PAYEN DE NOYAN, PIERRE, captain in the colonial regular troops, sub-lieutenant in the navy; b. in the diocese of Avranches, province of Normandy, 7 Oct. 1663, son of Pierre Payen, chevalier, seigneur of Chavoy; d. in 1707, probably at sea.

Payen came to Canada as a lieutenant in the colonial regular troops in 1687 and was commissioned captain on half pay in 1690. In 1691 he was fined 50 livres for fighting a duel with Guillaume de Lorimier de la Rivière. Governor Frontenac [Buade*] added to the penalty by relieving the two of their commands. The following year, however, Frontenac remarked that he was pleased to be able to return their commands “for they are good officers.”

Payen’s whole life changed in 1694 when he married Catherine-Jeanne Le Moyne de Longueuil et de Châteauguay with both Frontenac and the intendant, Jean Bochart de Champigny, attending the ceremony. Payen was readily accepted into the energetic and clannish Le Moyne family. His wife received a one-ninth share in the estate of Louis Le Moyne* de Châteauguay, who had died two months before the wedding. In 1697 Payen was an officer in the military expedition to Newfoundland led by Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, and when Iberville subsequently moved his base of operations to France, Payen followed him. When Iberville and his four brothers sailed from France to secure the French colony of Louisiana in 1701, Payen, then a sub-lieutenant in the navy, served on the ship commanded by Joseph Le Moyne de Serigny. In 1706 he accompanied Iberville on his final expedition to the West Indies, this time commanding his own ship. Payen died early in 1707 after going with his ship to relieve starving colonists at Mobile Bay. This time he was serving under the command of yet another brother-in-law, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne* de Bienville; Iberville had died only a few months previously.

David Lee

AN, Col., B, 13, f.212; C^11A, 11, f.252; 15, f.169. BN, MS, Fr. 30713, 31715. Bernard de La Harpe, Journal historique de l’établissement des Français à la Louisiane (New Orleans, 1831), 97–102. “Correspondance de Frontenac, 1689–99,” APQ Rapport, 1927–28, 110. Découvertes et établissements des Français (Margry), IV, 469; V, 470–72.