MARIAUCHAU D’ESGLY (d’Esglis), FRANÇOIS, garrison adjutant, commandant of Fort Chambly, king’s lieutenant at Trois-Rivières, knight of the order of Saint-Louis; b. c. 1670 in the parish of Saint-Benoît in Paris, son of Pierre Mariauchau d’Esgly, a lawyer in the parlement, and of Élisabeth Groën; buried 10 Jan. 1730 in the cemetery of the Hôtel-Dieu of Quebec.

He served first in the Régiment du Dauphiné as ensign in the colonel’s company, and came to New France in 1689. Buade* de Frontenac immediately appointed him first corporal of his guards, and two years later granted him a commission as half-pay lieutenant, which was confirmed by the king on 1 March 1693. On 1 May 1696 he became lieutenant of one of the companies of colonial regular troops in New France.

On 20 Oct. 1699 Governor Callière and Intendant Bochart de Champigny wrote to the minister, Pontchartrain: “The Sieur d’Esgly, also a lieutenant, to whom in the past some attachment for a woman of this town was imputed, does not now give cause for such suspicions; he is applying himself to his service in Montreal, where he is almost all the time, and is discharging with diligence his duty and the functions of adjutant which he exercises; this testimony we are obliged to offer to His Majesty.”

In 1703 Rigaud de Vaudreuil instructed him to go to inform the king of Governor Callière’s death. During his stay in the mother country d’Esgly managed to secure for himself a company in the colonial regular troops. The flute called the Seine, on which he was returning at the end of June, was surrounded by English units and captured. The officer was taken prisoner with the whole crew and the other passengers, including Bishop Saint-Vallier [La Croix]. After being held captive in England for more than a year, he got back to France, where he stayed for some months before returning to Canada in 1705, holding the rank of captain in Vaudreuil’s guards.

In 1713 he is said to have been commandant of Fort Chambly, which had recently been rebuilt in stone. On 3 July of that year Pontchartrain informed Mariauchau d’Esgly that he was recommending him for the cross of Saint-Louis, but on the 17 May following he admitted to him that the king was not granting any crosses that year. At that time the minister also urged him to put a stop to illegal trading with the English at Chambly.

On 2 Jan. 1716 d’Esgly succeeded La Corne de Chaptes in the post of town major of Trois-Rivières. On 7 May 1720 he was promoted garrison adjutant at Quebec. He was decorated with the cross of Saint-Louis on 23 Dec. 1721, a decoration for which the governor had been recommending him since 1712. In 1717 Vaudreuil had insisted further with the reminder that “the Sieur d’Esgly, town major at Trois-Rivières, is the only officer at headquarters who does not have a cross of Saint-Louis. It appears necessary to him in the post that he occupies because it commands more respect and submission on the part of the settlers and Indians. He was moreover on the list of those whom M. de Pontchartrain was to propose to the king at the time of His Majesty’s death.”

The last position which he held was that of king’s lieutenant at Trois-Rivières, an appointment he obtained on 23 April 1726. He was admitted as a patient to the Hôtel-Dieu of Quebec on 6 Jan. 1730, died there on 8 January, and on 10 January was buried in the paupers’ cemetery of the institution.

On 7 Jan. 1708, at Quebec, he had married Louise-Philippe Chartier de Lotbinière, daughter of René-Louis Chartier de Lotbinière, first councillor in the Conseil Souverain, and of Marie-Madeleine Lambert. His wife died young, and as the officer seemed to have little concern for the upkeep of his five children, his brother-in-law, Eustache Chartier* de Lotbinière, archdeacon, vicar general, and member of the Conseil Souverain, successfully demanded that 600 livres be withheld from his annual salary of 1,800 livres in order to provide for their needs.

Hervé Biron