Steven LaChance Blog

In the quiet French countryside, in a town most people have never heard of, my family’s story begins. The place is called Bréban, France. It sits in the Aube region, surrounded by fields that know the rhythm of harvest, the hush of snow, and the silence of centuries.

Bréban is the kind of town where people stay; where generations live and die on the same land, in the same stone houses, under the same sky. But one man didn’t stay.

His name was Nicolas Calliot de Bréban. He was born into that stillness, but something in him stirred. Something whispered that the world was larger than vineyards and village walls. Nicolas listened.

At a time when class and blood defined destiny, Nicolas was awarded the Order of Saint Michael, a royal fraternity established by King Louis XI for men of exceptional loyalty, integrity, and service to the crown and country. It was not a title handed out easily. It marked him as extraordinary, trusted, and chosen.

This wasn’t just a ceremonial honor. The Order of Saint Michael symbolized belonging to something greater, an early badge of duty and destiny. And for a man from a small French town, it meant crossing boundaries most never dared.

But Nicolas didn’t stop there. At some point, perhaps driven by opportunity, conviction, or an unstoppable sense of purpose, he decided to leave France. To leave Bréban. He crossed an ocean, carrying the weight of generations and the hope for something more. He left behind fields, language, and roots, stepping into the vast unknown of the New World.

He didn’t land in the crowded ports of the East. He followed the rivers inland, down the Saint Lawrence and into the Mississippi. He arrived in Kaskaskia, a place that, at the time, was the heartbeat of the French colonial frontier.

Kaskaskia, Illinois, wasn’t just a dot on a map. It was one of the first settlements in the Illinois Territory, founded by Jesuit missionaries and French traders. It was a crossroads of culture, faith, diplomacy, and survival. Nicolas found himself in a place as wild and full of promise as the old world was old and familiar.

And that’s where my family took root. In Kaskaskia, alongside French soldiers, traders, and settlers, they built a life. They married. They farmed. They prayed. And when floods came, when empires shifted and borders redrew, they moved again, this time across the river into what would someday be Missouri.

I like to think Nicolas stood on the banks of the Mississippi and felt something in his bones, something not unlike what I feel when I travel, photograph, and write. A need to remember. A need to shape stories out of silence. To shape a life and reality that is your own. That may be why I find myself an immigrant here in Mexico as well. In a dream a long time ago, my grandmother told me a cryptic message, “It’s in the blood.” I was never quite entirely sure what she meant. Perhaps this is what she was trying to tell me, to prepare me for. She was preparing me to fly into adventure on the wings of hope and the desire to build a life of my own.

I don’t know every detail of Nicolas’ life. Records fade. Names get lost in the dust of time. But I do know this: I am here because Nicolas made a choice. Because he dared to walk away from comfort and tradition and step into a different kind of story.

He didn’t pass down riches or titles. He passed down something better: Legacy. Fire. A sense that the world can be made new by those brave enough to leave what they know behind.

I’ve often said my stories come from something deeper, and maybe that part of me lies in the DNA I carry from Nicolas. I am a storyteller. A traveler. A seeker. I chase truth, wonder, history, mystery, and yes, sometimes monsters. Perhaps I owe this part of myself to Nicolas. It definitely feels that way. Maybe that’s what Nicolas passed down, too: the courage to explore.

Nicolas is the hero of that part of my family’s story, a man who carried the honor of a king, left his hometown of Bréban, France, and helped create a new life in Kaskaskia, Illinois. In doing so, he made everything else possible. He made my life possible, and that deserves to be remembered and cherished.