Renée Desloges lived in or near Montreuil-Bellay from about 1600 through at least 1614, and probably for most, if not all, of her life.

Renée’s life story, as we know it, is told entirely through local history in conjunction with her children’s parish records. Some when they were born, and some when they married. We have to piece her life together from these few fragments.

So let’s do just that!

According to Cousin Mark, who tenaciously tracked these original records down, the parish records for the Saint-Pierre church in Montreuil-Bellay, where the children’s baptisms took place, date back to the early 1580s. However, there is a gap beginning about page 62, where there are no records between October 1588 and 1602, when the size of the record book had changed.

Therefore, it stands to reason that two things happened during those 14 years of missing records. Renée Desloges and Nicolas Trahan were married, and at least one child, Guillaume Trahan, was born.

Here’s a very rough timeline:

• Son Guillaume Trahan was born sometime around 1601, presumably in Montreuil-Bellay, based on their next child’s baptism. Guillaume could also have been born significantly earlier. It’s almost certain that he was born something during that 14 year gap..
• Space for at least one child born about 1603.
• Presumed daughter Anne Trahan was reportedly born on February 4, 1605 and baptized in the Saint-Pierre Church in Montreuil-Bellay. This event was reported by Genevieve Massignon, and Stephen White provided the date, but both have occasionally made errors. Mark was unable to locate the baptismal record by reading page by page from December 1604 through March 1605. It’s possible that the date is accurate, but the church is not, or vice versa. We know that some Anne Trahan, presumed to be their daughter, married Pierre Molay because they baptized four children in the same church between 1624 and 1633.
• Presumed son Nicolas Trahan was born about 1607. At some point, one Nicolas Trahan apparently married Lorraine Belliard, because they had a daughter baptized in the same church in 1633. Since Renée was reported to be deceased in son Francois’s 1632 marriage record, it’s possible that this Nicolas is the widower who remarried, and this child did not belong to a presumed son.

Cousin Mark’s research:

As for Nicolas Trahan and Lorande Belliard, I reviewed every baptism for 1633 beginning on page 87 and found on page 93, the 28th of May 1633, the baptism of Mathurine Trahan, daughter of Nicolas Trahan and Lorand Belliar, or Lorande Belliard, or close to that spelling. Many of the following words I’m unable to decipher, but I see another Trahan, (François?), probably godfather, and a (damoiselle?) Mathurine Belliar.

The father is clearly Nicolas Trahan; I’ve noticed that in Old French the “h” has a tail to it. And I’ve seen Thrahan with an “h” as in Anthoine and Anthoinette, but not in this record.

I wish Massignon had provided more details on names and dates; it would have made for a cleaner pedigree.

• Son Francois Trahan was born about 1609 based on his marriage to Renée Pineau or Pinsonneau on the 14^th Sunday after Pentecost in 1632 in Bourgeuil. His marriage document states the names of his parents, that they lived in Montreuil-Bellay, and his brother Guillaume was a witness.
• Daughter Renée Trahan was born on February 28, 1612 and baptized in Montreuil-Bellay.

Cousin Mark:

I found the baptismal record of daughter Renée Trahan, on 28 Feb 1612, split between pages 313 and 314 of 345. Filae did NOT help in this endeavor as they did not list the record. The godparents are shown on page 314. It’s interesting that the priest used Roman numerals for the date – CCVIII e’eme, which at first threw me off as I go page by page to locate the records and find the dates. I can’t quite make out the godfather, but the godmother appears to be a Jehanne Duboys. It also appears that Trahan was spelled Thrahan, with an “h” as the letter matches other h’s. The priest also spells Nicolas as Nycolas which was common as many times i’s are found as y’s, as he did in Duboys, not the later Dubois.

I’ve attached screenshots of both pages. The citation should be – Archives départmental de Maine-et-Loire, État civil et registres paroissiaux, Montreuil-Bellay-SaintPierre, Baptêmes, 1581-1613, cote de microfilm 5 mi 1066, pp. 313, 314 of 345

• Daughter Lucrece Trahan was born November 13, 1614 and baptized in Montreuil-Bellay.

Mark:

I found the other daughter, Lucrèce, although I can’t make out her name in Latin, unless hers is the name near the bottom, Lucretia.

This was somewhat harder to find, as most all records from this priest were in Latin with a few in French. Hers is in Latin, but at least Nicolai is close to Nicolas and Renée close to Renata.  The priest starts by naming himself and his title, which was rare in this book. Who knows why? I can’t make out the names of the godparents, but a Lucretia does appear near the bottom, and he uniquely puts the date at the very bottom.

Four children, Guillaume, Francois, Renée and Lucrece have records that confirm Renée as their mother, but the rest need to be evaluated with the understanding that there is another Trahan couple in Montreuil-Bellay that is baptizing children between 1610-1616.

