(French) The short or small man.

The present distribution of Lacour families in Louisiana-mainly along the Red and Mississippi rivers-reflects a complex history, including several "progenitors"

of that surname in the French colony. Nicolas de La Cour was the first of the progenitors, a native of Saint Jean-des-Champs in Normandy, who arrived in 1720 as a worker for the St. Catherine concession at Natchez.* Having escaped the Natchez Massacre of 1729, two years later he and his family (m. 1726 Perrine Brette) settled in Pointe Coupee.

Although before his death in 1761 he had bought and sold various tracts in Pointe Coupee, most of Nicolas' land lay along Old River in the Raccourci area north of present Morganza. There he became a prosperous planter and slaveholder, as did three of his five sons, Simon (m. 1761 Marguerite Léonard), Jean-Baptiste (m. 1769 Marie-Anne Léonard), and Nicolas "Colin" (m. 1773 Madeleine Armant).

Mainly through the line of the latter, property in the Raccouci area remained in the Lacour family well into the present century.

Nicolas "Colin" reared six sons. The elder, Nicolas III (m. 1st 1793 Perrine-Henriette Léonard, 2d Céline Enette), inherited most of the Pointe Coupee estate, whereas his brothers migrated to other parts of Louisiana.

Zénon (m. 1797 Marguerite Léonard) and Cyprien (m. 1797 Geneviève Joffrion) settled in Avoyelles Parish, the latter establishing a large branch of the Lacour family in that area, where many of his descendants are found still today.

Around the beginning of the nineteenth century two other sons of Nicolas "Colin," Jean-Marie-Léandre (m. 1806 Marie-Louise Gillard) and Jean-Baptiste-Bret (m. 1808 Joséphine Gillard) moved first to Natchitoches, then to Opelousas, then to Rapides.

There they remained until mid-century when both moved again, this time to Liberty Co., southeastern Texas.

Finally, Gilbert Lacour, the youngest son of Nicolas "Colin'', in 1811 married Hélène Joffrion of Avoyelles, and eventually settled in Rapides Parish along the Red River, probably near Alexandria.

Today some 50 Lacour families, many of them possible descendants of Gilbert, live in Alexandria and neighboring Pineville.

In the mid-eighteenth century another La Cour named Pierre, a soldier, native of Périgueux, southwestern France, was stationed at Natchitoches Post, where in 1766 he married Marie-Louise Verger.

Settled in the Grande Côte district south of the post, Pierre and his sons Gaspar (m. 1798 Marie-Félicité Brevel) and Pierre, Jr. (m. Marie-Thérèse Brevel) were planters of modest means. Still another soldier, an infantry ensign named Jean-Louis-Mathias Le Court de Prelle, was living along the Rivière-aux-Cannes (Cane River) with his common-law wife, Jeanne LeRoy (marriage legitimized in 1766).

Father of several children by his wife (and likely others by his Indian and Negro female slaves), Le Court became a prosperous planter and stockman in the Natchitoches region.

His sons, Athanase and Barthélemy and their descendants continued living in the Cane River area, and for most of the nineteenth century maintained the Le Court or Lecour spelling of the surname.

Since that time, however, that form appears to have been replaced by Lacour.

Thus, the numerous Lacours who today live in the Natchitoches-Cane River area may descend either from Pierre La Cour or from Jean-Louis-Mathias Le Court de Prelle.

As La Cour was a common surname in France, there were several other La Cours who came to Louisiana, but little is known of them or their descendants. For example, a François-Isoard La Cour lived in St. Charles parish between 1774 and 1785,16 and there were other Lacours in New Orleans at that time and before.

Much later, in the 1850s, one Ambroise Lacour, of unknown provenience (m. Anastasie Mouton), appeared in the Abbeville area, Vermilion Parish, where his three sons, Ambroise, Jr., Hérmogene, and Eugène-Adolphe, had reared large families by the end of the nineteenth century.

The few Lacours who now lived scattered throughout southwestern Louisiana may be their descendents