Histoire de l'Amérique septentrionale (1744, found in v. 3, p. 269-270), L.P. Turcotte in Histoire de l'Île d'Orléans (1867, p. 95-96), and Pierre George Roy in the  July 1904 edition of Recherches des Bulletins Historique (vol. 10, p. 193-194).

Ibid., pp. 206.

The sincerity of Anne’s claim that she had primarily been motivated by the prospect of saving her brother is supported by her plea to the court to tell her that “[René] ne sera point châtié, parce que ce n’est pas la malice qu’il a qui lui faisait dire et que les autres en étaient cause.”

Ibid., pp. 241.

Ibid., pp. 233.

Ibid., pp. 233.

One wonders what Anne expected to occur if they decided to send people to Tadoussac to verify her claims.

Ibid., pp. 200.

Cecilia Morgan and Colin Coates. "Like Mother Like Daughter: The Woman Warrior Tradition." In Heroines and History: Representations of Madeleine de Verchères and Laura Secord, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press) 2002. pp. 23.

Roy, “Un Procès Criminel au Dix-Septième Siècle..." pp. 202.

Ibid., pp. 197.

Ibid., pp. 203.

Ibid., pp. 207.

Ibid., pp. 243.

Morgan and Coates. "Like Mother Like Daughter..." pp. 27.

Roy, “Un Procès Criminel au Dix-Septième Siècle..." pp. 234.

It is notable that Bourgonniere’s testimony indicates that Anne’s parents were aware of the entire scheme, and that they had told her to do as she pleased.

Louise Dechêne and Peter Feldstein. Power and Subsistence: The Political Economy of Grain in New France. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018. Appendix C.

To contextualize the sum that Anne (or more realistically, her parents) were fined, 250 livres (the equivalent of 25 louis) could have been exchanged for roughly sixty bushels of wheat in Montreal at that time. This hefty fine and the loss of René’s clothes would likely have been financially devastating to the Edmond family.

Roy, “Un Procès Criminel au Dix-Septième Siècle..." pp. 243.

Dechêne et al. Le Peuple, l'État et la Guerre... pp. 56.

Généalogie Des Familles De L'Ile D'Orléans, comp. M. Michel Forgues, Revd. (Québec: Archives De St-Laurent-Ile D'Orléans) 1906, pp. 44. ;

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "Ancestral File," database, FamilySearch, https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:1:MBBV-RSP

Entry for Jean Blouin dit Laviolette (2HW9-QP8); record merged from multiple submissions.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "Ancestral File," database, FamilySearch https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:1:M12Y-6Y9

Entry for Joseph Gaulin (2KLK-QB9); record merged from multiple submissions.

Généalogie Des Familles De L'Ile D'Orléans, pp. 151.

Généalogie Des Familles De L'Ile D'Orléans, pp. 123.; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "Ancestral File," database, FamilySearch, https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:1:M7FF-YMX. Entry for Rene EMOND (LTTH-S4); record merged from multiple submissions.

"Arbres généalogiques de sites partenaires : MyTrees.com," database, FamilySearch, https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:QS3Q-MN4. Entry for Anne Émond; file (2:2:2:MMX7-GNJ), submitted 2019-12-19.