Arnaud I de La Porte

Arnaud I de Laporte (born near Bayonne, France, c. 1706, died Versailles, 1770)

According to Laffilard, archivist of the Marine, as the French Navy was known, Arnaud de La Porte was born around 1706, near Bayonne, (no doubt in the family home at Lembeye, a village a few miles from Pau in the province of Béarn which lies in the foothills of the Pyrenees). Laffilard goes on to say that "...recognizing that his son had spirit and drive, his father Jean sent him to Paris, entrusting him to Pierre de Casamajor, a physician from his province, to teach him the ins and outs of government officialdom so as to be able to acquire a favourable position within it.

To this effect, the good doctor placed him with a Solicitor to the Councils where he quickly learned the ropes. In 1731 he then introduced the lad to his friend Pierre de Forcade, at that time First Commissary of the Colonial Office, who took an immediate liking to him and hired him as a clerk in his office. French colonial affairs fell within the purview of the Ministry of the Marine at that time, since the navy was the only conduit of supplies, defense and communication, this seemed natural enough. Little by little, Arnaud made himself known to the Minister, Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, comte de Maurepas, and to Joseph Pellerin, a former Commissary of the Marine and now Minister of State, who enjoyed Maurepas' entire confidence. With Pellerin's protection and influence, over the next five years Arnaud experienced a truly meteoric rise within the office, being promoted in 1736 to First Scrivener and then to Commissary of the Marine year later."

This was about as high as someone not born into a great noble house could hope rise, and his doing so within such a short span of time and at the young age of merely thirty years, (even considering the influence of his powerful patron,) is a testament to his extraordinary talent and drive. Patron and protégé became family on January 23, 1737 when in Versailles, at the age of twenty-one, Arnaud married Pellerin's daughter Marie-Anne.

On the 17th of June 1738, he went on to succeed Pierre de Forcade in his position of First Commissary of the Colonial Office. It was just at this time that the Intendant of New France (the Civil Governor of Canada), Gilles Hocquart, had travelled back from Quebec to France to plead with the Ministry of the Marine to underwrite the expansion of agriculture and industry there as he judged that there was too little capital and expertise available locally to do the job. Arnaud de La Porte, relatively inexperienced, was inclined to trust colonial administrators on matters relating to the areas they governed and so was convinced by Hocquart's arguments. As a result, the Ministry reversed its former policy of austerity and released a half-million livres between 1737 and 1741 towards agricultural and industrial development in Canada.

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Wikipedia