Date Published:
March 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Louis Rouer de Villeray

Villeray, Louis Rouer de (1629-1700), first councillor of the Sovereign Council of New France (1663-1700), was born in Amboise, near Tours, France, in 1629, the son of Jacques Rouer de Villeray and Marie Perthuis. He came to Canada about 1650 as secretary to Lauzon, and became a notary at Quebec. On September 18, 1663, he was chosen as the first councillor of the new Sovereign Council, and although he was expelled in 1664 by Mézy, in 1670 by Courcelles, and in 1679 by Frontenac, he was in each case replaced; and he remained the first councillor until his death on December 6, 1700. He married, first, on February 16, 1658, Catherine, daughter of Charles Sevestre (d. 1670, by whom he had three children, and second, in 1675, Marie-Anne Du Saussay de Bémont. See P. G. Roy, Louis Rouer de Villeray (Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., 1919); P. G. Roy, La famille Rouer de Villeray (Bull. rech. hist., vol. xxvi); C. P. Beaubien, Louis Rouer de Villeray (Bull. rech. hist:, vol. v); and "Ignotus", La querelle des "institulations " (Bull. rech. hist., vol.viii).

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. VI, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 398p., p. 244.