L’Epée Royale

The neighbourhood changes as you descend Rue Toulouse. As you approach the quay, inns and taverns proliferate. Here the sign of the Epée Royale attracted well-to-do merchants and visiting captains. Innkeeper Jean Seigneur, nicknamed “La Rivière”, charged more for a month’s pension than many men earned in that time, but the service was good: guests entertained their clients and friends with pork, duck, casseroles and meat pies. Of course the liquor bill was extra ⁠— Seigneur offered French wine and brandy by the jug, bottle or keg. Your servant could stay too for a small fee, eating the scraps and perhaps sleeping in the storehouse at the back.

For a short time Louise, a panis slave who arrived in Louisbourg by Québec, lived with the Seigneur family. However, not long after her arrival it was found she was pregnant by the man she had previously been enslaved to. She and her baby were sold four months after she gave birth.

Jean Seigneur was respected by his community. His daughters married well, and he was often asked to manage estate settlements for his neighbours. A widower for ten years, he died in this house in 1745, and the rooms where you may dine have been furnished according to the detailed inventory made to help settle his own estate.