 Chapter 4 OF A CRONICLE OF NEW WORLD FEUTOLISM. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Senor and Habitant. In its attitude towards the seniors, the crown was always generous. The senorese were large, and from the seniors the king asked no more than that they should help colonize their grants with settlers. It was expected, in turn, that the seniors would show a like spirit in all dwellings with their dependents. Many of them did, but some did not. On the whole, however, the habitants who took farms within the senorese fared pretty well in the matter of the feudal dues and services demanded from them. Compared with the senoral tenancy of old France, their obligations were few in number, and imposed almost no burden at all. This is a matter upon which a great deal of nonsense has been written by English writers on the early history of Canada, most of whom have been able to see nothing but the specter of paternalism in every domain of colonial life. It is quite true, as Tukaville tells us, that the physiognomy of a government can be best judged in its colonies, for there its merits and faults appear as through a microscope, but in Canada it was the merits rather than the faults of French feudalism which came to the front in bold relief. There it was that the senoral polity put its best foot forward. It showed that so long as defence was of more importance than opulence the institution could fully justify its existence. Against the senoral system, as no such element in the population of new France ever raised so far as the records attest one word of protest during the entire period of French dominion. The habitants, as every shred of reliable contemporary evidence goes to prove, were altogether contented with the terms upon which they held their lands, and thought only of the great measure of freedom from burdens which they enjoyed as compared to their friends at home. To speak of them as slaves to the corvées, an unpaid military service debarred from education and crammed with gross fictitions as an aid to their docility and their valueless food for powder—footnote A.G. Bradley, the flight with France for North America, London, 1905—is to display a rare combination of hopeless bigotry and crass ignorance. The habitant of the old regime in Canada was neither a slave nor a serf. Neither downtrodden nor maltreated. Neither was he docile and spineless when his own rights were a tissue. So often has all this been shown that it is high time and end were made of these fictitions, concerning the woes of Canadian folk life in the days before the conquest. We have ample testimony concerning the relations of senior and habitant in early Canada. And it comes from many quarters. Most of all there are the tidal deeds of lands, thousands of which have been preserved in the various notarial archives. It ought to be explained in passing that when a senior wished to make a grant of land the services of a notary were enlisted. Notaries were plentiful. The senses of sixteen eighty-one enumerated twenty-four of them in a population of less than ten thousand. The notary made his documents in the presence of the parties, had them signed, witnessed, and sealed with due formality. The senior kept one copy, the habitant another, and the notary kept the original. In the course of time, therefore, each notary accumulated quite a collection or cadastra of legal records which he kept carefully. At his death they were passed over to the General Registry or Office of the Graefer at Quebec. In general the notaries were men of rather meager education. Their work on deeds and marriage settlements was too often very poorly done, and lawsuits were all the more common in consequence. But the colony managed to get along with this system of conveyancing, crude and undependable as it was. In the tidal deeds of lands, granted by the seniors, to the habitants the situation and area are first set forth. The grants were of all shapes and sizes. The rule, however, they were in the form of a parallelogram, with the shorter end fronting the river in the longer side extending inland. The usual frontage was from five to ten lineal arpins. And the depth ranged from ten to eighty arpins. It should be explained that the arpins de Paris, in terms of which colonial land measurements were invariably expressed, served both as a unit of length and as a unit of area. The lineal arpins was the equivalent of one hundred and ninety-two English feet. The superficial arpins, or arpins of area, contained about five-sixths of an acre. The habitant's customary frontage on the river was accordingly, from about a thousand to two thousand feet, while his farm extended rearwards at a distance of anywhere from under a half-mile to three miles. This rather peculiar configuration of the farms arose wholly from the way in which the colony was first settled. For over a century after the French came to the St. Lawrence, all the senorys were situated directly on the shores of the river. This was only natural, for the great waterway formed the colony's carotid artery supplying the life-blood of all New France so far as communications were concerned. From scenery to scenery men traversed it in canoes, or bateau in summer, and over its frozen surface they drove by cariol during the long winters. Everyone wanted to be in contact with this main highway, so that the demand for farms which should have some river-frontage, however small, was brisk from the outset. Near the river the habitant began clearing and built his house. Their inland as the lands rose from the shore was the pasture, and behind this again lay the still, unclear woodland. When the colony built its first road this thoroughfare skirted the north shore of the St. Lawrence, and so placed an even