My great-great-grandfather Ange was born during the age of the Monarchy Restoration in France, when Louis XVIII was reigning. When he was a child he lived with his sister, Aimable, 2 years older than him and his mother, Marie Louise Félicité Turgot, on the Nr. 5 Fraisier Street, at Brest. His father, Laurent René, was dead in a shipwreck at Newfoundland, on board of his Schooner La Fanchette, when he was only one year old.

Ange was the son of a Captain of the Marine of France and the grandson of an Acadian Corsair Captain. When he was young, he studied at the  Navy School of Brest to become a Notary of the Marine of Brest.

THE FRENCH NAVY NOTARIES: Formerly called « ecrivans », they are today the administrative employees of the Navy. Without photocopies or computers, they had to handwrite everything, by duplicate or triplicate, every document just to protect them in case of lost or counterfeiting. Their tasks were to take note of everything : construction materials (wood, iron, ropes), money incomes and expenses ; the men (sailors at the service of the King, operators, soldiers to be embarked) :aliments (beverages, flour, legumes): armaments (powder, munitions). Those records made the synthesis of any office activity, or a port, or a ship movement. That information were transmitted to the Mayor, and he could report to the Secretary of State about the situation of a work, or the armaments, or the progress in a construction, etc. With all this data the Navy's Central Bureaus could take decisions, and, after receiving the endorsement of the Ministry, they will rebound on the arsenals.

LES OFFICIERS DE  PLUME (Pen Officers):

ORDINANCE OF THE KING, LOUIS XIV, Of April 15th  1689:

(It rules the Administration of the French Navy and the division in 4 Corps: Corp des Officiers de Vaisseau, Corp des Officiers d'Artillerie, Corp des Officiers de Port, and

·         ·       "CORP D'ADMINISTRATION CIVILE: Composé d'intendants et, sous leurs ordres, de commissaires et d'écrivains qui étaient chargés des approvisionnements, des magasins, de la manutention des finances, de la police des arsenaux, des vivres, de la levée des équipages et de leur répartition entre les vaisseaux, de la paie des ouvriers, des soldes des officiers et équipages... "

Ange Briand was married at Brest, at his 25 years, on August 29th of  1842 with Eugénie Marie Marchal,  21 years, born on  April 3rd 1821 in Saint Pierre et Miquelón, daughter of  Stanislas Auguste Marchal and Eugénie Victoire Dierce.

Eugénie Marie Marchal was the cousin of his brother-in-law  Philippe Desiré Dierce. Six months before, April 16th 1842, his sister, Aimable Briand, was married with Philippe Dierce in Brest. Philippe was the son of Georges Louis Dierce, a Capitain of the Marine, acadian, brother of Eugénie Victoire Dierce, the Eugénie Marie Marchal's mother. On that mariage Ange was present as a witness for his sister.

In October 28th of  1844 Ange Briand and Eugénie Marie Marchal had a son at Brest : my great-great-grandfather Eugène Marie Auguste Briand.

Giving testimony of that born, were present his grandfather, Stanislas Auguste Marchal and his uncle, Philippe Dierce.

In 1842 France was transformed : there started to run the first railroads with locomotives, Daguerre had already introduced in 1839 the first photographies (daguerreotypes) which very soon will be used increasingly. That year was definitively established the Decimal Metric System, as unit of measures. The Louis Philippe Ier, « Monarchie de Juillet », which had begun at 1830, would be following until 1848, when it was installed the 2nd. Republic ,just until 1851, when Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte rises to power and then starts the period called « Second Empire ».

By 1870 we find Ange Briand, with his wife Eugénie Marie Marchal, addressed in Lorient, during the marriage of their son Eugène. On 1876 the Briand family resided in Indret, near to Nantes, although Ange Briand was not more with them. Eugénie Marchal was in that moment widow and pensioner. Therefore, should be assumed that he died between 1870 and 1876.