Benoist Property

This was another house full of children, for Lieutenant Pierre Benoist (c. 1695-1763) had seven children in his two marriages. One died young killed with her mother by smallpox. Benoist was hardly rich, but military families had to maintain an air of refinement ⁠— in 1743, while Benoist was serving at Port Toulouse down the coast, a charitable bequest was paying for his daughter’s education at the convent school of the Sisters of Notre-Dame.

The convent, Louisbourg’s only formal school, taught devotions, craftwork and decorum to the daughters of the elite, but other children did not go uneducated. The literate minority could instruct their children at home with alphabets and primers, and all children were expected to learn prayers and catechism. Soon after puberty, boys were apprenticed into trades and professions and learned the skills they needed on the job. At about this age, both sexes began to enter adult society, but parents would retain responsibility for their children for many years. Benoist’s care for his children resulted in one advantageous marriage: the signing of the marriage contract of Benoist’s daughter Geneviève and the nephew of his neighbour Carrerot in 1753 brought together the military and commercial elite of the colony.

The bare storehouse walls on the left side of Rue Toulouse are interrupted by a large public well, one of several in the town for those without wells in their yards. Some commentators thought the local water healthy, though the town wells are shallow and surrounded by latrines. Few drank water in any case.