FILLION, MICHEL, court sergeant, surveyor, secretary to Governor Pierre Dubois Davaugour, clerk of the seneschal’s court and of the Conseil Souverain, deputy to the attorney-general, seigneurial attorney, seneschal judge, and royal notary; b. c. 1633 at Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois in Burgundy; d. 6 June 1689 and was buried the next day at Beauport. He is not to be confused with a contemporary named Michel Feuillon, who had settled at Champlain.

Fillion, the son of André Fillion and of Gabrielle Senler (Senlet or Sanlerg), arrived in Canada before 10 April 1654, at which date we find him a court sergeant at Quebec. He acted in various capacities: among others, as clerk of the seneschal’s court in 1662, as a royal notary by commission of the Conseil Souverain dated 23 Sept. 1663, and shortly afterwards as clerk of this same council. Except for an interval of three years (1671–74) during which he had “been out of his mind,” he practised as a notary until his sudden death at Beauport on 6 June 1689.

On 26 Sept. 1661, in the parish of Notre-Dame de Québec, he had married Marguerite Auber, widow of Martin Grouvel. She was still living on 22 April 1693. Tanguay is therefore wrong when he attributes to him a second marriage in 1667. More probably the marriage in question was that of his brother Antoine, who was himself living at Quebec according to the 1667 census, and who later died prematurely. Michel Fillion, who had had no children, adopted two of his brother’s orphan children, Jean and Antoinette. Thus the mystery of his so-called descendants is cleared up.

The Journal des Jésuites, in February 1661, mentions a person named Fillon, who had “provided music” with Pierre Duquet de La Chesnaye. Can we take this musician to be our Michel Fillion? Fillon’s companion, Duquet, it is true, was also a notary; but how can we be sure that at that time there was not another individual at Quebec named Fillon, more skilled in music than Michel Fillion? The latter always signed himself, very legibly, in this way.

Honorius Provost

AJQ, Greffe de Michel Fillion, 1660–88; Greffe de François Genaple, 22 avril 1693. AJTR, Greffe de Séverin Ameau, 17 mars 1665; Greffe de Jacques de La Touche, 15 oct. 1668. ASQ, Documents Faribault, 94. JR (Thwaites). JJ (Laverdière et Casgrain). Jug. et délib. Papier terrier de la Cie des I.O. (P.-G. Roy), 108. BRH, XLIX (1943), 372f. “Les notaires au Canada,” APQ Rapport, 1921–22, 20, 22. J.-E. Roy, Histoire du notariat, I, 92–94, et passim. Tanguay, Dictionnaire.

Revisions based on:
Bibliothèque et Arch. Nationales du Québec, Centre d’arch. de Québec, CE301-S1, 26 sept. 1661; CE301-S5, 7 juin 1689.