Louis Bazil was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 merchant

Merchant

A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...

 and militia

Militia

The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...

 officer in New France

New France

New France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763...

.

Bazil traded between his home in Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

 and La Rochelle

La Rochelle

La Rochelle is a city in western France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department.The city is connected to the Île de Ré by a bridge completed on 19 May 1988...

, as well as Martinique

Martinique

Martinique is an island in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of . Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados...

 and Île Royale

Cape Breton Island

Cape Breton Island is an island on the Atlantic coast of North America. It likely corresponds to the word Breton, the French demonym for Brittany....

. He was well-connected and in 1736 was granted a concession to administer a sealing station in Labrador

Labrador

Labrador is the distinct, northerly region of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It comprises the mainland portion of the province, separated from the island of Newfoundland by the Strait of Belle Isle...

. Having no capital of his own, he formed a company with François Havy

François Havy

François Havy was a French merchant who operated in Quebec. Havy managed the Quebec business of the French shipping firm Dugard et Cie. While the company's Quebec activities were modest when Havy first established the office in 1732, by 1741 he was handling a full fifth of the colony's imports...

, Jean Lefebvre

Jean Lefebvre (merchant)

Jean Lefebvre was a French merchant in Quebec City. He came to Quebec City in 1732 to be the assistant of François Havy, at the trading company Dugard et Cie. Havy and LeFebvre formed a partnership and two became highly successful merchants in their own right...

 and Louis Fornel

Louis Fornel

Louis Fornel was a French merchant, explorer, and seigneur in New France. Involved in maritime trade and both born and married into prominent Quebec families, Louis Fornel was among the partners Louis Bazil convinced to invest in his ill-fated Labrador sealing station.Determined to claim a sealing...

, but the enterprise was a failure and Bazil, unable to pay his share of the company's debts, lost his consession to his partners.

Throughout the 1740s he was hounded by creditors, but he escaped poverty when his connections secured him a writership at Domaine d’Occident. Even so, he needed to lease a portion of his home for use as a tavern in order to make ends meet.

When he died, his house was sold to pay his debtors.