ESTIENNE DU BOURGUÉ DE CLÉRIN, DENIS D’, cavalry sergeant, lieutenant, assistant town major; b. c. 1660 at Aix-en-Provence, son of Denis D’Estienne Du Bourgué, king’s counsellor in the parlement of Provence, and of Françoise Desvoges de Clérin; buried 24 Feb. 1719 at Montreal.

A second lieutenant in the Régiment de Vendôme in 1672, the Sieur de Clérin had served in 1680 as a sergeant in the Queen’s Dragoons and a cornet in the same regiment in 1682. According to Callière he is supposed to have arrived in Canada in 1685 as a half-pay ensign. In 1687 he was appointed an ensign on the active list. In 1688 Clérin was at Fort Niagara, and the following year at Montreal, where he was promoted second lieutenant with the position of assistant town major. He kept this office until his death, and was appointed a half-pay lieutenant in 1691 and in 1695 was placed on the active list. In 1700, learning that illicit trafficking in furs was being conducted by the Sieur de Louvigny [La Porte], the commandant of Fort Frontenac, Callière sent Clérin and Joannès de Chacornacle to straighten out the situation on the spot. After this mission, which was carried out successfully, the governor in his report dated 15 Oct. 1701 noted concerning Clérin: “A good officer who discharges his duty well.” In 1706 Clérin became the Recollets’ syndic in Montreal.

On 24 April 1691 he had married Jeanne Le Selle, daughter of Barbe Poisson and Gabriel Celles Duclos, in Montreal. Six children were born of this marriage. Clérin died leaving his wife in poor circumstances: on 26 June 1720 Vaudreuil granted her a fur-trading licence.

Jean-Jacques Lefebvre

ANDM, Registres des baptêmes, mariages et sépultures. Jug. et délib., V, 715f. A. Roy, Inv. greffes not., IV, 499f.; V, 130, 139. Royal Fort Frontenac (Preston and Lamontagne). É.-Z. Massicotte, “Congés et permis déposés ou enregistrés à Montréal sous le régime français,” APQ Rapport, 1921–22, 193. Tanguay, Dictionnaire, I, 193. Aegidius Fauteux, “Le sieur de Clérin,” BRH, XXXIII (1927), 255f. Placide Gaudet, “Réponses,” BRH, XXIII (1917), 64. É.-Z. Massicotte, “M. D’Estienne du Bourgué de Clérin, aide-major de Montréal,” BRH, XXII (1916), 319f.; “Où et quand mourut M. de Clérin,” BRH, XXXVI (1930), 729f. Régis Roy, “D’Estienne du Bourget,” BRH, XXXII (1926), 689f.