[3][4] He was working as a surgeon in Orléans before entering the novitiate of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in Paris on 16 March 1639.

[5] From 1640 to 1642, he served at the Saint-Joseph de Sillery Mission, near Quebec, where he was charged with caring for the sick and wounded at the hospital.

[5] They were captured by the Mohawk, taken to their easternmost village of Ossernenon (about 9 miles west of present-day Auriesville, New York),[6][7] and tortured.

After teaching a Mohawk boy the sign of the cross, Goupil was killed on the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, 29 September 1642, by a blow to the head with a tomahawk.

[4] At Fordham University's Rose Hill Campus in the Bronx, New York, a freshman dormitory—Martyrs' Court—has three sections, which are named for the three US martyr-saints: René Goupil, Isaac Jogues, and Jean Lalande.