The
Ranums'
Panat Times
Volume 1, redone Dec. 2014
Marie-Anne Édouard
Although the signature of her lingère aunt, Étiennette Charpentier, does not appear on Édouard family documents, Étiennette probably played a role in Marie-Anne's education. That is to say, by 1688, twenty-three-year-old Marie-Anne had become a marchande lingère and had set up shop on the rue Saint-Honoré, in the Maison de la Bergerie, opposite the rue de la Lingèrie. The house contained a shop, cellars, storerooms, a courtyard, a privy, and two wings containing several rooms and an attic.
To be specific, in January of that year Marie-Anne, her mother and her uncle had signed a contract by which Marie-Anne agreed to form a société with Noelle-Marie Varet, as of mid-June 1689 (AN, MC, CI, 58, Jan. 16, 1688). On February 9, 1688,Armand-Jean Charpentier, her uncle and guardian, and Élisabeth Charpentier, her mother, signed an indemnité with Varet and agreed to pay her 1400 livres per year for the house that Varet had been renting, "où est pour enseigne Le Moulinet" (CI, 58, Feb. 9, 1688). And on May 10, Marie-Anne began to buy linens to sell (marginalia of CI, 58, Jan. 16, 1688). In October, Marie-Anne and her guardians again went to the notary, this time to state that she and Varet had dissolved their société and that she was forming a new société with her mother, to be divided 50-50, "jusques à ce qu'elle soit pourveue par mariage, et comme son establissement ne se peut faire que par le bien que luy peut donner sa mere et par les soins qu'elle a employés et employe journellement our l'establir," Marie-Anne promised and "s'oblige à nourrir, loger et entretenir [her mother] selon sa condition le reste de ses jours lorsqu'elle sera mariée, tant en consideration des trois cent livres que ladite veuve a cy-devant données, qui on servy à la faire passer maistresse lingère." In addition, Marie-Anne agreed not to wed without her mother's consent. Should she do so, she will have to pay back the 300 livres, plus 300 additional livres that her mother is paying by this act of société, as well as all the furniture that Élisabeth is supplying. If, on the other hand, Marie-Anne marries with her mother's approval, Élisabeth will surrender her half of the merchandise to the bride and will give her, at her death, the money to pay any outstanding debts of their joint venture (MC, VI, 588, Oct. 7, 1688).
Just a year later, Marie-Anne Édouard, who was not yet major, married François Moreau, likewise a minor and living with his parents, Claude Moreau, juré porteur de grains à Paris and Magdelaine Maillard. Only 7 people signed the contract, among them the bride's two guardians and her brother Jean Édouard, now a bourgeois de Paris. (This is the last allusion to her brother Jean, who must have died shortly afterward.) In other words, Élisabeth approved of this wedding — which would prove a disaster! The bride's uncle Marc-Antoine and her aunt Étiennette were conspicuously absent. This document also bears the signature of Nicolas Dupin, procureur in the Parlement of Paris, the "friend" who had been named the guardian of Armand-Jean and Marc- Antoine in 1662!
By 1691, Marie-Anne was in financial trouble. She and her husband had married under a contract of biens séparés." Now she was being ordered to pay 3000 livres for the merchandise and the furnishings in her shop. In addition, her husband — who had been paying the rent on the shop on her behalf, and who also had paid her debts to two marchands de toile — was now withdrawing from her business. So she owed him 3001 livres (XI, 324, compte, June 5, 1691; and quittance, June 25, 1691).
Then, in 1693, François Moreau died — "en la ville de Toulouse" !! — and his wife declared before a notary, in guise of an inventory, "que son mary n'a laissé pour biens qu'une Chaise & un Cheval, saisie entre les mains de Claude Moreau [François's father], sur ce qui est dêu la succession de son mary [François]." Shortly after that, the elder Moreau died, having categorically refused to include Marie-Anne in the estate of his late wife, and thereby depriving his daughter-in-law of the douaire of 1500 livres stipulated by her marriage contract. Marie-Anne concluded a factum about the contestation in the following manner: She, "la demanderesse, espere que la Cour aura quelque comiseration pour elle, apres que son mary a dissipé et mangé ce qu'elle avoit apporté en dot." If not, she will be "sans aucuns biens, accablée de frais" (BN, factum, Fo F3, #1875)
"Overwhelmed by debt" — she owed 2257 livres to ten marchands
lingers — Marie-Anne turned to her aunt Étiennette who, in January
1694, convinced her colleagues to leave her niece in peace and to wait
until Étiennette's death for reimbursement (see Étiennette's will, which
is one of the "Fugitive Pieces" on this site). It doubtlessly was not
long afterward that Marie-Anne married Jacques-François Mathas,
bourgeois de Paris, apparently without her aunt's approval, for he was a
"homme viollent et très dangereux" (see Étiennette's complaint). Be that
as it may, Étiennette had as little to do with her new nephew as
possible: "avec lequel elle n'a memes choses à desmesler, ne s'estant
pas voullu mesler de son mariage avec sa niece," she would later state
(see her plainte of January 1709: Etiennette's
complaint). Indeed, Mathas appears to have had Étiennette's estate
in mind when he married Marie-Anne, for he would later shout in
exasperation: "Qui est-ce qui le récompenseroit d'avoir epouzé sa niepce
avec rien?" I have been unable to learn more about Mathas, save that in
1709 — when he and Jacques Édouard published a volume of their uncle's
Motets — the couple lived on the Ile de la Cité, in the cul de sac de
Sainte-Marine (today's rue d'Arcole), in the parish by that name. (Yet
they asserted that very same week that they had "esleu leur domicile en
la maison du Mr. Tardy [who had acted as their procureur during the
placing of seals on Étiennette's shop and apartment], scize rue des
Rats, paroisse Saint Étienne du Mont.") In June 1709, the ten
marchands lingers finally received their money. And having seen
virtually Marie-Anne's entire legacy turned over to her creditors,
Marie-Anne Édouard and Jacques-François Mathas disappear into the wings.