HORNÉ (Deborné), dit Laneuville, JACQUES DE, soldier, royal notary, and process-server; b. in 1664 (according to Tanguay); he came from Dieppe (province of Normandy), and was the son of Jacques de Horné and Catherine Duval; buried 7 March 1730 at Sainte-Croix.

Horné came to Canada as a soldier in the colonial regular troops. On 24 Jan. 1702, at Saint-Laurent on the Île d’Orléans, he married Marie Sivadier. From 1704 until his death, Horné practised as royal notary and process-server. His commission has not been found, but we know that his jurisdiction extended along the north and south shores of the St Lawrence from the Chaudière falls to the government of Trois-Rivières. He was one of those itinerant notaries of the French régime, who had to be continually on the move in search of a scanty clientele. His territory covered 25 leagues, on the two shores of the St Lawrence, which he had to cross in summer by canoe, in winter by making his way over the ice. His job was certainly no sinecure.

As he lived at Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours, Horné was in 1723 a member of the parish of Saint-Antoine de Tilly. But, in agreement with the settlers of Bonsecours and Maranda, he recognized as parish priest only the missionary to Sainte-Croix. On 30 Dec. 1723 Bégon* called these refractory parishioners to order. Shortly afterwards Horné lost a child, whom he had buried at Sainte-Croix. The parish priest of Saint-Antoine immediately lodged a complaint, as a result of which the intendant, on 10 March 1724, suspended Horné from his offices as notary and process-server for setting a bad example, and sentenced him to a fine of 20 livres. The intendant reinstated him on 27 April following, when he had paid the tithe, the fine, and the burial dues for his child.

Horné died in 1730 and was buried at . . . Sainte-Croix!

André Vachon