Le procès de Marie-Josèphe-Angélique
Denyse Beaugrand-Champagne • Libre Expression Publishers

April 10, 1734
Saturday evening prayers had just drawn to a close and the beadle was hanging at the end of the bell-rope of the parish church. For Simon Monginot, this was a daily occurrence; in Montréal, evening prayers were said in church. The weather was unusually mild for April and the populace was enjoying the arrival of an early Spring.

Despite the mounting wind, groups lingered in Place d’Armes to get the most of the mild temperatures. Around the public well, men lit their long clay pipes and talked. They discussed that the season seemed determined to stay, and as in every year, like a ritual one cannot change - neither does one wish to - talk invariably came to bear on the imminent arrival of the ships from France.

Everyone voiced an opinion, drawn from either experience or rumour, predicting their arrival, their eventual departure from the upper Gaspé peninsula and their disembarkment vis-à-vis Québec. Once at anchor, merchandise and passengers would then be transferred to smaller vessels.

However, the Governor-in-chief of the Colony - who everyone referred to as “monsieur le Général” - had ordained that letters from France be given priority upon disembarkment, above any merchandise or passenger, whatever the value or rank. The Governor wanted to know firsthand the replies from His Majesty or the Ministry of the Colonies to his requests, sent aboard the last ships to leave before the onset of Winter. After all, it has been six months since he’d received any official news from Europe.

Thérèse de Couagne had been living with her ten-year-old niece Marguerite de Couagne, daughter of her brother Jean-Baptiste. She has four Panis [Native Indian slaves] at her service, two women and two men. Perhaps they were at their farm at Côte Saint-Michel, but she may have rented them out to some local merchants.

The de Francheville also purchased a black slave which the widow named Angelique perhaps as a reminder of the only child she’d lost. The market value of a black slave was superior to that of an Indian one and in the colony to own a black slave indicated an enhanced social status.

Many colonists owned slaves, both black and natives. The Governor had them, prosperous merchants and even religious orders had kept them in their service for the fifty years since the former superintendent officially legalized slavery at the outset of the century.

The widow of Poulin de Francheville [Thérèse de Couagne] attended evening prayers and was readying herself to return home as her status as widow did not permit her to linger in public. A year would have to go by before that could take place, and even that might not be long enough. Thérèse de Couagne was a very devout woman who regularly attended religious services in the parish. Just before leaving the church, she briefly conversed with a servant with whom she had to part company with the previous week, promising her that she would rehire her in the Spring.

In rue Saint-Paul, two little girls were busying themselves playing in the mud under the watchful eye of the sentinel posted in front of Hôtel-Dieu Hospital. In front of the hospital, watching the children, two slaves are having a discussion seated on the stoop of a house; one is a 15-year old Panis - the other is twice her age and black. Further east, Marguerite César dit Lagardelette is leaning on her windowsill, surveying the scene.

In a matter of moments everything would explode. It was seven o’clock when the sentinel cried “Fire!” This terrifying cry heard by the hospital nuns directly behind him. The hospital’s bell clamoured into action. Someone took off running to the church on rue Notre-Dame to alert the beadle. The bell-ringer no sooner sprang into action that his bell was echoed by the other chapels in the town and could be heard in the outskirts.

The roughly 3000 Montrealers knew that this was not an attack from the English colonies, for the smell of fire already hung thickly over the vicinity, a smell all too familiar and as dreaded as the plague. Not a soul remained in the Place d’Armes, as all able-bodied men ran to the call.

From rue Notre-Dame, one could already see the flames rising from the rooftops of rue Saint-Paul “driven by a strong westerly wind.” In accordance with the superintendent’s regulations, several citizens were already fighting the blaze with leather and wooden buckets and axes.  At the bottom of rue Saint-Joseph [endnote] directly beside old Leroux dit Lachaussée’s house stood one of the city’s gates which opened onto the river. A human chain was formed which stretched all the way to rue Saint-Paul, in spite of the great distance, while others drew water from one of the rare wells, behind the Lagardelette house.

From where she was on Place d’Armes, the widow de Francheville could have sworn she saw flames curling from her rooftop. Memories of the 1721 fire were playing tricks with her vision. The distance to her house on rue Saint-Paul seemed interminable. Her neighbour, Francois Bérey des Essars, his servants and his young slave hastily piled belongings into a cart they had found. Berey was a prominent citizen, Treasurer for the Naval troops and Keeper of Public Funds.

