GUESDRON, JULIEN, priest, Recollet, guardian, acting provincial commissioner, provincial; b. 1667, apparently at Cambrai; d. 1735 at Versailles.

Father Guesdron first entered the secular clergy, and it was after he had received the subdiaconate that he asked to be admitted to the Recollets in 1687; he received the diaconate at Rouen 17 Dec. 1689 and the priesthood probably the following year.

He sailed from Rochefort for Canada on 20 May 1699. In his capacity as guardian of the convent of Quebec, on 26 October of that same year he signed the “Actes du Frère Didace Pelletier,” attesting to two cures attributed to this Recollet brother [see Pelletier*].

At the end of the summer of 1700 he replaced Father Olivier Goyer as acting provincial commissioner of the Recollets in Canada. During his stay in Canada he served at Lauson and Trois-Rivières; he then served as chaplain at Port-Dauphin (Englishtown, N.S.), and as a missionary and officiating priest at Louisbourg.

In the autumn of 1701 he returned to France, where he was guardian of the convent of Metz (1704–10) and novice master. In August 1722 he was elected provincial of the Recollets of the province of Saint-Denis (1722–25), and on 9 July 1731 he was re-elected for three years. He was appointed on 30 July of that year by a papal brief apostolic commissioner to settle a difference which had arisen between the Recollets of the province of Dauphiné and those of Lyons. On 30 April 1735 he died at the convent of Versailles, at 68 years of age, after 48 years in holy orders.

Gabriel-M.-Réal Dumas

AAQ, Registres d’insinuation A, f.536. Archives des Franciscains de Québec, Dossier Julien Guesdron. AN, Col., B, 20, f.176v. Archives de la Seine-Maritime (Rouen), G.9755, f.25 (clergé séculier). Rom. Bibli. Corsiniana, codex 912, Lettere. Recueil des instructions données aux ambassadeurs et ministres de France . . . [1648–1791], éd. Gabriel et Jean Hanotaux (3v., Paris, 1888–1913), III, 157 n.2.