LANDON, SIMPLE, priest, Recollet; b. 1641; d. 24 Feb. 1712 at Châlons-sur-Marne.

Landon took his religious vows with the Recollets of the ecclesiastical province of Saint-Denis in 1659 and received all the minor orders in 1663. During the first years of his priesthood he taught philosophy, and around 1669–70 he became a preacher in Paris.

Father Landon was one of the first religious who came to Canada in 1670 to restore the Recollet order which had been prevented, since 1632, from returning to Quebec, where it had been established in 1615. Under the direction of Father Germain Allart*, the minister of the province of Saint-Denis, Fathers Gabriel de La Ribourde*, Hilarion Guénin, Simple Landon, and Brothers Luc François*, a deacon, and Anselme Bardou, a lay brother, sailed from La Rochelle with Intendant Talon* at the end of May 1670. They arrived at Quebec on 18 August after a voyage fraught with great dangers.

The Recollets were welcomed by the bishop, the governor, the Jesuits, and “the great concourse of inhabitants with all the signs of joy that one might expect from a country where our Fathers were eagerly awaited.” The bishop entrusted them with four missions: Île Percé, the Saint John River, Fort Frontenac, and Trois-Rivières.

After superintending the establishment of his religious at Quebec, Father Germain Allart returned to France. Father Hilarion Guénin was assigned to serve Trois-Rivières. At Quebec itself, Father Gabriel de La Ribourde became provincial commissioner and superior of the convent, Father Simple Landon, who lived at the same convent. spent his time ministering to parishes, in particular to Pointe-aux-Trembles (Neuville). On 5 May 1672 he was present at the launching of a building programme to enlarge the Hôtel-Dieu. He returned to France in the autumn of the same year, and there he devoted himself to preaching in the church of the Recollets in Paris.

Jacques Valois

AN, LL, 54, f.113v; 84, f.52v. BN, Imprimés, Récollets, LK⁷ 6743; MS, Fr. 15775, f.198. Juchereau, Annales (Jamet), 170. Le Clercq, Premier établissement de la foy, II, 91ff.