Château Lestage: Jean-Baptiste de Motmans
André was ruined by his wife and the sensations of the trial, and both his creditors and various more peripheral family members began to circle, sensing that they may be able to benefit from his precarious financial situation. He eventually died a broken man in 1743, and upon his death Château Lestage and its associated lands were seized by his many creditors. It took ten years for his children – he had several with his first wife, and one with his second – to secure ownership of the property. These efforts were led by his eldest son, Jean-Baptiste de Motmans (1706 – 1766), despite André having originally disowned him in favour of his second son when Jean-Baptiste had emigrated to Saint-Domingue, better known today as Haiti.
Jean-Baptiste, a prosecutor in the council of Port-au-Prince, had married Anne Élisabeth Durand de Beauval (1714 – 1783); they had a daughter Anne Thérèse de Motmans (1739 – 1792), and it was she who would inherit the estate. She was absent from the property for much of her tenure, dividing her time between Haiti and Paris, and so she appointed a régisseur, Théodore Flous (1749 – 1834). He would eventually come to have designs on the property, but he first waited until Anne Thérèse passed away, in 1792, the eve of the French Revolution.
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