Ville-Marie in 1685. by Francis Back for the book. Pour le Christ et le Roy, la vie au temps des premiers Montréalais, 1992.
by Paul Arthur Freynet
Claude was born in Betteville, in the diocese of Rouen, Normandy, France. He arrived in Canada in August, 1688 on the ship "La Maréchale", serving under the marquis Charles-Henri ALOIGNY de LaGroix. Above is an artist's conception of the place he would defend and, later, make his home.
Jean MAURICE, Claude's father, may have come to the Rouen area from La Fantaisie, a farm to the south. This would explain the sobriquet - ditLafantaisie.
As I will try to show in the next section, Jean, Claude's father, may have been originally from Lorraine as this is where the surname MAURICE, for most families carrying that name in France, came from.
In late 17th century France, sobriquets were often used to distinguish a new family or person in an area where an existing family had the same name.
The name of MAURICE does appear in Rouen during the years in question, first name Louis. He is listed in Heraldic sites.
The La Fantaisie farm is about 300 kms directly south of Paris. If this is the place associated with Jean, he would later have gone to Rouen where he acquired, as sobriquet, the name of the place he came from, passing it on to his son as nom-de-guerre.
Given that the point of origin of the name MAURICE is Lorraine, it is reasonable to suppose that the branch that adopted the sobriquet Lafantaisie comes from that region originally. They may have been the founders, or perhaps caretakers, of the farm named La Fantaisie, or possibly another like it.
The sobriquet "dit LaFantaisie" is interesting because, though it is usual for successive generations to carry them - this meant the sons of the father were part of the citizens' militia - this one eventually separated into two branches: The MAURICE and the LAFANTAISIE branches. This site gives a plausible, if tentative, story to its origin.
Below is a picture of a farm called La Fantaisie in the Bourbonnais area in the Allier department of France.
This place is much as it was in the late 1600's and was almost certainly originally used for horse breeding and training.
The genealogy section of this site will take you to the list of several generations of the descendents of Claude Maurice Dit Lafantaisie in North America.
More research is needed regarding how and when the surname LAFANTAISIE was adopted by some families. I will provide some ideas a little later in the family history section.
The link below for next page leads to some research I have done into the origins of Jean Francois MAURICE ditLAFANTAISIE.See top of page for other links
© 2009 Paul Arthur Freynet
contact: pfreynet@yahoo.ca