bpt. 4 Aug. 1551 Soissons, Aisne, Picardie
m. 25 Jan. 1583 JEANNE de ROUCY (b.c.1553 Vermand, Aisne, Picardie), d. of Nicolas II, Comte de Roucy and Louise D'Espense

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bpt. 21 July 1584 Soissons, Aisne, Picardie
m.c. 1615 CATHERINE FAYOLLE

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m. MARGUERITE PATOU

Antoine was a master butcher in Corbie, near Amiens. It seems unlikely that Antoine was the son of the Seigneur de Rheims and to date I have not seen any conclusive evidence to prove this link.

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bpt. 1 July 1651 St. Cloud, Amiens, Picardie
m.1. 4 Nov. 1682 Notre Dame de Quebec, Jeanne Verdon (bpt. 14 Feb. 1665 Chateau Richer)
2. 1691 MARIE LOUISE LESIEGE (b.c.1673)
bur. 13 May 1729 St. Sulpice

Francois Coutu was one of the early settlers in the lordship of Lavaltrie. Upon the dismissal of the Carignan Regiment, Le Talon granted lordships to several officers to boost the population of New France. One of those who benefited was Seraphin Margane Lavaltrie, who had been a lieutenant in the company of Poitou and Allier. On 29 October 1672, he was granted an area a league and a half along the St. Lawrence and of similar depth, bounded on the west side by land belonging to the Seminary of Montreal. This grant would become the current municipality of Saint-Sulpice and the nearby manor of Lavaltrie. It should not be assumed that the lords were rolling in wealth. When Margane Lavaltrie died, he left a poor widow who retired to Montreal and the manor remained abandoned for several years. Such a situation was reflected in the lives of his tenants. Francois Coutu, who came from his native Picardy, lived some years in the manor, then returned there after a stay in Montreal.

Francois came from Corbie, which is today the chief town of the Canton of Amiens. A town of 6,000 only a dozen miles east of Amiens, including the famous Gothic cathedral which has one of highest halls of France. We do not know when Francois Coutu went to New France, but in 1681 he is found in the manor of Lavaltrie, installed on a grant of four arpents which was under cultivation. Francois then joined his fate to that of Joan Verdon, daughter of Vincent and Genevieve Pelletier. The notary Pierre Duquet, in front of whom the couple signed their marriage contract, forgot to date the document, but it is placed between a concession and sale dated respectively October 29th and November 3rd . Francis said he lived in "La Valtrie" and his surname is spelled Cottu. Their daughter, Louise, baptised in 1704, was the first act written in the registers of Dupas Island (Archipelago of Lake Saint-Pierre) and it bears the signature of the celebrant, Father L�onard Chaigneau, a Sulpician who worked as a missionary in Rivi�re-des-Prairies Sorel, Repentigny and St. Sulpice before becoming pastor of L'Assumption. Louise Coutu and her husband Jean-Baptiste Riel are the ancestors of Louis, the "Father of Manitoba", the indomitable leader of the Metis who mounted the scaffold in 1885 in Regina. We do not know what happened to the second child, a son, Charles-Francois.

Widower, Fran�ois Coutu contracted a second marriage with Louise Lesi�ge, daughter of Pierre Lesi�ge and Marguerite Laplace. Sixteen children were born of this second marriage, most of whom would not survive. Three daughters and three sons passed away in the cradle, another son at the age of four and two were killed in their beds by bears at the age of seven years, as evidenced by the first two acts of burials contained the records of Saint-Sulpice. The children were buried in the presence of their father, Jean-Baptiste Riel and Father Chaigneau.

If the first lord of Lavaltrie knew no glory, he did found a military family. His son, Pierre, had a career in the Navy and reached the rank of captain and was made a Knight of St. Louis. His grand-son, Pierre-Paul, participated in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham as a lieutenant in the regiment of Languedoc. Heir of the manor, he devoted himself to its development and built himself a mansion there.

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