Lawyers were not allowed to immigrate or even visit Nouvelle-France, by royal decree. Nevertheless or maybe because of it, it was common practice for everybody to go to court to ensure that justice would prevail.Between 1655 and 1662 at the "Prévôté de Trois-Rivières", there were 907 cases tried, for a population of about 700 for the whole area ! This is the only known complete and continuous record still available today; hence it gives an idea of the numbers of cases that might have been tried in Canada, about one case for every five persons per year. So there might have been over 500,000 cases during the French regime.About 60% of this paper work is still kept in the various archives in the province of Québec.
The "Prévoté" was not only filling the role of today's legal system but also acted as collecting agency at a time and place where cash for transactions was physically rare and more often than not replaced by bartering.
Of 907 cases tried, two thirds were for debt settlement and one sixth were to settle inheritance. Only 20 were for violence, verbal or physical, on people or...on anything for that matter!. All cases were between private parties (plaintiff and defendant), except for the violence cases where the Prévôté was party to the case.
Some people went to court, either as plaintiff or defendant quite a bit more than others. The ten persons with the highest attendance records were:
44 times - Jacques Aubuchon dit LeLoyal, master carpenter, married to Mathurine Poisson
44 times - Barthélémi Bertaut, gunsmith, single
32 times - Louis Pinard, master surgeon, married to Marie-Madeleine Hertel
31 times - Médard Chouart DesGroseillers, fur trader, married to Hélène Martin
29 times - Jacques Besnard, unknown profession, single
29 times - Quentin Moral, sieur de St-Quentin, government attorney (civil and criminal), married to Marie Marguerie
27 times - Christophe Crevier, sieur de La Mêlée, baker, owner of the Crevier Estate (Seigneurie), married to Jeanne Évard
26 times - Jacques Ménard dit Lafontaine, wheel and cartwright, married to Catherine Forestier
24 times - François Lemaîstre dit Le Picard, master tailor, married to Judith Rigaud
22 times - René Besnard dit Bourjoli, corporal, married to Marie Sédilot
Moral and R.Besnard, aside from being named as plaintiffs because of their legal professions, were also known to go to court for personal reasons. Moral is being sued for having shot and killed other citizens wandering pigs, probably part of his duties. Then Moral sues Aubuchon because the latter shot intentionally Moral's pig, (maybe in revenge ?).
from Histoire de la Nouvelle-France Volume III, tome 2, by Marcel Trudel, ISBN 2-7621-1215-X
