Constant le Marchand de Lignery

Constant le Marchand de Lignery, generally known as Lignery (baptized March 27, 1662 in Charentilly, near Tours, France – February 19, 1732 in Trois-Rivières, New France) was a French military officer in New France (Canada). He was twice commandant at Michilimackinac.

Lignery was the son of Joseph le Marchand de Lignery and Marguerite Du Sillar. He began his military career in 1675 as a lieutenant in the Régiment d’Auvergne. In 1683 he transferred to the navy, serving as a midshipman at Rochefort. In 1687 he went to Canada as a lieutenant on half-pay. He was made a knight of the Order of Saint Louis in 1728.

He married Anne Robutel de La Noue, daughter of the seigneur de Île Saint-Paul, on November 10, 1691 in Montreal. They had seven sons and two daughters. The best known of these was François-Marie Le Marchand de Lignery, a captain in the colonial regular troops and knight of the Order of Saint-Louis. In the summer of 1759 this son was fatally wounded by the English in fighting near Fort Niagara.

He fought in the Iroquois War, where his service was recognized by his superiors. In 1688 he was promoted to lieutenant, and in 1705 to captain. In 1712, at the beginning of a 25-year war between the French and the Foxes, Canadian Governor Philippe de Rigaud de Vaudreuil sent him to reoccupy the former post of Michilimackinac, which had been abandoned by royal orders in 1696.

A few years later, in 1715, acting Governor Claude de Ramezay placed him in command of a major expedition against the Foxes. He was ordered to assemble a force of coureurs de bois and northern Indians and lead them to the Chicago portage. This force would join a second force, recruited among the Indians of the southern Great Lakes, and move together against the Foxes. However, due to a series of mishaps — the supply convoy from Montreal did not arrive on time and the French volunteers were unruly and hard to discipline — the southern contingent never assembled; neither did Lignery and his army reach the assembly point. On December 1, 1715 a Fox war party led by Pemoussa (He Who Walks) attacked the French expedition along the Chicago lakefront, driving the French and their Indian allies back toward Michigan.

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