Louis Fornel was a French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 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...

, explorer, and seigneur

Seigneurial system of New France

The seigneurial system of New France was the semi-feudal system of land distribution used in the North American colonies of New France.-Introduction to New France:...

 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...

. Involved in maritime trade and both born and married into prominent Quebec families, Louis Fornel was among the partners Louis Bazil

Louis Bazil

Louis Bazil was a French merchant and militia officer in New France.Bazil traded between his home in Quebec and La Rochelle, as well as Martinique and Île Royale. He was well-connected and in 1736 was granted a concession to administer a sealing station in Labrador...

 convinced to invest in his ill-fated 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...

 sealing station.

Determined to claim a sealing concession of his own, Fornel explored Hamilton Inlet

Hamilton Inlet

Hamilton Inlet is a fjord-like inlet on the Labrador coast of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Together with Lake Melville, it forms the province's largest estuary, extending over 140 kilometres inland to Happy Valley-Goose Bay and primarily draining the Churchill River and...

 (until then known as Baie des Esquimaux and named Baie Saint-Louis) in Labrador aboard the Expérience, which he owned with François Havy‎ and Jean Lafebvre. According to his record of the journey, Fornel devised an experiment to prove that the Inuit

Inuit

The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...

 did not, as was commonly supposed, live on raw meat and salt water. Fornel's claim to the Bay was never formally recognised until after his death, when it was granted to his widow, Marie-Anne Barbel

Marie-Anne Barbel

Marie-Anne Barbel was a daughter of Jacques Barbel, who had come as a soldier from France and became an important member of the Quebec business and political landscape. Her mother was Marie-Anne Barbel....

, who carried on the family business.

Some time in the 1740s, Fornel bought a parcel of land adjacent to Notre-Dame-des-Anges

Notre-Dame-des-Anges, Quebec

Notre-Dame-des-Anges is a parish municipality in Quebec, Canada, home of the General Hospital of Quebec.Enclaved within the territory of Quebec City, this unusual municipality, lacking any governmental structure, has a population of 437 and measures only 6 hectares in area, making it the smallest...

– and perhaps more importantly, the status that came with the title of seigneur—which he named Bourg-Louis.