Marie-claude chamois biography of abraham lincoln

Ancestor Marie-Claude Chamois was born on 29 January into a well-to-do Paris family. Her father, Honoré Chamois, was secretary to King Louis XIV of France and herald of the arms of France. Her mother was Jacqueline Girard. When Honoré passed away, he left behind a sizeable fortune and a wife who, had she been living today, would have her children taken away from her.

There are some gaps in certain areas of Marie-Claude&#;s life, but enough records still exist to show us that she led a very difficult and complicated life.

Marie-Claude had been raised since she was a newborn by Mrs. Bouthillier, her wet nurse, and her husband. It was not unusual for upper class women to have wet nurses take care of their children, but Marie-Claude was raised in the Bouthillier house and not with her own family. Her childhood was not a happy one. When her father died in she was just 4 years old. Her mother refused to care for her and eventually rejected her when she was about 13 years old.

When Marie-Claude was 14, she lived for one year in the Salpêtrière unit of the Hôpital Général in Paris. &#;The Salpêtrière was originally a gunpowder factory that was converted to a dumping ground for the poor of Paris. It served as a prison for prostitutes, and a holding place for the mentally disabled, criminally insane, epileptics, and the poor; it was also notable for its population of rats.&#; (Source: %C3%A9-Salp%C3%AAtri%C3%A8re_Hospital). It was not a traditional hospital, it was actually a place where the poor, needy and homeless lived, a social assistance program run by the government. Marie-Claude found herself there after she literally escaped one night from her horrible home life. A kind neighbourhood woman took her in and told the parish vicar, who brought her to the Salpêtrière. She was there incognito, using the name Marie-Victoire, since she was afraid of being sent back to her mother.

In , she left for New France, as a Fille du Roi. She was willing to leave her family and risk the new land because she had had such a horrible childhood at the expense of her mother. Once in New France, she met and married François Frigon around October of in Batiscan. François was a voyageur, and he was away from home for long periods of time. He spent with Nicolas Perrot, another fur-trader, doing business in Illinois land.

Marie-Claude&#;s mother meanwhile had found out she had gone to New France and was writing letters to people she knew there, to try and get Marie-Claude sent back to France. This never happened.

Marie-Claude and François had 6 children together. In , when her youngest child was just 4 months old, Marie-Claude received news from France that her last surviving sibling had died, making her the sole heir to her father&#;s fortune. She left her husband and children and went to France to claim her inheritance. As a woman, she needed to have her husband&#;s blessing to leave and go take care of this financial affair, and surviving legal documents show that he had indeed supported her cause by giving his permission. This is the same year that François was voyaging in Illinois land with Nicolas Perrot. Their children would have been cared for by someone other than them.

She spent the next 8 years in Paris, battling her mother to gain her inheritance. Her mother refused to recognize her and claimed she was an imposter, despite family and friends who testified that she was indeed Marie-Claude Chamois. She was involved in several drawn out court cases, finally resorting to suing her mother to try and get her rightful inheritance. She eventually won.

Marie-Claude missed most of her children&#;s growing up, including the marriages of 3 of her children. However, she was back in New France in October of when a record shows she was borrowing money to return to France. The relationship with her husband at this point was no longer a good one. It seems that she died in France between and Her husband François died in Batiscan, Québec in

When we learn about the lives of our ancestors who lived hundreds of years ago, it&#;s important to remember that their circumstances and lives were much harder, and so very different than ours today.