greater premium on farms contingent to the river. It was only after all the best lands with the river-frontage had been taken up that settlers resorted to what is called the second range for their inland. Now it happened that in thus adapting the shape of grants to the immediate convenience and caprice of the habitants, a curious handicap was in the long run placed upon agricultural progress. By the terms of the custom of Paris, which was the common law of the colony, all the children of habitant's family, male and female, inherited equal shares of his lands. When therefore a farm was to be divided at its owner's deceased, each participant in the division wanted to share in the river-frontage. With large families the rule it can easily be seen that this demand could only be met by shredding the farm into mere ribbons of land with a frontage of only fifty or a hundred feet and a depth of a mile or more. That was the usual course pursued. Each child had his strip, and either undertook to get a living out of it or sold his land to an adjoining heir. In any case, the houses and barns of the one who came into ownership of these, thin, oblongs, were always situated at or near the water-front, so that the work of farming the land necessitated a great deal of travelling back and forth. Too many of the habitants accordingly got into the habit of spending all their time on the fields nearest the house and letting the rear grow wild. The situation militated against proper rotation of crops, and in many way proved an obstacle to progress. The trouble was not that the farms were too small to afford the family a living. In point of area they were large enough, but their abnormal shape rendered it difficult for the habitant to get from them their full productive power with the rather short season of cultivation that the climate allowed. So important a handicap did this situation place upon the progress of agriculture that in 1744 the Governor and the Intentant drew the attention of the home authorities to it and urged that some remedy be provided. With simple faith in the healing power of a royal edict, the King promptly responded with a decree which ordered that no habitant should thenceforth build his house and barn on any plot of land which did not have at least one and one-half lineal arpang of frontage—about three hundred feet. Any buildings so erected were to be demolished. What a crude method of dealing with the problem which had its roots deep down in the very law and geography of the colony. But this royal remedy for the ills of New France went the way of many others. The authorities saw that it would work no cure, and only one attempt was ever made to punish those habitants who showed defiance. The Intentant, Bixot, in 1748, ordered that some houses which various habitants had erected at Lange-Gardien should be pulled down, but there was a great hue and cry from the owners and the order remained unenforced. The practice of parceling lands in the old way continued, and in time these cotes as the habitants termed each line of houses along the river stretched all the way from Quebec to Montreal. From the St. Lawrence the whole colony looked like one unending, straggling village street. But let us outline the dues and services which the habitant by the terms of his title-deed must render to his senior, first among these were the annual payments commonly known as the Sainte-Éron. To the habitant this was a sort of annual rental, although it was really made up of two separate dues, each of which had a different origin and nature. The Sainte was a money payment and merely nominal in amount. Back in the early days of feudalism it was very probably a greater burden. In Canada it never exceeded a few Sioux for a whole farm. The rate of Sainte was not uniform, each senior was entitled to what he and the habitant might agree upon, but it never amounted to more than the merest pittance, nor could it ever, by any stretch of the imagination, be deemed a burden. With the Sainte went the rang. The latter, being fixed in terms of money, poultry or produce, are all three combined. One fat fell of the brood of the month of May, or twenty souls, Sioux, for each lineal arpents of frontage, or one minot of sound wheat, or twenty souls, for each arpents of frontage, is the way in which the obligation finds record in some title-deeds, which are typical of all the rest. This senior had the right to say whether he wanted his rants in money or in kind, and he naturally chose the former when prices were low, and the latter when prices were high. It is a little difficult to estimate just what the ordinary habitant paid each year by way of Sainte et rang, to his senior, but under ordinary conditions the rental would amount to about ten or twelve Sioux, and a half dozen chickens, or a bushel of grain for the average farm. Not a very onerous annual payment for fifty or sixty acres of land. Yet this was the only annual emolument which the seniors of old Canada drew each year from his tenetry. With twenty-five allotments in his seniorie the yearly income would be perhaps thirty or forty livres, if translated into money, and that is to say six or eight dollars in our currency. Allowing for changes in the purchasing power of money during the last two hundred years a fair idea of the burden placed on the habitant by his payment of the Sainte et rang may be given by estimating it in terms of present-day agricultural rentals at, say, fifty cents yearly per acre. This is of course a rough estimate, but it conveys an idea that is approximately correct, and indeed about as near the mark as one can come after a study of the senior system in all its phases. The payment constituted a burden, and the habitant's doteless would have welcomed its