DUBOIS DE COCREAUMONT ET DE SAINT-MAURICE, JEAN-BAPTISTE, esquire, artillery commander and staff officer in the Carignan-Salières regiment; fl. 1665–67?

Having landed at Quebec only a short time before, Dubois arrived on 21 Oct. 1665 at Fort Sainte-Thérèse, where he spent the winter. In the autumn of 1666 he took part in the expedition against the Iroquois with instructions to take possession in the name of the king of France of the “Mohawk, forts,” which he duly did on 17 Oct. 1666. Nothing more is known of this soldier who probably returned to France in 1667 or 1668.

This officer should not be confused with his namesake Jean-Baptiste Dubois d’Esgriseilles (not “Des Prinzèles”), chaplain of the Carignan-Salières regiment, who landed at Quebec on 19 Aug. 1665 with Henri de Chastelard, Marquis de Salières. We have scarcely any more information about this person. He was at Montreal on Christmas Day 1665, then at Quebec on 19 Aug. 1666, when he conducted the opening religious exercises for the Jesuits. In the autumn he took part in the expedition against the Mohawks. Not much is known about what happened to him afterwards. In May 1671 he is mentioned as being at Trois-Rivières. Did he sail for France that same year, as Caron maintains? Was he actually at Montreal in 1674, as Sulte claims? In any event, if he remained in the colony after 1671, he did not attract much attention. Once, on 11 April 1676, he is named in an act of the Conseil Souverain, although we do not know if he was then in Canada; the act mentions his procurator, Sieur Jean Lechasseur* (secretary of Buade de Frontenac), which is not, of course, necessarily an indication that the abbé was then in France. Tanguay, Allaire, and Sulte, after Noiseux – whose information is very frequently incorrect – state that he left Canada in 1680. We ourselves believe that he had returned to France some years before that date.

André Vachon