In front of his house, the widow sees his black slave and a hired hand quickly carrying off small pieces of furniture, clothing and assorted items.

She searches in vain for her brother-in-law, Alexis Lemoine Moniere, but in the gathering darkness, general outcry and panic, she is forced to abandon the effort, but not before issuing orders to secure what few possessions have escaped the flames.

Further east, the head of the Montreal militia is in his element. No longer young, Etienne Volant Radisson and his son-in-law - having sent their women to the relative safety of the upper town - with the help of their servant Charlotte, their Panis Marguerite and two hirelings, Robin and Francois were doing the best they could to carry out furniture and to quickly cart off to the safety of the hospital across the street.

Given the circumstances the nuns had ordered that their chapel be made available to their neighbours in their time of need. These cloistered nuns were duty-bound to treat the sick and afflicted who appeared at their hospital gates. The inhabitants of rue Saint-Paul were preoccupied with finding a secure corner of the nuns’ chapel for their salvaged possessions to keep them safe from thieves. Everyone ran in every direction, not quite knowing where or why. Panic reigned supreme.

Several moments later, horror overcame fear: the brisk wind carried the flames “with such impetuosity” that the church was ablaze and the fire spread towards a hospital wing. A good forty of the Saint-Joseph nuns and lay sisters found themselves trapped at the scene. Several “kindly souls” saw to the evacuation of Hôtel-Dieu patients; the weaker among them were assisted while the majority had to fend for themselves. It was already too late to salvage the sisters’ belongings, “flames having spread throughout the building so quickly that the roof collapsed as the last nuns fled to safety."

Two nuns who were tending to patients in the dormitory had no idea that the fire now raged in several parts of the building. Their colleagues cried out in unison desperately gesticulating for them to flee before it was too late. Two sisters managed to negotiate the great staircase which was engulfed in flames and escaped to the infirmary to the rear of the building. From there they ran to the “little chapel of the Blessed Virgin” where the other nuns had sought shelter. Rue Saint-Paul was invaded by a good fifty of the city garrison’s 250-strong detachment.

A first group ran up with ladders to scale the walls of burning houses in an attempt to cut off the fire’s progress. Using axes they hacked away entire sections of shingled roofs.

Some helped relay much needed buckets of water, while others were dispersed to various locations to guard over properties and their contents. Their presence did little to dissuade a band of individuals who profited from the cover of darkness and the general pandemonium to hastily stuff bags with goods looted from “the bourgeoisie”, while they ran about desperate to find carts and wagons, promising a handsome wage to anyone willing to convey their possessions to safety.

But the soldiers were too few in number, and the general population was not of much assistance. Montrealers still remembered the devastating fire of 1721, thirteen years earlier, which destroyed over a hundred buildings; they chose to return to their neighbourhoods, regardless of the distance from the epicentre of the fire, to protect their belongings should the conflagration spread.

Those who remained helped tenants and landlords of adjacent streets where the fire had not yet spread. Despite the increasing flame sparking new blazes, the streets were dark and people couldn’t see the encroaching inferno until the streets were strewn with burning debris which only hampered any rescue operations.

The Chevalier Boisberthelot de Beaucours, as well as Naval Commissioner Honoré de Villebois et de La Rouvillière [endnote] and several other officials rapidly took the situation in hand. Orders were issued and as 90 pounds of musket powder, warehoused in the King’s magazines’ was taken to the Commons and consigned to the river so as not to further fuel the flames, women chased hogs escaped from backyards and men grappled with the halters of hyperenervated horses.

The wailings of animals mingled with the cries and curses of homeowners and tenants who watched stupefied as their worldly goods went up in smoke. In some areas, the fire was so intense that approach was impossible; the streets, already difficult to navigate due to the early thaw, were now rendered inaccessible.

In less than three hours, the fire had utterly destroyed the Hôtel-Dieu, leveled 45 dwellings and left several hundred people homeless. A semblance of calm once again descended over the city. Darkness prevented an assessment of the extent of the devastation.

The fire had spread rapidly, fanned by a steady westerly wind and fueled by dozens of cords of wood piled in front of and behind homes for heat during the long winter months.

Furthermore, the buildings were more densely constructed than they were on the larger properties and gardens of the upper town; on rue Notre-Dame was where the Sulpician, Recollet, and Jesuit communities chose to locate their convents and seminaries.

Excerpt translated by Robert A. McGee