DIZY, dit Montplaisir, MICHEL-IGNACE, soldier, voyageur, farmer, seigneurial judge; baptized 16 Aug. 1661 at Trois-Rivières, son of Pierre Dizy and Marie Drouillet (or Drouillard), brother of Marguerite and Pierre*; buried 13 Feb. 1723 at Champlain.

Michel-Ignace Dizy did not succeed in resisting the lure of adventure which won over the youth of the Trois-Rivières region in the 17th century. With his brother, Charles, and his future father-in-law, René Baudouin, he is thought to have accompanied Cavelier* de La Salle, for he obtained a grant of land at Fort Saint-Louis in the Miami country on 1 Dec. 1682. We find Michel-Ignace at Cataracoui the following summer, with a group of militiamen from his native region. He held the rank of lieutenant in Jean-Amador Godefroy’s company. He was back at Champlain before 2 Dec. 1683, the date on which he deposited the title to his land grant at Fort Saint-Louis in the registry of the notary Antoine Adhémar.

His brother Charles and René Baudouin continued to travel in the west, but Michel-Ignace settled at Champlain on a land grant received from his father in return for a loan of 1,000 livres, amassed on his earlier fur-trading trips. On 6 Feb. 1690 he married Marie-Jeanne Baudouin, and, having bought some land from Charles Aubert de La Chesnaye on 5 July 1690, he divided his time from then on between the cultivation of his farm and his office as seigneurial judge. In the latter capacity he was rebuked by the Conseil Souverain in 1713 for having failed in a proceeding to follow “the ordinances and customary law of Paris.” This did not prevent him from enjoying until his death the confidence of his fellow-countrymen.

Raymond Douville