LE CREUX DU BREUIL, NICOLAS, lieutenant at Canseau and Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal, N.S.), collaborator of Razilly and Menou d’Aulnay, a native of Belle-Isle-en-Mer (France); d. some time after 1652.

He had married Anne Motin, daughter of Louis Motin, a member of the Compagnie Razilly-Condonnier; consequently he probably arrived in Acadia with Commander Isaac de Razilly as early as 1632. Le Creux was in command of Fort Saint-François at Canseau and was working at fortifying it when, on 31 July 1635, he had to repulse Indians who had been stirred up by Jean Thomas, the captain of a fishing boat. Le Creux, who had received two sword wounds, had a report drawn up and immediately informed Commander Razilly. The latter sent Capt. Marot to seize Thomas’s ship. An inquiry was held before the provost of La Hève, and Thomas, who was accused of smuggling and sedition, was arraigned by Le Creux himself before the Admiralty at La Rochelle.

The following year, on board the Saint-Jean, he brought to Acadia a contingent of 12 settlers (6 of them farm-labourers) who had been recruited at Dijon. At the same time he brought his wife and part of his family, including Jeanne Motin, his sister-in-law, who was to become the wife of Governor Charles de Menou, Sieur d’Aulnay. Le Creux made several more voyages to France to carry shipments of pelts and to bring back supplies for the colony. In 1642 he went halves with d’Aulnay to buy a ship of 180 tons, the Georges. Despite his links with Acadia, he seems to have left it for good some years before 1650. He was still living in 1652 and resided at Saint-Eusèbe-sur-Bois in Burgundy.

René Baudry

ACM, B.5654–55. Couillard Després, Saint-Étienne de La Tour. Archange Godbout, “Le rôle du Saint-Jehan et les origines acadiennes,” SGCF Mémoires, I (1944), 19–30.