MAUPASSANT, EUSTACHE, Recollet priest, provincial commissioner of his order in New France; b. c. 1627 in France; d. 29 June 1692 at Châlons.

He joined the Recollets of the province of Saint-Denis in 1647. After being superior of the convents of Vitry (1669), Sézanne (1670), and Rouen (1672), he was named, in 1673, to succeed Father Gabriel de La Ribourde in the offices of provincial commissioner of the Recollets in Canada and guardian of the convent of Notre-Dame-des-Anges at Quebec. He went to Canada during the summer of that year, and remained there until 1676.

Being a gifted preacher, he was invited upon his arrival at Quebec to deliver the eulogy of St. Francis Borgia on the occasion of the dedication of the Jesuit church in Quebec in August 1673. He was chaplain of the Château Saint-Louis and was also the confessor of Louis de Buade de Frontenac. These duties, together with the jealousy of the ecclesiastical authorities towards the Recollets, contributed in no small measure to paralysing his apostolic efforts. He complained bitterly of this to Colbert in a letter dated 12 Nov. 1674. Frontenac himself echoed his complaint: “when you [the Recollets] were sent to this country,” he wrote, “it was not done to have you lead the contemplative life here, but to have your help in labouring in the Lord’s vineyard, in which some would not desire to give you a large share.” Father Eustache’s conduct was even termed scandalous by those who thought he deferred too much to civil authority.

After a visit to the Percé mission in 1676, he went back to France. He was a preacher at Châlons (1677); he was superior at Montargis (1680), at Verdun (1681), and at Metz (1683) where he delivered the funeral oration of Queen Marie-Thérèse; he was provincial definitor in 1683, visitor-general of the custody of Saint-Nicolas in Lorraine in 1686, and guardian at Paris in 1687. He passed away at Châlons 29 June 1692.

Frédéric Gingras

BN, MS Fr. 13875 (Nécrologe des Frères-Mineurs Récollets de la province Saint-Denys en France); MS, Mélanges Colbert, 171, f.54 (Lettre de Frontenac au provincial des Récollets, 10 nov, 1674); f.57 (Lettre du P. Eustache Maupassant à Colbert, 12 nov. 1674). Hyacinthe Lefebvre, Histoire chronologique de la province des Récollets de Paris, sous le titre & Saint-Denys, en France, depuis 1612, qu’elle fut érigée jusqu‘en l’année 1676 (Paris, 1677).