DUPONT DE NEUVILLE, NICOLAS, member of the Conseil Souverain, keeper of the seals; baptized 24 Oct. 1636 at Vervins, France; son of Jean Dupont, receiver general for the local salt storehouse, and of Marie Gauchet; d. 25 April 1716 and was buried the next day in the parish church of Notre-Dame de Québec.

By 1652 Nicolas Dupont was probably in New France, where he was engaged in trade. In 1665 he was churchwarden of Notre-Dame de Québec. He returned to France before 1668, and on 18 March 1669, in Paris, he signed his marriage contract with Jeanne Gaudais; their first child was baptized on 19 Dec. 1669 at Quebec. Two sons and three daughters were born of this marriage; no male descendants survived, since the elder son died soon after birth and the younger drowned at the age of 11. Nicolas Dupont has often been confused with Louis Gaudais-Dupont*, but has finally been distinguished from him.

Louis XIV ennobled Dupont by letters patent on 30 April 1669. The next year, on 13 January, he was admitted to the Conseil Souverain and received his life appointment from the king on 26 April 1675. He was appointed councillor and keeper of the seals on 1 June 1703.

On 20 Dec. 1670 Nicolas Dupont had bought from Zacharie Cloutier* the arriere-fief of La Clouterie (or La Cloutièrerie) in the Beauport seigneury. He made it over as a dowry to his daughter Françoise-Thérèse on 10 May 1687, on the occasion of her marriage to François-Marie Renaud* d’Avène de Desmeloizes. He also acquired the seigneury adjoining the Maur seigneury on the west that has borne the names of Dombourg, Pointe-aux-Trembles, and Neuville. It was bought from Jean-François Bourdon* de Dombourg on 12 Nov. 1680 and enlarged on 27 April 1683 by a land grant from Governor Joseph-Antoine Le Febvre* de La Barre and Intendant Jacques de Meulles. This property also passed to the family of Renaud d’Avène de Desmeloizes after Dupont’s death.

Nicolas Dupont was a prominent person in his day. On 7 Nov. 1678 he was given the task of bearing to the king the opinions held by an assembly of notables regarding the sale of spirits to Indigenous people. He thus earned the confidence of Governor Frontenac [Buade*]. In August 1685 Intendant de Meulles, who was obliged to go and spend the winter in Acadia, delegated his powers to Dupont during his absence. Another delegate, Montreal merchant Jean-Baptiste Migeon*, was appointed to examine the suits against those who were trading with the English, and he came into conflict with Dupont. The latter lived in Quebec and he tried to prevent Migeon from carrying on his task there. On 8 Nov. 1685 the Conseil Souverain confirmed Migeon’s freedom to “continue wherever it is his concern – even in Quebec – to institute proceedings as he has been delegated to do by the Intendant.” In June 1704 Dupont contributed financially to a maritime venture led by Jean Léger de Lagrange against the English in Newfoundland. On 5 Oct. 1713 he gave an acre and a half of land at Pointe-aux-Trembles to the Sisters of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame “to found a mission there for teaching the young girls of his seigneury.”

Dupont was the senior member of the Conseil Supérieur, when he passed away in April 1716. His wife had died before him, on 16 Sept. 1707. One of their daughters, Marie-Madeleine, married Paul Le Moyne de Maricourt on 29 Oct. 1691 at Quebec.

Lucien Campeau