In addition to Cousin Mark’s comments, I also see the name Maturina, or something similar, then another word, then Catarina, a name I can’t read, “daughters of”, then more I can’t read.

If we have any paleographers among our ranks, please have at these records.

Renée’s Time of Death

Unfortunately, we really don’t know much about when Renée died.

There are two possibilities, and one bracketing date.

Let’s establish the bracketing date first.

Son Francoise’s marriage record in Bourgueil on the 14^th Sunday after Pentecost, which calculates to about September 7^th in the fall of 1632, states that his parents are Nicolas Trahan and the late Renée Desloges of Montreuil-Bellay. Therefore, we know Renée was gone by this time.

On July 13, 1627, son Guillaume married Francoise Corbineau in Chinon where his parents’ names are given as Nicolas Trahan and Renée Desloges. Nothing is mentioned about the “late” Renée. If this is accurate and nothing was omitted, especially since the priest probably didn’t know the Trahan family, given that the marriage occurred about 25 miles from their home parish in Montreuil-Bellay, then Renée died between July 1627 and September 1632.

It’s also possible that Renée had already died by the 1627 marriage, and a crucial word was simply omitted in the Chinon parish register.

If that’s the case, then, working backwards from 1627, the next previous record is the baptism of Renée’s daughter on November 13, 1614.

So, Renée was unquestionably alive in November of 1614, probably alive in July of 1627, but deceased by September of 1632.

Renée’s Birth

Using these records, if we assume that the child born in 1614 was the last child born to Renée’s due to her age, then Renée could be assumed to have been born roughly about 1572. 1614-42=1572, but of course that could vary a couple of years in either direction.

If Renée was born about 1572, she would have married in the later 1580s, probably when she was between 16 and 20 years old, so maybe between 1588 and 1592 – exactly when those Montreuil-Bellay records are missing.

If Renée married during those years, it’s clear that Guillaume was not the only child born between her marriage and the first reported birth of Anne in 1605. With the exception of Guillaume, those children clearly did not survive – or at least they aren’t found in later records.

At the other end of the spectrum, if Guillaume was Renée’s first child, born about 1601, then she would have married about 1600. If Renée was about 17 when she married, she would have been born about 1683 and could have been expected to have children until about 1627, about the time when Guillaume married. However, the fly in that ointment is that there are no baptism records after 1614 for Nicolas and Renée in Montreuil-Bellay. We know they lived there in 1614 and as late as 1632 when Francois married.

Another Trahan couple, Anthoyne Trahan and Barbe Barault baptized three children in Montreuil-Bellay between 1610 and 1616, so we know there were records, although it’s certainly possible that they aren’t complete.

So, either Renée was born between 1570 and 1572 and married between 1588 and 1592, or, she was born as late as 1585 and married about 1600, but probably died not long after 1614 because there are no more children baptized.

If Renee was born about 1572, she would have been baptizing babies until 1614, or so.

If Renée was born in 1585, she would have been having children until about 1627.

The only thing we can confidently say is that she was likely born no later than 1585 and was assuredly alive in 1614, so she lived to be at least 29. If she died between 1627 and 1632, she would have been between 42 and 47 if she was born in 1585, and between 57 and 62 if she was born as early as 1570.

Life in Montreuil-Bellay

Regardless of Renée’s life span, we can surmise that she probably lived most, if not all, of her life in Montreuil-Bellay, and assuredly from about 1600 through 1614.

She is most likely buried someplace nearby, with the best candidate location being greenspace adjacent to and behind the Saint-Pierre church.

This is where Renée’s children who died young would have been buried, and where at least some of her adult children and grandchildren are probably buried too. This is where her family lived, was baptized, attended church, and went about their daily lives before Renée’s final mass was delivered, and her family took their final walk with her – beside her coffin.

Nicolas would have eventually been laid to rest here as well.

What was medieval life in Montreuil-Bellay like?

Life in Montreuil-Bellay

So glad you asked. Not terribly peaceful – Montreuil-Bellay has a rather storied history.

Beginning with events that would have directly affected Renée’s family, the town was burned by the Huguenots in 1568. The well-fortified castle was little affected, but homes in the rest of the town went up in flames.

Renée wouldn’t have been born yet, but her parents assuredly were, and she may have had siblings that remembered the Huguenots ransacking residences and torching the town. I wonder how people protected themselves and if they sheltered in the castle.

It’s also possible that Renée family didn’t live here then, or at least not actually in the town.

The homes that appear ancient today were rebuilt as new back then. I wonder how much was able to be salvaged of the original structures.

Were the walls of the buildings, which appear to be stone, able to be saved, with new interiors and roofs? Many of the original roofs were slate.

The castle’s tithe barn, shown above, dates to the days of Joan of Arc (c1412-1431), during reign of Charles VII from 1422-1461, and was used to house 10% of the residents’ agriculatural produce, generally collected for the church or monastery.