abolition, but it was not a heavy tax upon their energies. It was less than the church demanded from them, and they made no serious complaints regarding its imposition. The Sainte et rang were paid each year on St. Martin's Day early in November. By that time the harvest had been flayed and safely stored away. The poultry had fattened among the fields of stubble. One in all the habitant came to the manor-house to give the senior his annual tribute. Filled his yard, women and children were brought along, and the occasion became a neighbourhood holiday. The manor-house was a lively place throughout the day. The senior, busily checking off his list, as the habitant, one after another, drove in with their grain, their poultry, and their wallets of copper coins. The men smoked assiduously, so did the women sometimes, not infrequently, as the November air was damp and chilled. The senior passed his flag on of brandy among the thirsty brotherhood, and few there were who allowed this token of hospitality to pass them by. With their tongues thus loosened, men and women glibly retailed the neighbourhood gossip and the latest tidings which had filtered through from Québec or Montreal. There was an insistent platter all day long, to which the captive fouls, with their feet bundled together, but with throats at full liberty, contributed their noisy share. As dust drew near, there was a general handshaking, and the carrioles scurried off along the highway. Everyone called his neighbour a friend, and the people of each seniorie were as one great family. The Saint-Éron made up the only payment which the senior received each year, but there was another which became due at intervals. This was the payment known as the Laud-et-Van. A mutation fine which the senior had the right to demand whenever a farm changed hands by sale or by descent, except to direct heirs. One-twelfth of the value was the senior's share, but it was his custom to rebate one-third of this amount. Lands changed hands rather infrequently, and in any case the senior's fine was very small. From this source he received but little revenue, and it came irregularly. Only in the days after the conquest when the land rose in value and transfers became more frequent could the Laud-et-Van be counted among real sources of senioral income. Then there were the so-termed banalities. In France their name was Ligien. No one but a senior could own a grismel, wine-press, slaughter-house, or even a dove-cut. The peasant, when he wanted his grain made into flour, or his grapes made into wine, was required to use his senior's mill, or press, and to pay the toll demanded. This toll was often exorbitant, and the service poor. In Canada, however, there was only one droi de banalt. The grismel, right. The Canadian senior had the exclusive milling privilege. His habitants were bound by their tidal deed to bring the digress to his mill. And his legal toll was one-fourteenth of their grain. This obligation did not bear heavily on the people of the seniores. Most of the complaints concerning it came rather from the seniors who claimed that the toll was too small and did not suffice in the average senioree to pay the wages of the miller. Many seniors declined to build mills until the royal authorities stepped in with a decree, commanding that those who did not do so should lose their banal right for all time. Then they bestirred themselves. The senior mills were not very efficient from all accounts. Crude, clumsy, poorly built affairs, they sometimes did a little more than crack the wheat into coarse mill. It could hardly be called flour. The bakers of Quebec complained that the product was often unfit to use. The mills were commonly built in tower-like fashion, and were at times loop-hold in order that they might be used if necessary in the defense of seniores against Indian attack. The mill of the seminary at St. Sulpis at Montreal, for example, was a veritable stronghold, rightly counted upon as a place of sheer refuge for the settlers in time of need. Racked and decayed by the ravages of time some of those old walls still stand in their loneliness, bearing to an age of smoke-belching industry their message of more modest achievement in earlier days. Most of these banal mills were fitted with clumsy wind-wheels, somewhat after the Dutch fashion. But nature would not always hearken to the miller's command, and often for days the inhabitants stood around with their grist waiting in patience for the wind to come up and be harnessed. Some Canadian seniors laid claim to the oven-right, Roi de Four banal, as well. But the intendant, ever the tribune of his people, sternly set his foot on this pretension. In France the senior insisted that the peasantry should bake their bread in the great oven of the senioree, paying the customary toll for its use. But in Canada, as the intendant explained, this arrangement was utterly impracticable. Through the long months of winter some of the inhabitants would have to bring their dough a half-dozen miles, and it would be frozen on the way. Each was therefore permitted to have a bake oven of his own, and there was, of course, plenty of wood nearby to keep it blazing. Many allusions have been made in writings on the old regime, to the habitants' corvée, or obligation to give his senior so many days of free labour in each year. In France this incident of senioral tenure cloaked some dire abuses. Peasants were harried from their farms and forced to spend weeks on the lords' domain, while their own grain rotted in the fields. But there was nothing of this sort in Canada. Six days of corvée per year was all that the senior could demand, and he usually asked for only three—that is to say, one day each—in the seasons of plowing, seed-time, and