LARUE, GUILLAUME DE, indentured worker, carpenter, notary, seigneurial judge, originally from the parish of Saint-Maclou (Rouen); b. c. 1636, son of Guillaume de Larue and Marie Pouilliot; buried 9 Jan. 1717 at Sainte-Anne de la Pérade.

As he had a good education, Larue became the confidential agent of the Jesuits in their seigneury of Cap-de-la-Madeleine. From 1662 on he was in turn a court officer, seigneurial attorney, clerk of court, and clerk in the court registry. In 1664 he moved to Champlain and was appointed seigneurial notary, then in 1673 judge in the same place. He was also designated in some deeds as judge of the provost court in the seigneury of Batiscan. His duties as a man of law did not cause him to neglect his trade as a carpenter, so that his services were much sought after for the building of mills, barns, and houses. Some of his plans and estimates for the construction of houses have been preserved, and show scrupulous concern for accuracy.

Guillaume de Larue practised the profession of notary from 1664 to 1689. His registry from 9 Jan. 1664 to 18 April 1676, comprising 140 acts, has been preserved at the Palais de Justice of Trois-Rivières. The rest has been destroyed or lost. A few copies appear however in the registers of insinuations or are collated with the registries of other notaries.

Seven children were born of his marriage with Marie Pepin in 1663. Around 1700 he retired and went to live with his son Étienne near Batiscan, and died there 17 years later.

Raymond Douville

AJTR, Greffe de Séverin Ameau; Greffe de Jean Cusson; Greffe de Laurent Du Portail; Greffe de Claude Herlin; Greffe de Jacques de La Touche. Jug. et délib., I, II, V, VI. P.-G. et A. Roy, Inv. greffes not., II, 248; XI, 71. Archange Godbout, Origine des familles canadiennes-françaises, extrait de l’état civil français (Lille, 1925). “Les notaires au Canada,” 22. Tanguay, Dictionnaire, I. 351. Vachon, “Inv. critique des notaires royaux,” RHAF, X (1956–57), 261. Cloutier, Histoire de la paroisse de Champlain, I. J.-E. Roy, Histoire du notariat, I. 200, 210, 230. Émile Vaillancourt, La conquête du Canada par les Normands (Montréal, 1930).