As noted earlier, Corporal Jean Landié dit Lesperance arrived in Canada 1756 with the Mauran Company of the 2nd Battalion of LaSarre's Regiment, which was part of Montcalm's army.

It is very likely that Corporal Jean traveled as part of Montcalm's army on Lake Champlain about 1757 within miles of what later became Keeseville, New York where his grandson, Narcisse, settled about eighty-six years later with his family. Corporal Jean died before his grandson was born but possibly Narcisse learned about his grandfather's ventures in the Champlain Valley from his own father.

During the winters of 1756-1757, 1757-1758, and 1758-1759, several companies of the 2nd Battalion of the LaSarre Regiment had wintered along the river between Lachenai and the parish of St-Pierre-du-Portage at L'Assomption. Even today, L'Assomption is a small, pretty farm town inside a loop of the L'Assomption River about 8 miles from the St. Lawrence River. It is close to the present-day Federal Route 40, the throughway between Montreal and Quebec.

Generally the French soldiers were billeted with Canadian families during the winter. We don't know how and exactly when Jean's romance with Marie-Suzanne BRIEN dit DESROCHER started. Maybe he was billeted in the BRIEN home. Jean married Marie-Suzanne at L'Assomption in 1758. The day before the wedding the couple had entered into a marriage contract (similar to a present-day prenuptial agreement) before the notary Jean-Baptiste D'Aguilhe.

Marie-Suzanne was the 29-year-old daughter of Louis BRIEN dit DESROCHER and Marie-Catherine DESROCHES. She was born in 1730 at Pointe-aux-Trembles where her parents and both sets of grandparents had lived. Twenty-nine was a late age to be married for a girl of those days. We have to wonder why somebody hadn't swept her off her feet ten years earlier.

Jean and Marie-Suzanne had three children, all baptized at L'Assomption: Jean-Baptiste was born in 1758 and died there in 1760; a second Jean-Baptiste, my ancestor, was born in 1763; and Marie-Angelique was born in 1765. It is likely his father was away at war for much of the two-year life of the first Jean-Baptiste.

Corporal Jean and Marie-Suzanne's daughter, Marie-Angelique, married Joseph PIGEON in 1796 at St-Roch-de l'Achigan, Montcalm County. Her story is a sad one. We know that her first child, born in 1797, was named after her mother and later married. The second child, Pelagie, died in 1799 less than 2 months old. The mother died the same day as her third daughter, the second Marie-Angelique, was born in 1800. The mother was buried and the daughter baptized two days later in the same church. This third child died less than 2 months later. Thus, less than four years after her marriage, Marie-Angelique and two of her three children had all died.

We know that the corporal's wife Marie-Suzanne died before her tenth wedding anniversary, because in 1768 Jean took a second wife, Marie-Catherine MAHEU (daughter of Jean MAHEU and Marie LOYER) at the nearby town of Repentigny. Jean and Marie-Catherine had at least 8 children: no less than four died very young and only one son, Francois, lived to marry - Louise JUNEAU. With the help of French-speaking Marcel Lesperance, a distant half-cousin and a local genealogist, Denis Charest, I have researched the descendants of Jean and Marie-Catherine because they are my "half relatives". Their descendants generally took the name LANGUIER and even LANGUE and LONGUE instead of LANDIER. These variations are sometimes with and sometimes without the LESPERANCE. I can identify all of those descendants into the present century who had the name Lesperance.

Going back to the corporal's first marriage, only my Generation II ancestor Jean-Baptiste LANDIER dit LESPERANCE survived to carry on the name. (The first marriage in Canada is labeled Generation I.) J-B married Angelique GAUTHIER dite LANDREVILLE, daughter of Jean GAUTHIER dit LANDREVILLE and Josette ARCHAMBAULT in 1791, also at L'Assomption, where she was born. They had at least eight children born either at St-Roch de l'Achigan or at St-Esprit, both in Montcalm County: Narcisse, my Generation III ancestor; Joseph who was born in 1797 at St-Roch (it is not known if he ever married); Marie-Angelique who married Joseph GIROUX in 1823 at St-Esprit; Marie who married Jean-Baptiste LA FOURCHE in 1818 at St-Esprit; Agathe who married Pierre MENARD dit LEPIN in 1824 at St-Esprit; Julie who married Narcisse-Napoleon MARTIN-BARNABE (brother of Sophie discussed below) in 1833 at St-Esprit; Marie-Louise who married Isidore RICHARD in 1825 at St-Esprit and Monique who married Francois PICOTTE in 1830 at St-Esprit. Because we don't know the fate of Joseph, the only grandson of Corporal Jean and his first wife, Marie-Suzanne, known to have carried on the LANDIER dit LESPERANCE name was my Generation III ancestor Narcisse (Nelson).

Narcisse (Nelson) LANDIER dit LESPERANCE and Sophie MARTIN dite BARNABE (daughter of Cyprien and Judith ROCHELEAU dite LAPERCHE) were married in 1830 at St-Esprit, Montcalm County. Both of Sophie's paternal grandparents, Pierre MARTIN dit BARNABE and Marie FOREST came from Acadia (now Nova Scotia), but were married in 1763 at Repentigny, near L'Assomption. I am now researching the MARTIN dit BARNABE name because I have reason to believe that Pierre was exiled to what is now known as New England by the English during the Grand Derangement of 1755---the forced exile of the Acadians immortalized by Wadsworth's poem, "Evangeline."

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