LEGARDEUR DE TILLY, PIERRE-NOËL, captain in the colonial regular troops, councillor of the Conseil Souverain, son of Charles Legardeur* de Tilly, also a member of the Conseil Souverain, and of Geneviève Juchereau de Maur; baptized 24 Dec. 1652 at Sillery; buried 13 Aug. 1720 at Saint-Antoine de Tilly.

He was the eldest son of a family of soldiers and he too had an honourable military career: ensign in the colonial regular troops in 1688, half-pay lieutenant a year later, lieutenant on the active list in 1692, midshipman in 1694, lieutenant in 1700, captain in command of a company in 1710. In 1701 Callière makes mention of him as “a good officer.”

In 1689 he was appointed councillor of the Conseil Souverain in his father’s absence; in 1695, however, he gave his position over to Charles Aubert de La Chesnaye in payment of a debt of 6,500 livres that he and his father had contracted with Aubert.

All his life Legardeur de Tilly was beset by multiple pecuniary difficulties which he tried vainly to cope with through numerous real estate dealings. He even engaged in trade; he had cause to rue it, for on 29 Nov. 1679, four days after his offence, the Conseil Souverain sentenced him to a fine of 2,000 livres for trading in furs “in the Indian settlements and in the depths of the woods.”

In 1675 he had married Marguerite Volant, who bore him two daughters. In 1680 he married again, this time with Madeleine, the daughter of Pierre Boucher, the former governor of Trois-Rivières. Thirteen children were born of this marriage. At his death his wife and children were left destitute.

Robert Lahaise