Marguerite Daigle Boudrou 

My Sixth Great-Grandmother

(about 1720 to 1780)

Parents Unknown – brother Charles Daigle 

Husband Zacharie Boudrou 

Mother of Marie, Paul, Charles, Marguerite, Benjamin, Benjamin, Paul Dominique, Charles, Jean-Baptiste, Marguerite and Benjamin-Hillaire 

Date: 1752 

Setting: La Traverse on Ile Saint Jean (now near Cape Traverse on Prince Edward Island) 

Marguerite Daigle: Margueritte, please get the children. It’s time to eat. Zacharie, please come in to eat. 

Zacharie: Let me finish checking on the pigs and then I’ll be in. 

Margueritte Boudrou: Zacharie and Marguerite, thank you so much for having me stay with you. I don’t know where I would live if I weren’t with you.

Zacharie: Oh cher, Margueritte, you are family, and you are only ten years old. We love having you here and you are most welcome. 

Marguerite Daigle: I feel as if you are my daughter. I appreciate your help with Marie, Paul, and the house. With Zacharie plowing the fields all day, I would not have time to work in our garden that provides our food. There is so little food available. Before we arrived in La Traverse, there had been years of famine when the locust and the rats devastated the crops. 

Zacharie:  People have been starving and are without clothing, but it will get better. I hope we get a church that is closer like we had with La Sainte Famille^[1]Albert J. Robichaux, The Acadian Exiles in Nantes, 1775-1785 (Harvey, Louisiana: Albert J. Robichaux, Jr., 1978), p.191. The parish of La Sainte Famille was in … Continue reading in L’ Acadie. Now we must go to Port La Joye to have the children baptized when they are born. Très difficile. 

Marguerite Daigle: What an ordeal it was to get here from L’Acadie. Somehow, we escaped the British who are taking over Nova Scotia. The Micmacs helped us make the journey. Marie was just two years old and Paul just a baby. Thank goodness Monsieur de Bonnaventure gave us permission to work and live on this land.^[2]“Tour of Inspection Undertaken by Le Sieur De La Roque,” Report Concerning Canadian Archives for the Year 1905, 2 (1906): p.162; digital image 354 of 1042; … Continue reading

Zacharie: With four oxen, three cows and their calves, the horse, and two pigs, we should be able to prosper. With the other three families nearby, we can help each other and improve life on Isle St. Jean.^[3]“Tour of Inspection Undertaken by Le Sieur De La Roque,” Report Concerning Canadian Archives for the Year 1905, 2 (1906): p.162; digital image 354 of 1042; … Continue reading

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Date: 23 January 1759 

Setting: Port of Saint Servan, near Saint-Malo, France. Two women from Saint Servan, Madame Prejan and Madame Morin see each other on their way to the market. 

Madame Prejan: Bon jour, Madame Morin.  

Madame Morin: Bon jour, Madam Prejan. 

Madame Prejan. Mon Dieu, did you see what has been going on at the Port of Saint Servan? Boatloads of Acadians have been arriving in the most desperate of conditions. The British finally got their way and deported the rest of the French from Ile Saint Jean just as they did several years ago in Nova Scotia. 

Madame Prejan: I know. Five ships arrived. There must be hundreds of Acadians who have debarked from the ships. How cruel of the British to make them cross the Atlantic Ocean in January. I saw the Acadians getting off the John and Samuel and Mathias. Such a sad situation. They can barely walk. They look like they have been starving for years. They also debarked from the Patience, Restoration and Yarmouth. 

Madame Morin: I was helping at the church with one lady, Marguerite Daigle. She was in such distress. She lost all five of her children while crossing. It may have been smallpox. The oldest was nine and the baby was one year old.^[4]Milton P. Rieder, Jr. and Norma Gaudet Rieder, The Acadians in France Volume III Archives of the Port of Saint Servan (Metairie, Louisiana,1973), p. 25. What a pity. How can she bear it? So many of the Acadians are at the Hôtel-Dieu. Many more will die in the next few days and weeks. 