harvest. And when the habitant worked for his senior, in this way, the latter had to furnish him with both food and tools—a requirement which greatly impaired the value of corvée labour from the senior's point of view. So far as a painstaking study of the records can disclose, the corvée obligation was never looked upon as an imposition of any moment. It was apparently no more generally resented than is the so termed statue labour obligation which exists among the farming communities of some Canadian provinces at the present day. As for the other services which the habitant had to render his senior, they were of little importance. When he caught fish, one fish in every eleven belonged to his chief. But the senior seldom claimed this share, and received it even less often. The senior was entitled to take stone, sand, and firewood from the land of any one within his estate. But when he did this it was customary to give the habitant something of equal value in return. Few seniors of New France ever insisted on their full pound of flesh in these matters. A generous spirit of give and take marked most of their dealings with the men who worked the land. Then there was the maypole obligation, quaintest among senioral claims. By the terms of their tenure, the habitants of the seniorie were required to appear each mayday before the main door of the manor-house, and there to plant a pole in the senior's honour. Le premier jeu de mes laborés, je m'as fou planté au mes laborés, à la porte à ma mie. Bright and early in the morning, as Gaspé tells us, the whole neighbourhood appeared, ducked out fantastically, and greeted the manor-house with a salvole of blank musketry. With them they bore a tall fir tree, its branches cut and its bark peeled to within a few feet of the top. There the tuft of greenery remained. The pole, having been godly embellished, was majestically reared aloft, and planted firmly in the ground. Round it the men and maidens danced, while the senior in his family, enthroned in chairs brought from the manor-house, hooked on with approval. Then came a rattling, fuit de juie, with shouts of long live the king, and long live our senior. This over the senior invited the whole gathering to refreshments indoors. Brandy and Cagues disappeared with great celerty, before the appetites wedded by an hour's exercise in the clear spring air. They drank to the senior's health, and to the health of all his kin. At intervals some guests would rush out and fire his musket, once again at the may-pole. Returning for more hospitality in a sense of duty well performed. Before noon the merry company, with the usual round of handshaking, went away again, leaving the blackened pole behind. The echoes of more musket-shots came back through the valleys as they passed out of sight and hearing. The senior was more than a mere landlord, as the occasion testified. CHAPTER V. HOW THE HABITANT LIVED The seniors of New France were not a privileged order. Between them and the habitants there was no great gulf fixed, no social impasse such as existed between the two classes in France. The senior often lived and worked like a habitant. His home was not a great deal better than theirs, his daily fair was much the same. The habitant, on the other hand, might himself become a senior by saving a little money, and this is what frequently happened. By becoming a senior, however, he did not change his mode of life, but continued to work as he had done before. There were some, of course, who took their social rank with great seriousness, and proved ready to pay out good money for letters patent giving them minor titles of nobility. Thus Jacques Lebert, a bourgeois of Montreal, who made a comfortable fortune out of the fur trade, brought a seniorly and then acquired the rank of gentile homme by paying six thousand lifa for it. But the possession of an empty title acquired by purchase or through the influence of official friends at Quebec did not make much impression on the masses of the people. The first citizens in the hearts of the community were the men of personal courage, talent, and worldly virtues. Sur cette terre encore sa vache, les vieux tetraires sont inconnus, la noblesse est dans le courage, dans les talents, dans les virtues. Nevertheless, to be a senior was always an honor, for the Manor House was the recognized social center of every neighborhood. The Manor House was not a mansion, built sometimes of rough hewn timber, but more commonly of stone. It was roomy and comfortable, although not much more pretentious than the homes of well-to-do habitants. Three or four rooms on the ground floor with a spacious attic made up to living quarters. The furniture often came from France, and its quality gave the whole interior an air of distinction. As for the habitants, their homes were also of stone or timber, long and rather narrow structures, heavily built and low. They were whitewashed on the outside with religious punctuality each spring. The eaves projected over the walls and high-peak little dormer windows thrust themselves from the roof here and there. The houses stood very near the roadway, with scarcely ever a grass plot or single shade-tree before them. In mid-summer the sun beat furiously upon them. In winter they stood in all their bleakness, full square to all the blasts that drove across the river. Behind the house was a storeroom built in lean-to fashion, and not far away stood the barn and stable, made usually of timbers laid one upon the other, with chinks securely mortar. Somewhat aloof was the root-house, half dug in the ground, banked generously with earth round about and overhead. Within convenient distance of the house likewise was the bake oven, built of boulders, mortar, and earth, with the wood pile nearby. Here