Deschambault The village of Deschambault is located in the eastern part of the municipality. It has its origins in the Seigneurie de Chavigny, granted in 1640 by the Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France. In 1671, Jacques-Alexis Fleury, Sieur Deschambault, married the heiress of the seigneury and became its owner in 1683 through an exchange of land. He then gave his name to his new domain. The parish of Saint-Joseph-de-Deschambault was founded in 1713 and canonically erected in 1753. The parish municipality was created in 1855, and the village municipality separated from it in 1951. These two entities merged again in 1989.' . . . At one time, Deschambault was said to have "a pilot every two houses." Very early on "the taste for the sea" developed there, because the
St. Lawrence has long been the only way to access the village. "Everything was happening on the river !" says Father Jacques Paquin, coordinator of the Deschambault Navigators Committee." Even after the opening of the
Chemin du Roy, a route considered difficult, the seaway continued to be used more than the land route.
Deschambault, a village of sailors, Le Soleil. Translated from French.
Grondines , La Chevrotière Watermill, rue de Chavigny The name Grondines was named by
Samuel de Champlain himself in 1674. "Grondines" is from the French verb "
gronder", meaning to rumble or roar. The 'seigneurie des Grondines' was one of the oldest
lordship in the province of
Quebec, and was initially granted in 1637 by the
Company of New France to Duchess
Marie-Madeleine de Vignerot de Pontcourlay,
Dame d'atours of
Marie de' Medici, and niece of
Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister of
Louis XIV. The estate covered a land area of around 90 square miles or nearly 60,000 acres.' In 1646, the Governor of New-France at the time,
Charles Jacques Huault de Montmagny, gave the concession to the nuns hospitallers, administrators of
Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, and thereafter, it was resold in 1683 to Lord Jacques Aubert. This family was one of the eight seigneurial dynasties that lived permanently on their estate for six generations. Over time, the Hamelins married members of the
French-Canadian nobility. The families were the
Couillard de l'Espinay, the
Denys de la
Ronde, partners of
Charles Aubert de La Chesnaye, the
Fleury d'Eschambault, the
Gaultier de Varennes, the
Lorimier de la
Rivière, the
Chavigny de la Chevrotière, and their in-laws included the Barons
Le Moyne de
Longueuil, the
Pézard de
Champlain, and the
Boucher de
Montarville.' A member of this family was also recognized as noble by the
Sovereign Council of New France of
Louis XIV in 1654, and would join the
French-Canadian nobility, being the lord and commander
Jacques-François Hamelin de Bourgchemin et de l'Hermitière, a descendant of
Jacques Hamelin, bishop of Tulle.' In 1766, a member of the Hamelin de Chavigny also appeared in documents of the Canadian nobility, where they asked the king to keep in power the current Governor of Quebec
James Murray, with the hope of being less penalized by the injustices they had to suffer after the British conquest. The signatories, including A. Hamelin, were
Luc de la Corne,
François-Joseph Cugnet,
Aubert de Gaspé,
Antoine Juchereau Duchesnay, and a few others. The last lord of Grondines was Senator
David Edward Price in 1871, a member of the influential
Price family. The Grondines windmill was built and is the oldest windmill in Quebec. ==Geography==