Madame Prejan: What else do you know about Marguerite Daigle? 

Madame Morin: She is Madame Boudrou and married to Zacharie Boudrou. She told me she was born around 1729 in Acadia. She married her husband around 1748. They were from Ile Saint Jean.  

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Date: 15 September 1762 

Setting: Trigavou, Departement des Côtes-d’Armor, Bretagne, France, near Saint-Malo 

Census Taker: Bon jour, Monsuier. Please tell me your name and your age. 

Zacharie Boudrou: Bon jour. I am Zacharie Boudrou and I am 40 years old. We are Acadians who were deported from Isle St. Jean. 

Census Taker: Who else lives with you and how old are they? 

Zacharie Boudrou: My wife, Marguerite Daigle, is 33 years old. We have two sons.  Benjamin was born in 1760 and Paul Domingue was born in 1761.^[5]Rieder, Milton P, The Acadians in France, 1762-1776; Rolls of the Acadians living in France distributed by towns for the years 1762 to 1776 (Metaire, Louisiana, 1967), archive.org, p. … Continue reading 

Zacharie’s kinsman Antoine Boudrou and his wife Brigite Lapart also lived in Trigavou. They had lived near Marguerite and Zacharie when they were on Isle St. Jean in 1752.  

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Date: 1772 

Setting: Saint-Malo 

Marguerite Daigle: Zacharie, what did you tell the man who was asking about us? Do you think they will take away our subsidy of six sous a day?  

Zacharie: They were taking the names of all the Acadians again. I hope they don’t take away our subsidy. Though I am a good laborer, and you are weaving, we need every sou we can get. We have four children to feed and rent to pay! 

Marguerite Daigle: The townspeople are unhappy that we receive an allotment from the king, and they do not. C’est la vie. The children are supposed to receive three sous each day, but rarely do we see that. Nevertheless, Paul Dominique is eating so much now that he’s ten years old. If our second Benjamin had lived, he would be eating just as much, if not more. Charles is eight and he is growing fast. Marguerite and Benjamin Hilaire need more too. Even though they are three and two, they can’t eat crumbs!^[6]Rieder, Milton P., The Acadians in France, 1762-1776; Rolls of the Acadians living in France distributed by towns for the years 1762 to 1776 (Metaire, Louisiana, 1967), archive.org, p. … Continue reading I was talking to Brigite the other day and she said that she is weaving and spinning to help when Antoine can’t get work. They have seven children. So many of the Acadian women are weaving and spinning to help with rent and food.  

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01 Oct 1780 

Setting: Saint-Nicolas parish cemetery, Nantes, France^[7]Saint-Nicolas BMS – 1780 Collection départementall, Archives de Nantes, Image 257 of … Continue reading

Zacharie: Dear family, thank you all for being here today. With much sorrow, we lay my dear wife, Marguerite Daigle, to rest. Like so many of us Acadians, she suffered greatly. She thought when we left Saint-Malo for Châtellerault in 1773 we would have land again like we did when we were young. It was so heartbreaking when we learned that the land was unsuitable for farming. So we moved yet again and turned to Nantes a few years later. Here we wait for the possibility of going to Louisiana. The turning point for Marguerite though was when little Marguerite died, it hit her so hard.  

Marguertie was fifty-one years old. We had some happy years though we had a lot of heartache, just like all of you. Charles Daigle, you were such a good brother to Marguerite. I’m so glad she had someone from your family here in France. Marguerite bore eleven children, but only three boys have lived to this day, Paul Dominique, Charles and Benjamin Hilaire.  

My sons, if we get to Louisiana, I’ll be sorry to leave this place where your mother is buried, but she would want us to be in Louisiana so we can have our own land. I know it. 

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Marguerite Daigle was the mother of Paul Dominique Boudrou, who was married to Marie Olive Landry. Paul Dominique arrived in Louisiana with his father Zacharie Boudrou in 1785.