VÉRON DE GRANDMESNIL, ÉTIENNE, clerk in the king’s warehouse at Trois-Rivières, merchant, receiver of the admiral of France; b. 19 Dec. 1679 at Trois-Rivières, son of Étienne Véron* de Grandmesnil and Marie-Thérèse Moral de Saint-Quentin; d. 22 April 1743 at Quebec.

Étienne Véron de Grandmesnil spent his childhood and youth at Trois-Rivières. It was there that he married Madeleine, the daughter of Joseph-François Hertel* de La Fresnière, in 1694. At that period Véron was, it seems, clerk in the king’s warehouse at Trois-Rivières. Become a widower, he married Marie-Catherine Le Picard in 1713 in Montreal, where he lived until 1715. Then he went to Quebec and set himself up as a merchant in Rue Notre-Dame in Lower Town.

Because few documents remain concerning Véron’s activities as a merchant, it is difficult to state exactly what his business was. He is better known to us as a litigant, and a litigant who did not give up easily, remaining in this respect faithful to his Norman ancestry. Through his second marriage, with Marie-Catherine Le Picard, Véron had become brother-in-law to the notary Jacques Barbel*, the husband of Marie-Anne Le Picard; the two were daughters of the merchant Jean Le Picard. At his death in 1714 Le Picard left a property which was rented to the merchant Gabriel Greysac. As he was thinking of moving to Quebec, Véron de Grandmesnil obtained from the Conseil Supérieur an order to Greysac to move out. This was only the prelude to a long dispute which was not settled until 1721. That same year a new quarrel broke out between Véron de Grandmesnil and his young brother-in-law, Joseph Le Picard. Both men claimed the part of the house that the other occupied. In 1725 an ordinance allowed Véron to have first choice, on condition that he paid the other the sum of 117 livres. There was also a disagreement over a neighbouring piece of land belonging to Joseph Le Picard, on which he was building. Véron disputed the boundaries of this piece of land, had arbitrators appointed, and attended to having the whole thing surveyed and measured.

At his father’s death in 1721 Véron de Grandmesnil took in hand the interests of Lamothe Cadillac [Laumet*], whose secretary Étienne Véron the elder had been for several years. In 1730 Véron the younger, who had become Cadillac’s attorney, had an ordinance issued by Gilles Hocquart* concerning the collection of the former governor of Louisiana’s assets. This was probably the last time that Véron intervened on Cadillac’s behalf, since the latter died that same year.

During his last years Véron de Grandmesnil held the office of receiver of the admiral of France. A document dated 1740 describes Véron in this capacity when he collected the fees owing the admiral of France on the oil and bone from a whale cast up on the sandbanks at Manicouaguen. After his death he was replaced in this office by Denis Goguet.

Roland-J. Auger