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

THE FRENCH NAVY NOTARIES:

 

Formerly called « écrivains », they are today the administrative employees of the Navy. With no photocopies or computers, they had to handwrite every document by duplicate or triplicate, 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 ; seafarers (sailors at the service of the King, operators, soldiers to be embarked) ; aliments (beverages, flour, legumes): armaments (powder, munitions). Those records were the synthesis of an office activity, or of a port, or of a vessel 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. With all this data the Navy's Central Bureaus could take decisions, and, after receiving the endorsement of the Ministry, they were put into action in harbours and 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

"CORPS OF CIVIL ADMINISTRATION: Composed by Intendants, and, under their command, Commissioners and NOTARIES (writers), who were in charge of supplies, storehouses, financial maintenance, arsenals policies, food, lifting of luggage and their distribution into the vessels, workers´ payrolls, officers´ salaries and luggage..."

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

Eugénie Marie Marchal was the nephew of his brother-in-law Philippe Desiré Dierce. Six months before, on April 16th. 1842, his sister, Aimable Briand, was married with Philippe Dierce in Brest. Philippe was the younger brother of Eugénie Victoire Dierce, the Eugénie Marie Marchal's mother. Philippe and Eugénie Victoire were children of Georges Louis Dierce, a Captain of the French Navy who disappeared in 1816 without a trace, and of Marie Julienne Becquot. Ange was present as a witness for his sister Aimable's wedding.

 

In October 28th of 1844 Ange Briand and Eugénie Marie Marchal had a son at Brest :

my great-grandfather Eugène Marie Auguste Briand.

As witnesses of Eugene's birth, were present his grandfather, Stanislas Auguste Marchal and his uncle, Philippe-Désiré Dierce.

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In September 13th 1845 died his paternal grand-mother Anne Dugas, 102 years old, into Ange´s house at Brest. Ange and his brother-in-law, Philippe Désiré Dierce, were witnesses of this death.

 

In January 5th. 1870 we find Ange Briand, 52 years old, with his wife Eugénie Marie Marchal, in Lorient, at the wedding of their son Eugéne with Julie Marie Kerny

THE MIGRATION TO INDRET (NANTES) AND THE ANGE BRIAND MILITARY PENSION

The canons' foundry and the steamboat machines' factory in Indret, at 5 miles from Nantes, transforms this place in an attractive destination for the Navy's employees, either technicians or administrative agents. In 1870, Ange Briand received a military pension as retirement, after 38 years of service as Administrative Agent of the Navy, and following his relatives' immigration to Nantes, he goes to live to La Montagne, commune of St. Jean de Boiseau, bordering with Indret. There were living, in La Montagne most of the Indret's factory workers, and Ange brothers-in-law, with their families.

There were living, in La Montagne, his sister-in-law, Célestine Heloïse Marchal, (younger sister of Eugénie Marie Marchal) born in St. Pierre et Miquelon in July 6th. 1826, and her husband, Armand Auguste Le Pontois, born in Villedieu-les-Poêles, Manche, October 25th. 1831, also administrative agent of the Navy, who were married on April 24th. 1859 in La Montagne, in the commune of Saint-Jean-le-Boiseau. Also was living there another younger brother of his wife, Alexis Charles Marchal, also an agent of the Navy Administration, with his wife, Hortense Fruchard, and their children.

In December of 1870 Ange received a visit from his son Eugène, and his wife, Julie Marie Kerny, and in December 30th. they gave him a New Year's gift: there was born, in Ange's house, in La Montagne, his first grand daughter, Célestine Marie Briand. 

In 1842 France was already transformed : there started to run the first railroads with locomotives, Daguerre had already introduced in 1839 the first photographies (daguerreotypes) which very soon would be used increasingly. That year was definitively established the Decimal Metric System, as unit of measures. The « Monarchie de Juillet », of Louis Philippe 1er., 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 ». With the Second Empire, France experienced 20 years of industrial and commercial development and the expansion of a powerful colonial empire.

The same year that Ange Briand received his military pension, -1870- the Empire of Louis-Napoleon collapsed as a consequence of the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, and was replaced by the Third Republic, starting a new chapter in the history of France.

Ange Briand died October 10th. 1871, 54 years of age, in his house of La Montagne, where he was living with his wife Eugénie Marie Marchal.