with roaring fires once or twice each week the family baking was done. Round the various buildings ran some sort of fence, whether of piled stones or rails, and in a corner of the enclosed plot was the habitant's garden. Viewed by the traveller who passed along the river, this straggling line of whitewash structures stood out in bold relief against the towering background of green hills beyond. The whole colony formed one long rambling village, each habitant touching elbows with his neighbor on each side. In the habitant's abode there was usually not more than three regular rooms. The front door opened into a capacious living room with its great open fireplace and hearth. This served as dining room as well. A gaily-colored woolen carpet or rug made in the colony usually decked the floor. There was a table and a couch. There were chairs made of pine with seats of woven underbark, all more or less comfortable. Often a huge sideboard rose from the floor to the low open beam ceiling. Pictures of saints adorned the walls. A spinning wheel stood in the corner, sharing place perhaps with a musket, set on the floor stock downward but primed for ready use. Adjoining this room was the kitchen with its fireplace for cooking, its array of pots and dishes, its cupboard, shelves, and other furnishings. All of these latter the habitant and his sons made for themselves. The economic isolation of the parish made its people versatile after their own crude fashion. The habitant was a handyman getting pretty good results from the use of rough materials and tools. Even at the present day his descendants retain much of this facility. At the opposite end of the house was a bedroom. Upstairs was the attic, so low that one could hardly stand upright in any part of it, but running the full length and breadth of the house. Here the children, often a round dozen of them, were stowed at night. A shallow iron bowl of tallow with a wick protruding gave its dingy light. Candles were not unknown, but they were a luxury. Everyone went to bed when darkness came on, for there was nothing else to do. Windows were few, and to keep out the cold they were tightly battened down. The air within must have been stifling. But as one writer has suggested, the habitant and his family got along without fresh air in his dwelling, just as his descendant of today manages to get along without baths. For the most part the people of Old Canada were comfortably clothed and well-fed. Warm cloth of Druge et Tof du Paix, as it was called, came from the handlooms of every parish. It was all wool and stood unending wear. It was cheap, and the women of the household fashioned it into clothes. Men, women, and children alike wore it in everyday use. But on occasions of festivity they liked to appear in their brighter plumage of garments brought from France. In the summer the children went nearly unclothed and barefooted always. A single garment without sleeves and reaching to the knees was all that covered their nakedness. In winter every one wore furs outdoors. Beaver skins were nearly as cheap as cloth, and the wife of the poorest habitant could have a winter wardrobe that it would nowadays cost a small fortune to provide. Fee-clogs made of hide, the boat-savage as they were called, or moccasins of tanned and oiled skins, impervious to the wet, with a popular footwear in winter and to some extent in summer as well. They were laced high up above the ankles, and with a liberal supply of coarse-knitted woolen socks the people managed to trudge anywhere without discomfort even in very cold weather. Plated straw hats were made by the women for ordinary summer use, but hats of beaver made in the fashion of the day were always worn on dress occasions. Every man wore one to mass each Sunday morning. In winter the knitted cap or toque was the favorite. Made in double folds of woolen yarn with all the colors of the rainbow it could be drawn down over the ears as a protection from the cold. With its tassel swinging to and fro this toque was worn by everybody, men, women, and children alike. Attached to the coat was often a hood known as a capuchin which might be pulled over the toque as an additional head covering on a journey through the storm. Knitted woolen gloves were also made at home, likewise mitts of sheepskin with the wool left inside. The apparel of the people was thus adapted to their environment and besides being somewhat picturesque it was thoroughly comfortable. The daily fare of New France was not of limitless variety, but it was nourishing and adequate. Bread made from wheat flour and cakes made from ground maize were plentiful. Meat and fish were within the reach of all. Both were cured by smoke after the Indian fashion and could be kept through the winter without difficulty. Vegetables of various kinds were grown, but peas were the great staple. Peas were to the French what maize was to the redskin. In every rural home soup au poivre came daily to the table. All families were reared to vigorous manhood on it. Even today the French-Canadian has not by any means lost his liking for this nourishing and palatable food. Beans, too, were a favorite vegetable in the old days. Not the tender haricots of the modern menu, but the fev or large tough-fibered beans that grew in Normandy and were brought by its people to the New World. There were potatoes, of course, and they were potatoes not palmed atere. Cucumbers were plentiful. Indeed, they were being grown by the Indians when the French first came to the St. Lawrence. As they were not indigenous to that region, it is for others than the student of history to explain how they first came there. Fruits there were also, such as apples, plums, cherries and French gooseberries, but not in abundance. Few