| 1698 November 22 |
Born in Quebec, son of Phllippe de Rigaud, marquis de Vaudreuil, governor-general of New France, and Louise-Elisabeth de Joybert de Soulanges et de Marson. |
| 1708 |
At age 10, receives a naval commission as ensign in Canada |
| 1711 July 5 |
Promoted to rank of lieutenant and given the colonial service rank of naval guard. |
| 1713 |
Serves as courier for his father |
| 1715 |
Promoted to rank of captain, ca. 1715. |
| 1721 |
Participated in a military inspection of potential fort sites along Lake Ontario |
| 1727 |
Obtains a discharge in order to settle his late father's estate in France, but remains in Canada in order to participate a poorly planned campaign against the Fox Indians by Constant Le Marchand de Lignery. |
| 1728 |
Returns from Indian wars to Quebec, and departs for France. Promoted to rank of aide-major, |
| 1730 |
Promoted again to rank of ship's lieutenant and awarded the Cross of St. Louis |
| 1733 |
Commissioned governor of Trois-Rivieres. |
| 1740 |
Obtains a discharge and returns to France after his mother's death. |
| 1742 July 1 |
While in France, named to succeed Bienville as governor of Louisiana. |
| 1743 May 10 |
Arrives at New Orleans and finds the colony plagued by security problems. The War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748) affects the colonies in North America. Louisiana's inadequate defenses are threatened by the British success in enticing powerful native chiefs upon which the colony relied for protection. Efforts to bolster Franco-Indian alliances are undermined by Vaudreuil's conflict with Ordonnateur Sebastien-François-Ange Le Normant de Mézy who refused to supply Vaudreuil adequate amounts of Indian presents and trade goods. Vaudreuil nevertheless manages to solidify France's Indian alliances in Louisiana by putting a price on the principal Indian renegade, Choctaw chief Soulier Rouge, and by subsequently persuading the Choctaw to destroy an English trading expedition. Efforts are rewarded with a promotion to rank of naval captain. |
| 1743 |
Vaudreuil purchases a large plantation on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Now that he has a vested interest he encourages the production of indigo and allows smuggling with Louisiana's Spanish neighbors. His policies were instrumental in improving the colonyõs economy, bringing to Louisiana a modicum of prosperity in the mid-1740s. |
| 1744 |
Without the approval of French ministery Vaudreuil grants a fur-trading monopoly in upper Mississippi to twenty Illinois traders, setting off a heated jurisdictional dispute with the governor of New France. |
| 1749 |
As a result of the fur trade dispute the Ohio Valley, originally part of Louisiana, is placed under Canadian jurisdiction |
| 1752 June 8 |
Despite unquestioned success as governor he is recalled to France. A whistle-blower has accused him of running his own flourishing liquor store, selling Army provisions and allowing favors to friends. The accuser says the Marquise smuggled drugs out of the governor's mansion and sold them and that the soldiers were drunk most of the time. |
| 1753 May 8 |
Departs from New Orleans after familiarizing his successor, Louis Billouart de Kerlerec with the colony and its administration. Resides in Paris, late 1753 late 1754. |
| 1755 January 1 |
Instead of being disciplined he is appointed governor-general of New France and arrives at Quebec May 3, 1755. As governor of New France he forms a bond with Intendant Bigot who provides Vaudreuil's military government with full administrative and logistical support. Following the renewal of Anglo-French hostilities in the mid-1750s, he uses a combination of French and Indian forces to disrupt the frontier settlements of the English seaboard colonies as a means of preventing the British from concentrating their forces for an attack on New France. Vaudreuil's strategy was crippled by growing discord between the governor and Louis-Joseph, Marquis de Montcalm de Saint-Veran, commanding general of French troops in Canada. The dispute proves disastrous when British forces succeed in laying siege to Quebec, and Montcalm launchs an attack on James Wolfeõs English Army - with only one-third of his men and without consulting Vaudreuil. |
| 1759 September 18 |
Following the fall of Quebec Vaudreuil vainly attempts to restore French control to the Canadian capital. |
| 1760 September 8 |
Vaudreuil is forced to surrender New France to British forces under Amherst at Montreal. |
| 1760 October 18 |
Sails for France aboard a British vessel. He is chastised by the French colonial ministry for surrendering at Montreal without attempting to engage Jeffrey Amherstõs superior forces on the field of battle. |
| 1761 |
He becomes, with Intendent Bigot, an official scapegoat for Franceõs reverses in Canada. |
| 1762 March 30 |
Imprisoned in the Bastille but released on May 18, 1762. |
| 1763 December |
He is exonerated by a military tribunal and given both a pension and a military decoration. He spends the rest of his life in retirement. |
| 1778 August 4 |
Dies in Paris and buried in France where his tomb is now a national shrine.. |