SOUPIRAN, SIMON, master surgeon; b. 5 Feb. 1704 at Quebec, son of Simon Soupiran*, surgeon barber, and Marthe Bélanger; d. 16 June 1764 at Quebec.

Simon Soupiran was evidently a man of probity and, trained by his father, he was a capable surgeon, if not a distinguished one. He built on the social foundations laid by his father and became a solid townsman of Quebec. Soupiran lived on Rue de la Fabrique in the city’s Upper Town and, to judge from the birth and death records of his children, spent some time in the nearby village of Lorette. On 16 May 1727 at Quebec he had married Marie-Anne Gaultier by whom he had seven children. On 26 June 1736 at Quebec he took a second wife, Marie-Jeanne Avisse, widow of the merchant François Trefflé, dit Rottot; they had five children.

Like other surgeons, Simon Soupiran was obliged from time to time to take legal action to have some of his bills paid. When he was taken to court, it was for debts or a trifling matter like a coffee spoon which he had found and kept. Soupiran had other financial ups and downs. He seems to have been a commercial partner of Jean Vidal and their collective property was seized in the late 1720s. His family took in boarders, and Soupiran in 1737 claimed payment from his former mother-in-law for six years’ bed and board.

Official recognition of Soupiran’s capacity as a surgeon is evident in his occasional appointment to act as an expert by the lower courts at Quebec. In 1754 Soupiran was consulted on the character of Henry Hiché before Hiché’s appointment to the Conseil Supérieur. He also acted as a reference for Guillaume Guillimin* in 1757. In addition to his private clientele, Soupiran was surgeon to the Ursuline nuns. Simon’s son, Charles-Simon, followed his father’s profession.

Peter N. Moogk