Apparently, not all of the town had to rebuild entirely from scratch.

How old are these arches that clearly outlived their original purpose? Were they ovens, perhaps?

Montreuil-Bellay was not a large town or city, and there were only a few streets. We assuredly walked past by their home – the home where Renée lived with her parents, and then the home where she lived with Nicolas Trahan.

The soaring castle is visible from almost every angle in the town. All roads and streets led to the castle, or at least the moat, and life revolved around the castle as well.

The ancient street, just west of and adjacent the castle grounds, descends the hill near l’Eglise Saint-Pierre. The towers are visible behind the medieval homes.

Did Renée’s family live in the upper part of the town, or below, along the river, closer to the Saint-Pierre church?

Defensive walls line the side of the street away from the castle, too steep for houses. What’s left of the church and priory come into view at the base of the hill as it rises slightly from the Thouet River.

The church and priory were abandoned about 1850, but the stunning, sacred ruins remain today.

Renée walked here when the church still stood in its glory, filled with the comforting chanting of monks.

Did their soothing voices bring tranquility when she needed it most?

Where did these curved, carved steps lead?

How much of this church had to be rebuilt after the fire consumed the town?

How long did that take? Was it “new” once again by the time Renée attended here?

The church itself has collapsed, but parts of the priory remain intact.

These columns stood before whatever happened that caused the church to be rebuilt in the mid-1400s. It was reconsecrated on January 31, 1485, just 83 years before the town burned.

Some portions of the former priory are used today, but not as a religious institution.

The nave of the attached Saint-Pierre church was destroyed in 1850.

Was Renée baptized in the chancel here, at the head of the nave? She stood here as she pledged her children to God.

The original church and priory entrusted to the monks of the Saint-Nicolas d’Angers Abbey were built around the year 1100, and the church was then reconstructed a number of years later. Many columns remain from that time period, the capitals on top decoratively carved by master stonemasons and stone carvers.

Renée would have gazed upon these beautiful stoneworks when those columns supported the vaulted roof of the church.

Perhaps Renée sat to the side during mass so she could slip out the door, should her infant cry.

Perhaps she stared up, absentmindedly, as the priest’s voice droned, in Latin, in the distance.

Did the “monsters” on the cluster of columns frighten Renée as a child? Or frighten her children?

Or did the carvings fascinate Renée? This one looks like a gentle kitten.

Did she want to touch them, running her finger inside the swirls, tracing their ridges and folds?

Did Biblical stories inspire these carvings, and did the parishioners know the story represented by each column’s capital?

Did the nuns teach those stories in school, or did the priests extol them from the pulpit?

Did Renée tell her children those Bible stories? Perhaps as homilies – examples of good and evil and how children should, and should not, behave?

Did Renée sit beneath these stone-faced witnesses, burying her own parents, and later, thinking about the day that her own children would do the same?

What tales would these capitals tell us if they could speak? They saw Renée and her family at least once every week – and chronicled their lives from cradle to grave.

The circle of life in a French village.

Did Renée stroll through the unfinished cloister when she sought solitude?

Was the cemetery nearby?

She would have visited often. There were probably as many funerals as baptisms – and many were for family members. Some were probably for her babies. How many?.

Was the cemetery here, beside the priory, near the cloister, or located on higher ground?

I’d wager that the cemetery lies in this greenspace beside the church and priory, but we don’t know.

Below the castle, the road by the church, which stood in the grass, at right, leads along the river which runs beside the road, at left. The road along the most exposed part of the castle is walled and gated.

Renée would have walked here, looking up at the massive castle above the walls.

Did Renée wonder about the people who lived there, high upon the hill? What their life, inside those towers was like?

This location was chosen because the castle fortified the river crossing, which served as a trade crossroads, and the elevation made it easy to fortify the castle. Intruders would have been intimidated and discouraged by the castle’s imposing appearance and impregnable fortifications.

However, the church and the original village were established at river level.

The street beside the church was quite steep, so villagers climbed steps to the upper town and the entrance level of the castle.

Renée probably ascended these stairs, first with one, then two, then an entire brood of children.

On good days, they would have been laughing and perhaps racing up the stairs to the upper streets in town.

On other days, funeral days, well…no one would have been smiling. Most of the village probably attended, because everyone assuredly knew, and was probably related to, everyone else.

The stories these exquisite steps and stones could tell if they could only speak.

Did Renée descend these steps as a bride on her way to be married?

Did she ascend them with Nicolas after their wedding?

Did Renée stop here to rest and catch her breath as she returned home after mass, heavily pregnant?

Did Nicolas and Renée rest here after having their baby baptized a few hours after delivery?

If you don’t take the stairs, you can walk up the steep Rue du Tertre. Of course it probably had a different name then.

