This story about the witchcraft trial of Rene Besnard may interest the decendants of Marie Pontonnier and Honoré Langlois dit Lachapelle
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“Before the King’s Daughters: The Filles à Marier, 1634-1662”
by Peter J. Gagné
Pages 257-260
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Marie Pontonnier was baptized 22 January 1643 in the parish of Saint-Vincent in Le Lude, Anjou. After the death of her father, Marie came to Canada in 1656, at age 13.

With marriageable men outnumbering women by fourteen to six in colonial Québec, there was bound to be some competition for brides, and there apparently was competition over Marie. She chose Pierre Gadois Jr. as her husband over another suitor named René Besnard dit Bourjoly, a corporal in the Montréal garrison. The jilted Besnard swore revenge, proclaiming that the marriage would be childless and vowing to ensure this by casting a spell over the couple. Superstition held that if a person secretly knotted a cord three times in the presence of the couple during the marriage ceremony, the couple would be sterile unless the cord was un-knotted.

Marie married Pierre Gadois in Montréal 12 October 1657. In the church that day were numerous people, including René Besnard dit Bourjoly, there to celebrate the marriage of his superior officer Lambert Closse, and to curse the marriage of his rival Pierre Gadois.

When no children were born in the first year of their marriage, the couple went to Québec City to receive a second nuptial blessing from Bishop Laval. When the bishop’s blessing proved ineffective, Besnard was accused of making Pierre sterile. On 2 November 1658, he was tried for sorcery in the seigneurial court of Montréal, the first trial for witchcraft in New France.

The proceedings were presided over by Louis d’Ailleboust, Seigneur de Coulonge. Faced with the prospect of being burned alive for sorcery, Besnard denied using witchcraft, but alleged that Marie had promised to sleep with him if he would break the spell, claiming that she suggested this “remedy” to him and not the other way around, as Marie testified. Confronted with testimony that he had boasted of “knowing how to tie the knot and who tied it for her husband,” Besnard claimed that he was speaking of lacing a corset. Françoise Bénard testified that Besnard told her that he knew of the spell, which he claimed could last 17 years. He also allegedly spoke of the spell to Jeanne Godard. Besnard admitted speaking with Jeanne, but claimed not to remember what the conversation was about. He also testified that he was only joking if he spoke about witchcraft.

The court did not believe Besnard’s denials and equivocation. He was imprisoned and later banished from Montréal, settling at Trois-Rivières.

After a three-year waiting period, Marie and Pierre’s marriage was annulled by Bishop Laval on 30 August 1660, “because of permanent impotence caused by an evil spell.” Two weeks after the annulment, on 13 September 1660, Governor Maisonneuve sentenced Pierre to pay Marie 100 livres on the feast of Saint-Michel (29 September) and another 300 livres on Christmas, as an “indemnity” for the time that she lived with him, based on a provision in their marriage contract that would give Marie a rent of 60 livres, plus an additional 300 livres in the event that the couple had no children. (In 1665, Pierre married Jeanne Bénard, who gave him 14 children.)

Less than a month after the annulment, on 8 October, notary Basset drew up a marriage contract between Marie and Pierre Martin dit La Rivière. They married 3 November 1660 in the church of Notre-Dame de Montréal. Tragically, only four months after her second marriage, Marie became a widow at the age of 18. Pierre Martin dit La Rivière was killed in an Iroquois ambush on 24 March 1661. His decapitated body was found on 22 June 1661 and buried at Montréal six days later. On 9 November 1661, his daughter was baptized in Montréal and given the name Marie, after her mother.

On 5 December 1661, Marie married Honoré Langlois dit Lachapelle. He was born about 1632 in Paris, the son of Jean Langlois and Jacquette Charpentier. He is noted at Montréal as early as 3 July 1659. Honoré and Marie had ten children: Jeanne, baptized 16 January 1664 at Montréal, Honoré, baptized 30 December 1665 and buried 18 February 1666, Marguerite baptized at Montréal 25 February 1667, Anne-Thérèse (19 September 1669), Jean (26 June 1672), André (15 April 1675) and Françoise (27 November 1678). The family moved to Pointe-aux-Trembles about 1681. Sadly, Marie lost her last three children, all before the age of three: Antoine (baptized 25 September 1681, buried 30 October 1684), Joseph (baptized 22 April, buried 30 April 1684) and Antoine (baptized 13 June 1685, buried 01 December 1688).

Honoré Langlois dit Lachapelle was buried 12 December 1709 at Pointe-aux-Trembles. Marie Pontonnier was buried at Pointe-aux-Trembles 7 January 1718.

The incident of the alleged spell cast over Marie’s marriage to Pierre Gadois had its legacy in the official policies of the Catholic Church in New France. In his “Ritual of the Diocese of Québec,” published in 1703, Bishop Saint-Valuer included an article that admitted “It sometimes occurs that by a just judgment of God, the married persons are prevented by an evil spell or charm from consummating the marriage.” The afflicted couple was to pray for release from the spell, confess their sins and take communion. If this remedy did not work, they were to seek the assistance of priests, who would determine if Church prayers or an exorcism were necessary. Under no circumstances were they to ask the person who cast the spell to undo it with another, or to renounce the first marriage and contract another, “which would cause insult to the Sacrament, and could only come from the Devil”

Sources may be found at http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_nbr=791