habitants had orchards, but most of them had one or two fruit trees grown from seedlings which came from France. Wild fruits, especially raspberries, cranberries, and grapes, were to be had for the picking, and the younger members of each family gathered them all in season. Even in the humbler homes of the land there was no need for anyone to go hungry. More than one visitor to the colony, indeed, was impressed by the rude comfort in which the habitants lived. The boers of these manners, wrote the voluble La Honton, live with greater comfort than an infinity of the gentry in France, and for once he was probably right. As for drink there were both tea and coffee to be had from the traders, but they were costly and not in very general use. Milk was cheap and plentiful. Brandy and wine came from France in ship-loads, but Brandy was largely used in the Indian trade, and wine appeared only on the tables of the well-to-do. The ordinary habitant could not afford it save on state occasions. Cheap beer, brewed in the colony, was with an easier range of his purse. There were several breweries in the colony, although they do not appear to have been very profitable to their owners. Home-brewed ale was much in use. When duly aged it made a fine beverage, although insidious in its effects sometimes. But no guest ever came to any colonial home without a proffer of something to drink. Hospitality demanded it. The habitant as a rule was very fond of the flagon. Very often as the records of the day lead us to believe he drank not wisely but too well. Idleness had a hand in the development of this trait, for in the long winters the habitant had little to do but visit his house. The men of New France smoked a great deal, and the women sometimes followed their example. Children learned to smoke before they learned to read or write. Tobacco was grown in the colony, and every habitant had a patch of it in his garden. And then as now this tobacco canadienne was fierce stuff, with an odor that scented the whole signeurie. The art of smoking a pipe was one of the first lessons which the Frenchman acquired from his Indian friends, and this became the national solace through the long spells of idleness. Such as it was, the tobacco of the colony was no luxury, for everyone could grow enough and to spare to serve his wants. The leaves were set in the sun to cure, and were then put away till needed. As to the methods of farming, neither the contemporary records nor the narratives of travel tell us much, but it is beyond doubt that the habitant was not a very scientific cultivator. That alone remarks in his valuable report that if the fields of France were cultivated like the farms of Canada, three-fourths of the people would starve. Fertilization of the land was rare. All that was usually done in this direction was to burn the stubble in the spring before the land went under the plow. Rotation of crops was practically unknown. A portion of each farm was allowed to lie fallow once in a while, but as these fallow fields were rarely plowed and weeds might grow without restraint, the rest from cultivation was of little value. Even the cultivated fields were plowed but once a year, and rather poorly at that, for the land was plowed and ridges, and there was a good deal of waste between the furrows. When Peter Calme, the famous Scandinavian naturalist and traveller, paid his visit to the colony in 1748, he found white wheat most commonly in the fields. But oats, rye, and barley were also grown. Some of the habitants grew maize in great quantities, while nearly all raised vegetables of various sorts, chiefly cabbages, pumpkins, and coarse melons. Some gave special attention to the cultivation of flax and hemp. The meadows of the St. Lawrence Valley were very fertile and far superior, in Calme's opinion, to those of the New England colonies. They furnished fodder in abundance. Wild hay could be had for the cutting, and every habitant had his conical stack of it on the river marshes. Hence the raising of cattle and horses became an important branch of colonial husbandry. The cattle and sheep were of inferior breed, undersized, and not very well cared for. The horses were much better. The habitant had a particular fondness for horses, even the porous tried to keep two or three. This, as Catalon pointed out, was a gross extravagance, for there was no work for the horses to do during nearly half the year. The implements of agriculture were as crude as the methods. Most of them were made in the colony out of inferior materials and with poor workmanship. Calme saw no drains in any part of the colony, although as he naively remarked, they seemed to be much needed in places. The fields were seldom fenced, and the cattle often made their way among the growing grain. The women usually worked with the men, especially at harvest time, for extra labor was scarce. Even the wife and daughters of the senior might be seen in the fields during the busy season. Each habitant had a clumsy wooden-wield cart or wagon for work-a-day use. In this he trundled his produce to town once or twice a year. For pleasure there was the celeste or the carriole. The celeste was a quaint two-wheeled vehicle with its seats at high in the air on springs of generous girth. The carriole a low set slay on solid wooden runners with a high back to give protection from the cold. Both are still used in various parts of Quebec today. The habitant made his own harness, often decorating it gaily and taking great pride in his workmanship. The feudal folk of New France did not spend all their timer energies in toil. They had numerous holidays and times of recreation. Until to his church the habitant kept every sure-de-fait with religious precision. These days came frequently, so