CRESPIEUL (CRÉPIEUL), FRANÇOIS. — Missionary in Canada, born at Arras on 17 March 1638, entered the Society of Jesus at Tournai on 29 October 1658, and went on mission in 1670. From October 1671 until 1699 he carried out his work in the mission of Tadoussac, among the Algonquin and Montagnais Indians; in 1696 or 1697, he was appointed apostolic vicar for the Montagnais. Subsequently compelled by age and hardship to leave this extremely arduous mission, he was prefect of studies at the college of Québec (1700), where he died at the end of 1702.
Fragments of his mission diary are published in the Relations de la Nouvelle France for 1671–72 (Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, LVI, pp. 70–89, etc.); as are some Remarques sur la mission de Tadoussac (ibid., LXIII, pp. 248–67). Particularly interesting is a short work based on personal experience: La vie d'un missionnaire montagnais, présentée aux successeurs montagnais, pour leur instruction et consolation (Chicoutimy 1697), published in Thwaites, op. cit., LXV, pp. 42–49.