LANOUGUÈRE, THOMAS DE, ensign in the Carignan-Salières regiment, seigneur of Sainte-Anne, acting governor of Montreal in 1674, lieutenant and later captain of Governor Frontenac’s [see Buade] guards; b. 1644 at Mirande (Guyenne), son of Jean de Lanouguère, king’s counsellor in a state fiscal subdivision, and of Jeanne de Samalins; d. 1678 at Quebec.

He signed himself Lanouguère, a name which became Lanaudière, Tarieu de Lanaudière, and Tarieu de La Pérade in the case of his descendants. He himself did not have the surname Tarieu. Coming from a noble French family of long standing, Thomas de Lanouguère arrived in Canada in September 1665 as an ensign in the company of Pierre de Saint-Ours* (Carignan-Salières regiment). A short time after its arrival, his company received orders to go and second Capt. Pierre de Saurel in the construction of a fort at the mouth of the Richelieu River. Like the majority of the officers and soldiers of the Carignan-Salières regiment, Lanouguère took part in the expedition led by the Marquis de Tracy [see Prouville] against the Iroquois tribes in 1666.

His father and mother both being dead, he decided at the time of the disbanding of the troops to remain in Canada. On 29 Sept. 1670, acting conjointly with Edmond de Suève, the lieutenant of his company, an unmarried man who considered him a son, Lanouguère purchased a tract of land along the Rivière Sainte-Anne; the tract had previously been granted to Michel Gamelain de La Fontaine and a few settlers had begun to clear it. These lands, located in what is now the parish of Sainte-Anne de la Pérade, were officially granted to them by Intendant Talon on 29 Oct. 1672. A soldier by preference and by career, M. de Lanouguère was only slightly interested in his seigneury. At first he left this responsibility to M. de Suève. Then he entrusted the task to his wife, Marguerite-Renée Denys, whom he had married at Quebec on 16 Oct. 1672 and who was the daughter of Pierre Denys* de La Ronde and of Catherine Leneuf de La Poterie.

In that same year, 1672, the Comte de Frontenac was appointed governor of New France. Lanouguère pleased him as an officer, and he kept him close. He appointed him lieutenant of his guards after their return from the Cataracoui expedition, where in the governor’s opinion Lanouguère had conducted himself like a gallant soldier. In the spring of 1673, Lanouguère wanted to try his hand at the fur trade. But the commandant at Montreal, François-Marie Perrot, had been imprisoned, and Frontenac wanted to replace him with a man he could trust; he delegated his protégé, who was officially appointed 10 Feb. 1674. Frontenac, by an ordinance of 20 Oct. 1674, caused him to be given half of the withheld salary of Governor Perrot, and in his reports to the minister, Colbert, he never tired of praising this officer “who is very energetic and very zealous in the service.” Anticipating that Perrot would return, Frontenac requested for Lanouguère the post of town-major of Montreal, and in the meantime appointed him captain of his guards at Quebec.

This appointment as captain of the guards did not, however, prevent Lanouguère from spending brief periods on his seigneury, which was barely 20 leagues from Quebec. Able to count on the governor’s protection, he could look forward to a prosperous future. However, he died suddenly at Quebec in May 1678 and was buried in the little chapel of his seigneury.

His twenty-one-year-old widow settled down on his seigneury and lived there for 30 years among her copy-holders (censitaires), whom she assisted by her advice and her example. On 9 July 1708 she married Jacques-Alexis de Fleury* Deschambault, the widower of Marguerite de Chavigny, daughter of Eléonore de Grandmaison; he was the lieutenant-general of the royal jurisdiction of Montreal. Marguerite-Renée Denys died on 3 Feb. 1722 at Montreal.

Three children had been born of the Lanouguère-Denys marriage. One of them, Pierre-Thomas Tarieu de La Pérade, inherited the seigneury of Sainte-Anne and in 1706 married the celebrated Madeleine de Verchères [Jarret*].

Raymond Douville

[François Daniel], Histoire des grandes familles françaises du Canada ou aperçu sur le Chevalier Benoist et quelques contemporaines (Montréal, 1867). Raymond Douville, Premiers seigneurs et colons de Sainte-Anne de la Pérade (1667–1681) (Trois-Rivières, 1946). Faillon, Histoire de la colonie française, III, 482–500, et passim. P.-G. Roy, La famille Tarieu de Lanaudière (Lévis, 1922). Sulte, Mélanges historiques (Malchelosse), VIII.

Revisions based on:
Library and Arch. Can. (Ottawa), R11118-0-7. Bibliothèque et Arch. Nationales du Québec, Centre d’arch. de Québec, CE301-S1, 16 oct. 1672.