The buildings along the Rue du Tertre are quite ancient as the top of the street approaches the Rue du Marche.

Did Renée live in this part of town? It would have been the old quarter, the remnants of the original town beside the castle, even then. Was this part burned and rebuilt after the fire?

Even the wisteria is old and wizened, perhaps harkening back to Renée’s lifetime!

When we reach the Rue du Marche at the top of the hill, we turn towards the castle.

Today, the buildings lining the modern street retain their original shape with structural support from the cross irons installed hundreds of years ago when they were built. The spires of the castle and church peek up from behind, and just a few feet further is the bridge across the castle moat.

This scene just outside the castle made me smile. The castle spires are visible above a “little red library,” which stands in front of buildings probably built between the 1200s and 1400s. Of course, Renée, as a woman who was born in the 16^th century, would not have been taught to read. The priests, who were literate, explained what the townspeople needed to know.

Nicolas may have learned to read and write in a school at the priory, and Renée’s son, Guillaume, had a beautiful, flowing, artistic signature – so he was clearly educated!

The castle was actually a massive complex terraced above the river with rumors of underground tunnels providing an escape into the castle for the monks, nuns and priests living in the neighboring priory. and conversely, out of the castle in case of seige.

The castle complex spans the center of Montreuil-Bellay for blocks in several directions.

Above the Saint-Pierre church, the stunningly beautiful fairy-tale-like castle stands at the center of town, rising high above the countryside.

This stone stands at the crossroads in front of the castle as a silent sentry, a witness to centuries of travelers, pilgrims, residents, invaders, and royalty.

Probably every child since this stone was put in place climbed on it as their mother admonished them to get down before they get hurt.

In 1850, when the Saint-Pierre nave collapsed, this entrance was crafted through the castle wall, which enabled the townspeople to worship in the castle chapel that had previously served only the nobles who lived there.

The castle was actually a small city within a city, adjacent the church and priory, with its own kitchens, hospital which was similar to a hostel, tithe barn, church, living quarters, and guard towers. Many of the villagers would have provided labor and services to the castle’s residents.

The moat stands empty today, but at one time, it was filled with water and guarded the castle, deterring invaders.

In 1337, this moat, along with the monastery, sheltered the local population when battles of the Hundred Years’ War caused the local population to starve.

Why were they not brought into the safety of the castle?

Were Renée’s ancestors in Montreuil-Bellay then? Did they seek refuge here?

Renée, I came to find you, Nicolas and Guillaume.

Did Renée ever dream that she would have descendants a dozen generations and 400 years into the future who would return to Montreuil-Bellay?

She could never have imagined that just a few years after her passing, her son Guillaume would board a ship with her grandchildren, cross the sea, and become a French founder in a new land called Acadia.

Au Revoir, Renée

As we said goodbye to Montreuil-Bellay and turned to leave, knowing I would never return, the emotion of the moment washed over me – as abbreviated as our reunion had been.

Tears streamed down my face as I watched Montreuil-Bellay disappear into the distance.

Tears for the pieces of your life I’ll never know, but ache to.

Tears for the woman you were and your personality – none of which I can uncover.

What did you look like?

How did your laugh sound?

What color was your hair? Your eyes?

Tears for the babies you buried, and the grief you bore.

Tears for what befell your descendants, some 5 generations and 150 years later, in 1755, as they were rounded up in Acadia, forced onto ships, and expelled into lands unknown. Did you visit them, shelter them, and comfort them on their unwilling journeys?

Tears because I can only partially reconstruct the descendants of one of your children – Guillaume.

You have more than 22,657 known descendants, according to WikiTree, which is more than six times the population of Montreuil-Bellay today. But if the entire truth were known, you probably have many times that.

Tears because you likely never knew your grandchildren. If you did, it would have been Jeanne born to Guillaume about 1628 or 1629, and possibly her siblings, who would have been born every 18-24 months thereafter until Guillaume’s family boarded that ship in 1636. Of course, we know you probably died between 1627 and 1632, and we think that Guillaume lived near Bourgueil, some 20 miles away – too far for you to hold and rock your grandbabies.

Tears because distance and death cheated you of that joy.

And now, tears because I was so close to the church where the most sacred events of your life transpired – and I didn’t even know it when I was there.

The ruins of the church that anchored your faith, since reduced to rubble and ruins, hidden below the castle, at the foot of the stairs, beside the river – probably just a stone’s throw from your grave.

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know.

I’m so sad that I didn’t know.

I can only unearth and reconstruct the tiniest fragments of your life, Renée, yet your ancient beauty, deeply rooted in Montreuil-Bellay, blossoms forth yet today.

The rest lies forever in silence, like wisteria in the winter, waiting eternally for spring’s warming hand.

I wish I could do you justice.

_____________________________________________________________

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