BRICAULT DE VALMUR, LOUIS-FRÉDÉRIC, secretary to Intendant Gilles Hocquart* from 1729 to 1737; b. 1690 or 1691; d. at Quebec, 27 June 1738.

It is probable that Valmur came to New France in September 1729 with Hocquart, the newly appointed financial commissary, as the latter’s personal choice for the post of secretary. This was an office of great trust and Hocquart was thoroughly acquainted with Valmur’s background and character. In 1731 he described him to the minister as well-born, of a respected Parisian family, and having a brother who was a notary in Paris. In addition, he was “. . . intelligent, hardworking and . . . has studied law.” Valmur resided at the intendant’s palace in Quebec and, during the early 1730s, gradually expanded his activities to include the normal work of the intendancy as well as special administrative tasks like the preparation of the seigneurial register of landed property. He appears also to have developed some private interests, for in 1733 he joined a group of entrepreneurs seeking to establish an ironworks at Saint-Maurice (see François Poulin). Actually, such involvement by a royal official in a colonial enterprise was in line with Hocquart’s own philosophy, and the intendant continued to favour Valmur in his reports to France, asking, for example, that he be promoted king’s writer. The minister, however, refused to allow this while Valmur continued in the role of secretary. Hocquart therefore dismissed Valmur from that post in 1737 and again petitioned for a commission as writer for him. This time the request was granted, but Valmur died before the news arrived in 1738. He was buried in the crypt of Notre-Dame.

Donald J. Horton