Manoir Sabrevois de Bleury

Charles grew up in Montreal. He was descended from a younger son of Henri de Sabrevois, Sieur de Sermonville, who came from Garancières-en-Beauce to New France in 1685 as the young Lieutenant of an infantry company and was later made a Chevalier de Saint-Louis. In 1764, Charles' grandfather sold the family Seigneuries of Sabrevois and Bleury to Generals Gabriel Christie (1722-1799) and Moses Hazen (1733-1803) for £7,300.

Coming back to Prominence at Whatever the Cost

Charles lived in Montreal where he was a successful lawyer. He owned part of Boucherville (the Seigneur, Pierre Boucher de Boucherville (1780-1857), had married his sister), but he was determined to re-establish his family among Quebec's landowning elite. Between 1827 and 1837, he purchased several tracts of land (amounting to a farm of 416-acres) on the Île Jésus - once part of the domaine established by The Hon. Joseph-Hubert Lacroix (1743-1821). Here, Bleury indulged his passions for entertaining, riding and hunting.

Overlooking the river on the southern most point of his land, Charles de Bleury built a single story (over a basement) double-fronted, cut-stone, Palladian manor house, set among several outbuildings. It featured an octagonal cupola from which the view extended down over the Rivière-des-Prairies in the foreground and back to the St. Francois Mountains behind. The front of the house was entered via a set of stone steps that led up to a modest portico - the pediment of which was less modestly emblazoned with his family's coat-of arms. On the other side of the manor was a six columned portico spread across the central section with a set of steps that fanned out onto the lawn before the river. On that pediment was another, even larger depiction of the family's coat-of-arms.

The Honourable M. de Bleury found great pleasure in entertaining, and the doors of his manor house often admitted friends from Montreal and elsewhere. He and his wife generously dispensed the delicate hospitality for which they became noted.

Charles de Bleury died without children in 1862 when it was discovered that despite his generosity he had in fact been living beyond his means and the manor was mortgaged to the hilt. At the ensuing Sheriff's auction in 1863, the manor was purchased by the husband of de Bleury's niece, Louis-Tancrède Bouthillier (1796-1881) who lived in some style between the Maison Beaubien in Montreal and their country home, Outre-mont. To clear de Bleury's debts, Bouthillier divided up the land and sold off the property in parcels.

From the Lussier Family to Fire

From 1863, the manor became the property of Félix Lussier (b.1801), the former Seigneur de Varennes who lived there with his wife, Angélique Deschamps (b.1806) and their children. After his death, it passed to his eldest son, Hector Lussier (1841-1897) who was Mayor of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul from 1890 to 1897 and the elder brother of The Hon. Albert-Alexandre Lussier (1842–1909). Hector married Marie-Denise-Cordélia Vinet and after his death he left the manor to his only son, Hector Lussier (1873-1943), who succeeded his father as Mayor, serving until 1907.

In 1930, then proprietor Hector Lussier transferred ownership of the manor to the Canadian Federal Government, and several further buildings were erected nearby for use as a young offenders prison. In 1957, the manor was unoccupied but in October of that year it was destroyed by a fire and it was demolished completely the following year.