much so, according to Catalon's report, that during the whole agricultural season from May to October only ninety clear days were left for labor. On these numerous holidays were held the various festivals, religious or secular. Sunday also was a day of general rendezvous. Everyone came to mass, whatever the weather. After the service various announcements were made at the church door by the local Capitan de la Milise, who represented the civil government in the parish. Then the rest of the day was given over to visiting and recreation. There was plenty of time more over for hunting and fishing, and the average habitant did both to his heart's content. In the winter there was a great deal of visiting back and forth among neighbors, even on weekdays. Dancing was a favorite diversion and card-playing also. Dancing at cards was more common among the people than suited either the priests or the civil authorities, as the records often attest. Less objectionable amusements were afforded by the Corvée recreative or gatherings at a habitant's home for some combination of work and play. The corn-husking Corvée, for reasons which do not need elucidation, was of course the most popular of these. Of study or reading there was very little, for only a very small percentage of the people could read. Say for a few manuals of devotion there were no books in the home, and very few anywhere in the colony. Two or three chroniclers of the day have left us pen-pictures of the French Canadians as they were before the English came. As a race Gilles-Hochart says they were physically strong, well set up, with plenty of stamina. They impressed la hentagne also as vigorous and untiring at anything that happened to gain their interest. They were fond of honors and sensitive to the slightest affront. This in part accounts for their tendency to litigiousness, which various intendance mentioned with regret. The habitant went to law with his neighbor at every opportunity. His attitude toward questions of public policy was one of rare self-control, but when anything touched his own personal interest he always waxed warm immediately. Pretext for squabbling there were in plenty. With lands unfenced and cattle wandering about, with most deeds and other legal documents loosely drawn, with too much time on their hands during the winter, it is not surprising that the people were continually falling out and rushing to the nearest royal court. The intendant Raudeau suggested that this propensity should be curbed, otherwise there would soon be more lawsuits than settlers in the colony. On the whole, however, the habitant was well behaved and gave the authorities very little trouble. To the church of his fathers he gave ungrudging devotion, attending its services and paying its tithes with exemplary care. The church was a great deal to the habitant. It was his school, his hospital, his newspaper, his philosopher telling of things present and things to come. From a religious point of view the whole colony was a unit. Thank God, wrote one governor, there are no heretics here. The church needing to spend no time or thought in crushing its enemies could give all its attention to its friends. As for offenses against the law of the land, these were conspicuously few. The banks of the St. Lawrence, when once the red-skinned danger was put out of the way, were quite safe for men to live upon. The hand of justice was swift and sure, but its intervention was not very often needed. New France was as law-abiding as New England. Her people were quite as submissive to their leaders in both church and state. The people were fond of music and seemed to have obtained great enjoyment from their rasping homemade violins. Every parish had its fiddler, but the popular repertoire was not very extensive. The Norman Ayres and Folk Songs of the Day were easy to learn, simple and melodious. They have remained in the hearts and on the lips of all French Canada for over two centuries. The shanty man of three rivers still goes off to the woods, chanting the Malbrook, Saint-Valterngère, which his ancestors sang in the days of Blenheim and Udenard. Many other traits of the race have been born to the present time with little change. Then as now the habitant was a valuable talker, a teller of great stories about his own feats and experiences. Le Cart was impressed with the scant popular regard for the truth in such things, and well he may have been. Even today this trait has not wholly disappeared. Unlike his prototype, the Sainte-Soutère of Old France, the habitant never became dispirited. Even when things went wrong he retained his bon amie. Taking too little thought for the morrow he liked, the French Charlevoix remarks to get the fun out of his money and scarcely anybody amused himself by hoarding it. He was light-hearted even to frivolousness, and this gave the austere Church Fathers many serious misgivings. He was courteous always, but boastful, and regarded his race as the salt of the earth. A Norman in every bone of his body he used as his descendants still do quaint Norman idioms and forms of speech. He was proud of his ancestry. Stories that went back to the days when twenty thousand thieves landed at Hastings were passed along from father to son, gaining in terms of proditious valor as they went. His versatility gained him the friendship and confidence of the Indian, an advantage which his English brother to the south was rarely able to secure. Much of the success which marked French diplomacy with the tribes was due to this versatility. With an ungainly exterior the habitant often concealed a surprising ability in certain lines of action. He was a master of blandishment when he had an end thereby to gain. Dealings which required duplicity, provided the outcome