The foundational book, Vidrine – Védrines: Our Védrines in France, 1600-1750 by Jacqueline O. Vidrine leaves off with the question about which precise year or on which ship the Progenitor of the Vidrine Family in Louisiana – Jean Baptiste Lapaise de Védrines – departed France to travel to Louisiana. Years later, thanks to her continued research, she answered that question in the book published by she and her son, Warren Vidrine, Governor Vaudreuil’s Voyage to Louisiana: The Passenger List of the Charente and the Navigational Logbook of the Lion d’Or for their Voyage of 1743.
Cadet à l’aiguillette, so-called because of the aiguillette worn on the shoulder.
Having just celebrated his thirtieth birthday on May 12, 1742, Jean Baptiste Lapaise de Védrines was commissioned as a junior officer of the Royal French Marines (cadet à l’aiguillette) to serve in the Louisiana Territory on Tuesday, May 29, 1742 by General Jean-André de Barrailh.[1] General Barrailh had a long and extinguished career in the French Marines and since May 1751, was serving as the Chef d’Escadre at the Ministry of the Marine in Rochefort (the Squadron Commander, equivalent to the present-day rank of Rear Admiral).[2] He was most likely a relative of Jean Baptiste Lapaise de Védrines since both his mother and Jean Baptiste’s paternal great grandmother were from the de Glory family in Monclar, France (a small community a little over five miles from Sainte Livrade, the hometown of Jean Baptiste Lapaise de Védrines). If so, he most likely had some kind of connection with Jean Baptiste’s decision to join the French Marines.
List of those recruited as Cadets à l’aiguillette to serve in the Louisiana Territory.
On July 1, 1742, Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil de Cavagnial, Marquis de Vaudreuil was appointed Governor of the Louisiana Province to succeed the first Governor of the Louisiana territory, Jean Baptiste le Moyen de Bienville. Following the appointment, Vaudreuil received instructions to sail to Louisiana from France aboard the Royal Ship, the Charente. It was expected to depart from the shipyard at Rochefort, France to sail to Louisiana in September 1742, but it was delayed for several months.
In October, it was announced that the ship would need another month to be ready.[3]
Later that month, on October 29, 1742, we find the name of Jean Baptiste Lapaise de Védrines listed as a cadet a l’aiguillette assigned to the New Orleans garrison.[4]
By November 15, the Charente began taking on cargo for the voyage, and the expectation of the French Colonial Ministry was that the Charente would depart before December.[5]
A passenger list for the Charente destined for Louisiana was composed at Versailles on November 26, 1742, and Jean Baptiste Lapaise de Védrines was the first name listed on it as a cadet à l’aiguillette.[6]
Passenger list of those abord the Royal Ship, La Charente, destined for the Louisiana Territory from Rochefort with the newly-appointed Governor Vaudreuil.
On December 26 and 29, 1742, we find several invoices for merchandise aboard La Charente to be transported to merchants in Saint-Domingue and New Orleans, Louisiana from merchants in France.[7]
Finally, on January 1, 1743 the Charente left harbor, setting sail to cross the Atlantic for what would be a four-month voyage with Governor Vaudreuil and Jean Baptiste Lapaise de Védrines among the 41 passengers, not counting the domestic servants.[8] Also aboard the ship were four Capuchin Priests sent to serve in the Louisiana Territory.[9]
In addition to the Charente and its supply ship the Vestale, there were at least three other ships destined for Louisiana: the Lion d’Or of the Rasteau brothers, the Compte de Maurepas of Jean Jung of Bordeaux, and the Duc d’Aiguillon of Sieur Bourgine.[10] We’re able to know a few things about the voyage because of the logbook of the Lion d’Or’s second leg of the journey, from Saint-Dominque to La Balize, beginning on April 9, 1743.[11]
[1] Surrey, B75:303, Dupre Library, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA.
[2] For more about General Barrailh’s life as a French marine, Cf: https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_crewman&id=23110
[3] Jacqueline Vidrine and Drouet Warren Vidrine, fils, Governor Vaudreuil’s Voyage to Louisiana: The Passenger List of the Charente and the Navigational Logbook of the Lion d’Or for their Voyage of 1743 (San Clemente, CA, 2014), p.2.
[4] Loudoun Collection, Vaudreuil Papers, 19, year 1743, Huntington University, San Marino CA.
[5] Jacqueline Vidrine and Drouet Warren Vidrine, fils, Governor Vaudreuil’s Voyage to Louisiana: The Passenger List of the Charente and the Navigational Logbook of the Lion d’Or for their Voyage of 1743 (San Clemente, CA, 2014), p.3.
[6] Archives Nationales Coloniales, B 75 379, Dupre Library, University of Louisiana at Lafayette; fifteenth name from the top of the list.
[7] Colonial Archives, LA Historical Center, Black Book D42, entries 108-114.
[8] Jacqueline Vidrine and Drouet Warren Vidrine, fils, Governor Vaudreuil’s Voyage to Louisiana: The Passenger List of the Charente and the Navigational Logbook of the Lion d’Or for their Voyage of 1743 (San Clemente, CA, 2014), p.9.
[9] Ibid, p. 6; The identities of the Capuchin Priests are presently unknown. Perhaps they were sent to assist Capuchin Fr. Anselm de Langrès at the new Parish of St. Francis of Assisi at Pointe Coupée dedicated three years earlier in 1738; Cf. Chapter 8, p. 47.
[10] Ibid. p.2.
[11] Ibid, p.3.