DANRÉ DE BLANZY, LOUIS-CLAUDE, royal notary, seigneurial judge; b. 1710 in France, son of Charles Danré de Blanzy, a lawyer in the parlement of Paris, and Suzanne Morillon; d. in France, date of death unknown.

Louis-Claude Danré de Blanzy as a young man had a good position in society and was a lawyer in the parlement of Paris. He seems, however, to have led a wild existence, and his parents obtained a lettre de cachet to send him to New France. He arrived in 1736, and four other young ne’er-do-wells of good families came to the colony with him. Such recruits were always a problem for the colonial authorities. Too often these young men had no profession and lived at the expense of the colonial administration. Moreover, even if their parents thought they were sending them away from the mother country, it was easy for them to return to France, without, of course, advising the authorities. Such, however, was not the fate of all these newcomers.

Danré de Blanzy quickly settled down in Montreal, where on 25 Nov. 1737 he married Suzanne, daughter of the late Denis d’Estienne* Du Bourgué de Clérin. Some months later, on 20 March 1738, he obtained from Intendant Hocquart* a commission as royal notary to practise in the royal jurisdiction of Montreal, replacing the notary Joseph-Charles Raimbault* de Piedmont, who had died on the preceding 17 December. This commission was granted him, it seems, not so much because of his legal training but thanks to his family connections with the attorney general of the colony’s Conseil Supérieur, Louis-Guillaume Verrier.

In addition to his office as notary, Danré de Blanzy exercised other legal functions. In 1739 and 1740 he was judge of the seigneury of Boucherville, and on 13 Nov. 1744 he received a commission as clerk of court for the jurisdiction of Montreal, where on occasion he also served in the capacity of lieutenant general for civil and criminal affairs, king’s attorney, assessor, and clerk of court of the courts martial judging deserters.

From 4 to 18 Sept. 1747 Danré de Blanzy was busy taking an inventory of the personal and real estate, papers and documents of the Hôpital Général of Montreal, which at that time was in a sorry state [see Jean Jeantot; Marie-Marguerite Dufrost* de Lajemmerais]. The document he drew up at the time of this inventory gives in 90 pages of closely written text a detailed description of all the objects in the different rooms of the hospital and in the adjoining buildings.

Danré de Blanzy carried on his practice as a notary for 22 years, and his registry contains numerous contracts of indentures for the west. He signed his last deed on 29 April 1760 and shortly afterwards he sailed for France. In 1770 he was in Paris, where he disappears from sight.

Michel Paquin

AN, Col., E, 107 (dossier Danré de Blanzy). ANQ-M, Greffe de L.-C. Danré de Blanzy, 1738–1760. É.-Z. Massicotte, “Les tribunaux et les officiers de justice de Montréal sous le régime français,” BRH, XXXVII (1931), 190, 303, 307. “Les notaires au Canada,” APQ Rapport, 1921–22, 46. P.-G. Roy, Inv. ord. int., II, 239; III, 63, 100. Tanguay, Dictionnaire. Vachon, “Inv. critique des notaires royaux,” RHAF, XI (1957–58), 101. J.-E. Roy, Histoire du notariat, I. Gérard Malchelosse, “Les fils de bonne famille en Nouvelle-France, 1720–1750,” Cahiers des Dix, XI (1946), 279, 284, 290, 292, 297–98. É.-Z. Massicotte, “La justice seigneuriale de Boucherville,” BRH, XXVIII (1922), 75–76.