NARRATIVE.

As I write this in this, the first decade of the 20th century, it never ceases to amaze me that such an illustrious and influential family had such humble and obscure lives until
fate and Providence intervened a little over a century ago.
As a matter of fact, Jean-Philippe, the father of
Charles-Philippe Valcour, born only six years before the "storming of the Bastille" to
lowly working-class parents in Bayeux, Normandy, appeared destined and resigned to a life of working alongside his father
making articles of wood in his carpenter's shop, or making wood-frame houses if they were lucky.
Then shortly after the turn-of-the-century, everything changed: General Napoleon Bonaparte was raising a conscripted land force that was to be called the "Grande
Armee". Jean was only 19 at the time.
That young man, like countless others at that time, was swept up by the violent winds of European history, ending up as a common infantry soldier; a participant in famous battles such as Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and finally, the bloody indecisive clash fought in miserable winter conditions known as the Battle of Eylau where Jean-Philippe, newly promoted to "Sergent", lost half of his right foot to a cannon-shell fragment.
Returning home that spring of 1807 he once again took up the trade of carpentry alongside his father, Armand.
But there were some notable changes that caught the eye of the returning soldier, including an unexpected and welcome development.
His father had expanded and reorganized the woodworking shop. The entire family was involved in the work there. Jean's younger brothers, Bernard and Gaston, labored beside their father, along with his teenage sisters and mother who worked in the shop as well when they had the time. And the biggest surprise of all?
Armand-Philippe was the recipient of a surprisingly generous contract from the French government for the manufacture of 1,000 wooden stocks for muskets to be made within a 12 month period of the signing of the contract.
Though the family patriarch was virtually illiterate, his younger son Bernard helped with the paperwork. Armand sealed the contract with a handshake and a crude signature; this fortuitously having taken place
only weeks before Jean's welcome return. His father needed as many hands to do the work as possible.
And with one of those brilliant practical
achievements that the family was to become renowned for, Armand set up a unique
production arrangement in his shop that bore remarkable semblance to what was to become elsewhere known as an "assembly line".
Armand would select the wood and cut it
to the right lengths; his wife would sketch out the outlines of the musket stock on the lengths of wood; Jean would use a handheld jigsaw to cut out the crude shape of the stock; Bernard would chisel out the spaces for
the flintlock and trigger mechanisms; Gaston would do that for the barrel troughs; Eunice
would use a file to round and shape the edges and corners of the stocks; and her younger sisters would sand the wood smooth and stain it with an oily concoction before they would be sent off to a metalsmith living nearby where the metal parts would be fitted.
All 1,000 musket stocks were completed
before the spring of 1808 was out. Armand-Philippe and his family through that contract acquired more money than they had earned in the previous five years combined.
Showing great wisdom and foresight, Armand,
his health gradually failing with age, set aside
as much of the money as possible for his children to improve their lot.
That summer, his son Jean-Philippe married
a local girl named Marie.
Jean-Philippe and his wife welcomed their first child, Charles into the world in August of 1809.
Over the next 12 years, Jean-Philippe and Marie experienced both heartache and joy
with two of their children dying before they reached the age of one; and Marie suffering two miscarriages in the years 1818 and 1820.
In spite of those sorrows she did bear three daughters and two sons, in addition to Charles-Philippe, all of whom lived relatively long lives. Her youngest offspring to survive through to adulthood was a son named Maurice who was delivered by caesarean
section in May, 1821.