my name is mud

From France to Larchwood in 400 years.

Brosseau.......my name is mud.

That statement might be true if I could prove that I was a direct descendant of a guy named William who was Lord of Briouze until he assisted another guy named William to conquer England in 1066 AD. That William was Duke of Normandy and after his conquest he was King of England.

Briouze is a marshland in Normandy and the word is likely a spinoff of an old term that meant mud. Mud to a Frenchman is "boue". Therefore, if this story were to hold true then I could indeed say that my name is mud.

William of Briouze must have been very comfortable in his marshland. He had a manor or castle. He would return to Briouze in his later years after his son Philip de Braose took over his title of Lord of Bramber. The story of William de Braose, aka Guillaume de Briouze, First Lord of Bramber is a long one full of intense mystery. Too long for a few pages of notes.

Suffice it to say that Lord William de Braose gave rise to the dynastic House of Braose. The spelling of Braose has been seen in many versions over the years that followed - Breuse, Brewes, and the most interesting one probably is the latin form Braiosa ). That sounds almost like Brosseau. Robert the Brus and Robert the Bruce are also interesting and similar names but Brus/Bruce is a Scottish story while Briouze/Braose is an Anglo-Norman story. So the two names are likely not related except for the timeline. Both stories revolve around feudal medieval times when lords and barons from all places in Europe are on a trail of conquest and domination.

The First Lord (Baron) of Bramber ( in England ) died around 1095. That is about the same time that Pope Urban is signing edicts to send the first crusaders to reconquer the Holy Land in Jerusalem from the Muslims. Some famous names in that first crusade story include Stephen Blois, Fulk V and so many more. Also another story but maybe not so much....

The House of Braose continued to play a role in the development of England, Wales, Ireland, and France until one day when King John of England turned on the Braose of his period and pretty much destroyed him and his name.

One could say that at this point the Braose name was mud !!!

Whatever happened to the descendants of the Braose after the one who ran off to France dressed as a beggar in order to not be killed by the soldiers loyal to King John is beyond me.

What we know about European history is that when Napoleon Bonaparte came along and found support to fight off the monarchs of France in the late 1700's, he did not like the Catholic ways and many Roman Catholic projects were stopped in their tracks. Napoleon also had many documents destroyed and most of the documents and names associated to Brosseau's and many other families in Europe got lost in that shuffle.

We however know that a certain Matthieu LeBrasseur or Brasseau, Brazeau was on a boat that landed in Acadie, Nova Scotia in the mid 1600's. Matthieu was married to Bellemere Jeanne Celestin who was the daughter of Andre Celestin and Basile?Blanchet Perrine?...

Now, one has to think like a Frenchman to understand how that works. A Frenchman almost always calls his mother in law " la belle mere ". Many Frenchmen know how to work as these master carpenters did, but most likely in those days few laborers, skilled or not, could write their own name. A likely scenario might go that when the factor postmaster or another census taker came along and asked who was who in the family he would write what he was told. " Eh ca c'est la belle mere Jeanne Celestin", said she to the factor as she applied for a land grant on which property her husband would build himself and his family a homestead ". And the factor penned the name in the ledger. And the inlaws, " la belle mere and le beau pere " came along for the ride.

As above, so below. Life is a constant merry go round and a few hundred years later Lea Leduc would say the same thing about her mother in law Marcelline Couturier Lamer Brosseau when Lea Leduc married Adolphe and went to live on the inlaws double lot in what they called Larchwood.

Or maybe not......In that scenario Jeanne Celestin would have been la bellemaire of her son Claude Paul Brasseau's wife. On a side note, a factor to the English is a person responsible for holding and distributing lands for the crown. That job often went to the postmaster. To a Frenchman a "facteur" is a mailman. Go figure !!!

Lamer is seen with Marcelline and her sisters who marry into the Brosseau family. Her name is often written as Couturier dit Lamer. Now, La Mere is not La Belle Mere. La Mere is mother.....obviously I am taking this down the wrong path since Marcelline was never a Couturier Lamer. The Lamer name was attached to her mother in law's mother in law Marguerite Rapidieu-Lamer  but EH!, it's my story.........

400 hundreds years of building barns and shafts from Larchwood to Nova Scotia and celebrating with drinks... sometimes a few too many drinks.....takes it's toll on a family " my name is mud " says one Brosseau to another as he sleeps in the barn yet another forthnight....

Le Brasseur seems to indicate some type of brewing profession. Maybe Matthieu and Jeanne Brosseau owned a brewing company or a tavern in Nova Scotia's Acadie. The first few generations of this line of Brosseau's in Canada moved around from Annapolis to Port Royal to Grand Pre and then to Beaubassin on the border of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The battle between the French and the English was on from the very beginning as was the battle between the Catholics and Protestants.

To my understanding LeBrasseur was a master carpenter so I don't buy into the brewery concept. Le Brasseur could just as easily be applied to a sentence like " Le voila allez encore le brasseur de merde " says one Frenchman to another as he sees the carpenter run after the.....That translates to " There he goes again the shiat disturber"....

Likely not but I wasn't there so I can only guess.

Claude Paul Brazeau, son of Matthieu and Jeanne Brosseau, was born in Beaubassin on August 22, 1746 or thereabouts. He was........

My name is mud...400 year to Larchwood.......story continues later or you can pick up the story from where Sophie and Marg have to deal with the Brosseau males.