Lériger and Dupuis.

Paul Lériger sieur de LaPlante.

Paul was born 3 March 1714 in LaPrairie, the ninth child of Clément Lériger sieur de la Plante and Marie-Marguerite Roy. René Dupuy served as his parrain, or godfather. His family was in the upper strata of society as his father held a seigneurie, or land grant, which he developed to attract settlers with improvements such as a mill.

Marriage to Barbe Dupuis.

The young man, 20, fell in love with Barbe Dupuy, the 18-year-old daughter of a well-to-do farmer, Moïse Dupuy and his wife, Marie-Anne-Louise Christiansen. Barbe did not come from the same social class, thus in her marriage contract before the notary Francois Lepailleur her family acknowledged the unequal status, and awarded the groom a large dowry of 1400 pounds in "consideration of honor" to seal the marriage. This would have been vaguely familiar to Paul's father, who likewise married a woman with a lower social standing only to suffer the consequences. Paul and Barbe were married 17 November 1733 in the church in LaPrairie.

Their first born, our ancestor Charles-Clément who like his father and grandfather used the title Sieur de LaPlante, was born on 13 March 1734. The couple would have eight children in all including Jacques in 1735, Marie-Catherine 1737, Rosalie 1738, Marie-Catherine 1740, Hilaire-Basile 1742, François 1743 and Clément 1747.

Barbe passed away at the age of 34 on 30 January 1750. Our ancestor Charles-Clément was 16. Two of her children died the following May, the youngest child, Clément at the age of three, and 12 year old Marie-Catherine.

Two years passed before Paul, 39, married the 23-year-old Agathe Saint-Yves on 24 January 1752. She is also a great aunt of ours; her younger sister Marie-Véronique Saint-Yves is our grandmother for she married Paul's son Charles-Clément.

Paul and Agathe had 6 children, though most passed at a tender ages. François-Michel, born 1758, grew to adulthood.

Paul lived to the age of 49. He died on 18 June 1763 and was buried the same day in Saint-Philippe-de-LaPrairie. Agathe married again to Pierre Lemieux in October 1764. She died in April 1777.