GAILLARD, GUILLAUME, businessman, seigneur of the Île d’Orléans and member of the Conseil Supérieur; b. c. 1669 at Villeneuve-la-Comtesse, bishopric of Saintes, son of Hilaire Gaillard and Catherine Leduc; d. 1729.

At the age of 16, Gaillard had come to New France to be a servant of Jean-François Hazeur, Sieur de Petit-Marais, a Montreal merchant, but as the latter had died before Gaillard arrived, in 1685, the young man went to Quebec. On 22 April 1703, in his capacity as churchwarden, he signed an agreement between the seminary and the parish council of Notre-Dame de Québec. Intendant Jacques Raudot said of him, on 28 Oct. 1709: “ [He] is a capable man who has a fine understanding of judicial affairs, and who even worked for a long time under the late Sieur de Villeray, first councillor . . .” His inventory, drawn up by the notary Henry Hiché* on 11 Jan. 1730, mentions more than 25 volumes of law, which proves that he had acquired a sound juridical training.

On 27 May 1690 he married Marie-Catherine Neveu (Nepveu), who bore him 13 children. His first wife died in 1715, and he married again in 1719; his second wife was Louise-Catherine Denys, Dominique Bergeron’s widow.

In an act signed on 6 May 1707 before the notary Chambalon, Gaillard went into partnership with Alexandre Leneuf de Beaubassin, a lieutenant in the colonial regular troops, and Joseph Riverin, another merchant, with the intention of fitting out the ship Nostre-Dame de Victoire “to go privateering . . . on and in the neighbourhood of Cape Breton, the island of Newfoundland, the Grand Banks, and surrounding areas.” Beaubassin provided the ship, of 80 to 90 tons draught, which was under construction at Quebec, and which would be armed with 6 iron cannon and manned by 100 officers and men. Gaillard was to obtain the provisions and “all utensils that will be required both. for the service of the cabin and for the crew.” As for Riverin, he was to rig out the vessel with sails, grappling-irons, and so on. The profits were to be divided between the three partners and the crew. Thomas Moore, an Irishman from the Île d’Orléans, was taken on as ship’s master and pilot; but the vessel put to sea too late and returned in the autumn having captured nothing.

On 20 March 1712, Gaillard acquired for 24,000 livres in French currency the seigneury of the island and countship of Saint-Laurent (Île d’Orléans), which he bought from François Berthelot, a counsellor in the parlement of Paris [see Charlotte-Françoise Juchereau]. Six years later, he acquired for Intendant Michel Bégon* the Grandpré fief, in the Notre-Dame-des-Anges seigneury, the property of Françoise Duquet, widow of Olivier Morel de La Durantaye.

On 20 Jan. 1710 Gaillard was called upon to sit temporarily in the Conscil Supérieur. Louis XIV signed the letters of permanent appointment on the following 5 May.

The death of Bishop Saint-Vallier [La Croix], during the night of the 26 Dec. 1727, gave rise to an extremely violent conflict between the upper clergy on the one hand, and Intendant Dupuy and the two members of the Conseil Supérieur, the Sieurs Gaillard and Rouer* d’Artigny, on the other [see Boullard and Louis-Eustache Chartier* de Lotbinière]. Gaillard, “given special powers on behalf of the Hôpital Général,” took part in preparing the obsequies of the bishop in the chapel of the institution, against the wish of the chapter. On 16 Feb. 1728, Gaillard was deputed by the council to lay information against all those who had contravened the council’s decrees with respect to the canons of the chapter. After a long series of vicissitudes, the governor exiled Gaillard to Beauport and Artigny to Beaumont, but both took refuge at the intendant’s house. The king disapproved of the governor’s action, while at the same time dismissing Dupuy and replacing him by Gilles Hocquart*. The latter received orders to reprimand the councillor severely, as if he had been found guilty.

This long imbroglio impaired Gaillard’s health. He was reinstated in his functions on 4 Oct. 1729 but died on 12 November and was buried the next day in the crypt of the church of Notre-Dame de Québec.

Hervé  Biron