GF-PK Traveling to France

Greetings!

The non-stop flight is paid for, the 2009 Peugeot Trendy is leased, the Villa Beaumarchais in Paris is leased. We're reading seven books on France, and the route is beginning to take shape. Our trip to France begins on September 17th at 7:35am at the San Francisco Airport, and ends at the same place forty-one days and one minute less than twelve hours later on October 28th at 7:34pm.

But it actually all began in 1544 in the town of St. Jean, Mortagne, Perche, France. That's the town we're headed to once we land in Paris.

Nicholas Cloutier was born there, and was his son (Denis) and grandson (Zacharie). They were carpenters who struggled to keep their families alive in the late 1500's and early 1600's. On January 15, 1634, Surgeon Robert Giffard, a notable proponent of a Canadian community, was soliciting potential emigrants when he received notice that he had been awarded the Seigneurie of Beauport from the One Hundred Associates. Giffard had been in New France before, from 1621 to 1626 and again in 1628. In 1634, he successfully recruited several citizens of Perche as prospective residents for his newly acquired realm, one of which was Zacharie Cloutier. The work he signed on to was to expand the colony of New France by settling the Beauport area near Quebec City.

There's a nice family history website at Zacharie Cloutier
which gives you a short history. A look into his wife, Xaintes Du Pont, is at: Xaintes Du Pont> and their family is chronicled at: Cloutier

We'll be spending the first week of our trip visiting the home towns of my french ancestors in and around the Perche area, sixty miles west of Paris.

Gregory