ON THIS, THE 16TH DAY of July, 1870, before Maître Hippolyte Marie de Kersauzon de Pennendreff, notary in Brest, Monsieur Breval Botquelen, kelp farmer, born on the 24th day of February, 1845, being 1 metre 68 centimetres tall with brown hair, grey eyes, a high forehead, large nose, straight legs, a round face, clear skin, a regular mouth, and a full set of teeth,... hereby agrees that he will be bound to serve in the armed forces as a replacement for Monsieur Auguste de Rigny of the commune of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and shall continue to be so bound for the period for which the latter is required by law to serve. Monsieur Jules de Brassac, duly authorised for these purposes to act as agent for and on behalf of Monsieur Casimir de Rigny, father of the aforementioned Auguste de Rigny, shall accordingly lawfully pay the sum of 8000 francs pursuant to the following terms: 4000 francs in cash to be counted and paid over in the presence of the undersigned notary upon signature of this deed. The balance shall be paid one year and one day after the date of enlistment to the corps, during which time the substituted man is liable to the government for his replacement except in the event of death in the line of duty, whereupon the said sum shall immediately become payable. Said balance payment shall be made upon presentation of a certificate of service from the corpsthirteen months after his admission. It is hereby noted, as requested by Monsieur Botquelen, that the sum received in these offices upon signature of this deed shall in turn be paid immediately to Mademoiselle Corentine Malgorn and a copy of the said deed provided to her.

So there you have it.

My true forebear, the biological father of my grandfather, was definitely not Auguste de Rigny, but rather Breval Botquelen, a very handsome sample of cannon fodder, aged twenty-five years, standing 1 metre 68 centimetres tall, with clear skin and brown hair, a good set of teeth and impeccable legs. He had been in neither the Merchant Marine nor the Navy, nor was he even a fisherman, but a kelp farmer. A peasant of the sea. A pauper.

He followed a Parisian, Jules de Brassac, in order to be sold to a bourgeois man by the name of de Rigny, leaving a fiancée behind him, my great-grandmother Corentine. He no doubt took the decision to sell himself as a military substitute because the Malgorn family wanted none of him as a son-in-law, hence the falling out and ill will harboured for over a century.