LESTRINGANT DE SAINT-MARTIN (Viabon), ALEXANDRE-JOSEPH, ensign, lieutenant, captain; b. c. 1660 at Saint-Benoit-le-Fleury-sur-Loire, son of Nicolas de Lestringant and Anne Jacquier; d. 1722.

Lestringant de Saint-Martin came to New France as a soldier in 1684. He became a lieutenant on the active list on 1 March 1688, a half-pay captain in 1691, a naval sub-lieutenant on 5 May 1695, commander of the Quebec battalion during Buade* de Frontenac’s campaign against the Onondagas in 1696, and a captain in the colonial regular troops on 12 May 1697. On 11 Nov. 1702 Beauharnois* de La Chaussaye recommended him to the minister for the position of town major of Trois-Rivières, saying that he was the protégé of the Comte de Saint-Florentin et de La Vrillière; this recommendation came to nothing.

On 1 Sept. 1694, at Montreal, Lestringant de Saint-Martin married Louise-Madeleine, daughter of Nicolas Juchereau* de Saint-Denis, seigneur of Beauport, and of Marie-Thérèse Giffard. Two boys and two girls were born of this marriage, but only the latter, Marie-Anne-Josette and Madeleine-Thérèse, survived their father, the two boys having died soon after birth.

In August 1706 Lestringant de Saint-Martin and his wife instituted proceedings against the Jesuits over a question of precedence in the church at Beauport, but after a month’s debate the two parties reached an agreement. On 7 Jan. 1711, Marie-Anne-Josette, still a minor, provoked a scandal in the region of Quebec by a marriage “à la gaumine” with Louis de Montéléon, an officer in the colonial regular troops. This marriage gave rise to two lawsuits, one before the officiality of Quebec, the other before the civil authorities. On 16 February, however, the affair was settled by a religious marriage, celebrated at Beauport.

It seems that Lestringant de Saint-Martin, after his wife’s death in June 1721, went to France, where on 8 June 1722 he received the cross of the order of Saint-Louis. He died during the same year, probably in France.

Roland-J. Auger