François Jarret, of Saint-Chef in the department of Isère in France, joined the company of his uncle Antoine Pécaudy de Contrecœur to battle the Iroquois in New France .  They arrived there in August 1665, and on 17 September 1669 Jarret married the twelve-year-old Marie Perrot in Île d'Orléans.  He was awarded a land grant on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River on 29 October 1672 in a seigneury called Verchères, and thereafter continued to increase his land holdings.  The couple was to have twelve children, the fourth of whom was Marie-Madeleine, born in Verchères on 3 March 1678 and baptised that 17 April. The seigneury underwent periodic Iroquois raids.  In 1690 the matron of Verchères took command of a successful defense against an Iroquois assault on the stockade there.  By 1692 the Iroquois had killed the Jarrets' son François-Michel and two successive husbands of their daughter Marie-Jeanne. Before she performed this courageous act, she usually worked in the family field during her spare time.. What even happened first, Iroquois killing Jarrets' son, or Jarret marrying Marie Perrot?