Jean Talon, comte d'Orsainville (1625 baptised 8 January 1626 – November 1694) was a French colonial administrator who was the first and most highly regarded Intendant of New France. His parents were Philippe Talon and Anne Bury. He was very entrepreneurial and may have had ancestors from Ireland.

As Intendant during 1665–1672, he attempted to diversify the colony's economy by encouraging agriculture, fishing, lumbering, and industry as well as the traditional fur trade. He approved Robert La Salle's plan to mount expeditions to seek a western passage to ChinaFrancis Parkman, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, France and England in North America 3 Williamstown, MA: Corner House Publishers, 1980), 15. In 1666 he conducted the first census in North America. While he succeeded in settling some two thousand people in the colony, many of the industries he initiated failed when he returned to France.

Talon was born in 1625 and he died in 1694. He was a highly respected man, and loved by many, yet he was never married. Jean studied at the Jesuit college of Clermont in Paris, so his knowledge was much appreciated by King Louis XIV and Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who were to help in the colonization of New France.

Notes

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Jean Talon was also responsable for the building and opening of Canada`s first commercial beer brewery in Quebec City Quebec, 1668.

Lake Talon, the source of the Mattawa River and the route of the Voyageurs, is named after Jean Talon.

External links

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• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• Full text of The Great Intendant : A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 from Project Gutenberg

1625 births | 1694 deaths | French people | People of New France

Jean Talon | Jean Talon