page_title: Perche
section_title: Modern times
hierarchical_section_title: Perche / History / Modern times
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Carte de la Nouvelle-France vers 1750. English: Map of the New-France about 1750.
context_page_description: Perche is a former province of France, known historically for its forests and, for the past two centuries, for the Percheron draft horse breed. Until the French Revolution, Perche was bounded by four ancient territories of northwestern France: the provinces of Maine, Normandy, and Orléanais, and the region of Beauce. Afterwards it was absorbed into the present-day departments of Orne and Eure-et-Loir, with small parts in the neighboring departments of Eure, Loir-et-Cher, and Sarthe.
context_section_description: In the three decades starting in 1632, a large proportion of immigrants to New France came from Perche, in what has been called the Percheron immigration movement. Many Percherons were thus recruited to work in seigneuries being establishing along the Saint Lawrence valley. The Beauport seigneurie, New France's first agricultural-oriented seigneurie, was granted in 1634 to Robert Giffard de Moncel by the Company of Hundred Associates.  While the total number of emigrants was small, Perche had a much higher rate of emigration to New France than most other regions of France. Nearly all French Canadians have some ancestors from the villages of Perche. Prominent last names from Perche who came to Canada starting just before the end of Samuel de Champlain's tenure include: Côté, Boucher, Cloutier, Guyon (Dion), Tremblay and Paradis.
  After the French Revolution, Perche was divided into four departments: Orne, Eure-et-Loir, Sarthe, and Loir-et-Cher.  At this time, national law replaced FR:coûtume du Perche or local, customary law.
  In 1998, the government of France created the Perche Regional Nature Park (Parc naturel régional du Perche – see FR:Perche (région naturelle)).  The park is forested mostly by beech, birch, chestnut, oak (especially sessile and pedunculate species), as well as conifers (especially Douglas fir and pine species) populated by wildlife including boar, buzzard, deer, squirrel, woodcock and woodpecker species.
caption: New France (blue) circa 1750
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