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« (...)Madame Bourdon was made responsible in France for one hundred and fifty girls that the king sent to this country in vessels from Normandy. They gave her plenty of exercise during such a long voyage, since they were of all kinds and conditions, there were some who were very badly brought up and very difficult to handle. There were others who were more well bred and who gave her more satisfaction. »
Marie de l'Incarnation, octobre 1669.
The majority of les Filles du roi are unmarried and of modest birth. A good number are from farming families, several are orphans. A few widows manage to slip in, some of whom have already given birth to a child.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to know to what extent they were educated. Like most women and men of their day, most of them would not know how to read or write. The good matches, those girls destined for officers of the Carignan regiment or for bachelors of bourgeois or noble origin, are « young ladies ». Their number is known, since what was most required was robust women capable of hard work. In total, less than fifty Filles du roi would have belonged to that élite.
On October 27, 1667, in a letter to Colbert, Jean Talon confirms the recent arrival of the first «young ladies» whose number was to remian small:
« Instead of the 50 that your despatch had me hope for, 84 young girls were sent from Dieppe and 25 from La Rochelle. There are fifteen or twenty from quite good families; several are real young ladies and quite well brought up (...) If you continue, he adds, in plans to send French young ladies here with a fine and noble education, six or eight will be sufficient according to me (...) »
On November 2, 1671, he expresses his disappointment to minister Colbert for having had to accept 15 rather than four young ladies of quality that he had requested, for « unions with officers or the principal inhabitants of this place ». If we can believe Governor Frontenac, the colony is faced with a surplus of « young ladies ». « It is difficult at the present time, he writes on November 13, 1672, to find appropriate matches ». |
