In my genealogy I have a French relative that came from Xaintes, Santonge, France and traveled to Montreal, Canada sometime around 1710. In his description they say he was a "soldat de Marigny." I think this means soldier of Marigny? I was wondering if anyone new if there would be a reason for him to come over to Canada around this time. Was there a war going on? Or maybe he just came over for a better life?
Not that this will help, but his middle name was "dit LaFleur." I've read that some of the soldiers had middle names like this.
It's very funny because I helped someone looking for people from Saintes who went to Canada around the same years barely two weeks ago.
Yes this indeed means soldier of Marigny , you are right. There are ways to know ( at least to try ! This is not a 100% certainty you will find out ) why he came ( and stayed ) in Canada if you happen to know the ship he was on. Or sometimes, there are people online who have done a fantastic job creating databases for their French ancestors and with the names and dates of the person you can find some info.
He probably was a member of a company that was sent to the colonies and he stayed there. It is unlikely that, while doing his service in the army, he deliberately migrated to Canada but he could have decided not to come back to France after his time was done.
As for the dit LaFleur this is not his middle name but a " war nickname ", very common among the soldier and a truly fantastic way to find a soldier of the Ancien Regime ( when you had 50 Jean Martin, having nicknames was very useful ).
Since 1716 the companies kept ( more or less good ) records of every soldiers that served and it systematically included a war nickname. If you were to look to ship records, soldiers would always be written with their nickname like these examples :
Jean Dupont dit LaFleur/La Fleur or Jean dit LaFleur Dupont*
Nicknames are a good way to find a personal touch about an ancestor ( we don't often know much about their personalities when they are so far back ) or where they were from or something about their physic, some also are funny.
the Rock, Strong, Chapel, the Norman, Left-Foot, the Tall, Flower, the Stutterer, Little Gascon ,...Etc are good examples of these war nickname. I have an ancestor who kept his nickname in civilian life, mostly due to the fact that around 4 or 5 people in the same village had the same name. This helped the priest to keep clearer records and it lead to believe that he served as a Grenadier in a regiment since this was his nickname.
So name + nickname can be a good way to try and found out more about him. If he sailed across the ocean he left some traces of his military career somewhere. Do not hesitate to send me a message for help or to try r/genealogy