The Buildings

The cities of Nouvelle-France were totally different from our modern cities. Title recognition and enumeration for the seigneury of the island of Montréal , from 1731, lists properties in the seigneury of Montréal with a summary description of the improvements made on each lot. The adjoining excerpt describes the properties that were consumed in the fire on April 10, 1734. How do these properties compare with those in a modern-day city?

In 1749, a Swede named Pehr Kalm was given permission to visit a hospital belonging to an order of cloistered sisters in Québec. We have included his description of the building, which was similar to that of the Hôtel-Dieu hospital in Montréal. Parcels of available land near the Hôtel-Dieu had many advantages, including their proximity to the market and to the port. However, the Hospitaller sisters, owners of these lots, imposed special clauses on the buyers in order to ensure that the tranquillity of the neighbourhood was preserved. How might the sector near the Hôtel-Dieu be described?

Landowners wishing to construct a house frequently signed a notarized deed that outlined the manner of construction. The agreement between François Poulin de Francheville, Angélique’s owner, and the stone workers Alexandre Jourdain and Jean-Baptiste Payet, lists the characteristics of a large bourgeois house in Montréal. The plans for François Soumande Delorme’s house, constructed shortly after the fire, describe the interior layout of such a house. Inventories after death also enumerated rooms while the notary listed the contents of the house. From the inventory taken of a house once owned by Jean Magnan dit Lespérance, we are introduced to the implements used in a kitchen similar to the ones in which Angélique and her neighbour, Marie dite Manon, worked.