appeared to be desirable, did not rudely shock his conscience. He had no Puritan scruples in his dealings with men of another race and religion. But in many things he had a high sense of honour, and nothing roused his ire so readily as to question it. Unstable as water, however, he did not excel in tasks that took patience. He wanted to plow one day and hunt the next, so that in the long run he rarely did anything well. This spirit of independence was very pronounced. The habitant felt himself to be a free man. This is why he spurned the name Sinceterre. As Charlevoix puts it, he breathed from his birth the air of liberty, and showed it in the way he carried his head, a singular type when all is said and worthy of more study than it has AD MAJORUM DEI GLORIUM Church and state had a common aim in early Canada. Both sought success not for themselves, but for the greater glory of God. From beginning to end, therefore, the Catholic Church was a staunch ally of the civil authorities in all things which made for real and permanent colonial progress. There were many occasions, of course, when these two powers came almost to blows, for each had its own interpretation of what constituted the colony's best interests. But historians have given too much prominence to these rather brief intervals of antagonism, and have thereby created a misleading impression. The civil and religious authorities of New France were not normally at variance. They clashed fiercely now and then, it is quite true, but during the far greater portion of the two centuries they supported each other firmly, and worked hand in hand. Now the root of all trouble, when these two interests came into ill-tempered controversy, was the conduct of the couriers de Bois. These roving traitors taught the savages all the vices of French civilization in its most degenerate days. They debauched the Indian with brandy, swindled him out of his furs, and entered into illicit relations with the women of the tribes. They managed, in general, to convince the Aborigines that all Frenchmen were dishonest and licentious. That the representatives of the most Christian king should tolerate such conduct could not be regarded by the church as anything other than plain malfeasance in office. The church in New France was militant, and in its vanguard of warriors was the Jesuit missionary. Members of the Society of Jesus first came to Quebec in 1625. Others followed year by year, and were sent off to establish their outposts of religion in the wilderness. They were men of great physical endurance and unconquerable will. The Jesuit went where no others dared to go. He often went alone, and always without armed protection. Behold him on his way, his breviary from which his girdle hangs, his only shield. That well-known habit is his panoply, that cross the only weapon he will wield. By day he bears it for his staff a field, by night it is the pillow of his bed. No other lodging these wild woods can yield than earth's hard lap, and rustling overhead a canopy of deep and tangled boughs far spread. It is not strange that the Jesuit father should have disliked the traitors. A single visit from these rough and lawless men would undo the spiritual labor of years. How could the missionary enforce his lessons of righteousness when men of his own race so readily gave the lie to all his teachings? The missionaries accordingly complained to their superiors in poignant terms, and these in turn hurled their thunderbolts of excommunication against all who offended. But the trade was profitable, and Mammon continued, as in all ages, to retain his core of ardent disciples. Religion and trade never became friendly in New France, nor could they ever become friendly so long as the Church stood firmly by its ancient tradition as a friend of law and order. With agriculture, however, religion was on better terms. Men who stayed on their farms until the soil might be grouped into parishes, their lands could be made to yield the tithe, their spiritual needs might readily be ministered unto. Hence it became the policy of the Church to support the civil authorities in getting lands cleared for settlement, in improving the methods of cultivation, and in strengthening the scenario system at every point. This support the hierarchy gave in various ways, by providing cures for outlying sinuries, by helping to bring peasant farmers from France, by using its influence to promote early marriages, and above all, by setting an example before the people in having progressive agriculture on Church lands. Both directly and through its dependent organizations, the Catholic Church became the largest single landholder of New France. As early as 1626 the Jesuits received their first grant of land, the Concession of Notre-Dame-Danger, near Quebec, and from that date forward the order received at intervals large, extracts in various parts of the colony. Before the close of French Dominion in Canada, it had acquired a dozen estates, comprising almost a million arpents of land. This was about one-eighth of the entire area given out in sinuries. Its two largest senorial estates were Bastiquan and Capte-le-Mar-de-Laine, but Notre-Dame-Danger and Silerie, though smaller in area, were from their closeness to Quebec of much greater value. The King appreciated the work of the Jesuits in Canada, and would gladly have contributed from the royal funds to its furtherance, but as the civil projects of the colony took a great deal of money, he was constrained for the most part to show his appreciation of religious enterprise by grants of land. As land was plentiful, his bounty was lavish, sometimes a hundred thousand arpents at a time. Next to the Jesuits, as sharers of the royal generosity, came the Bishop and the Quebec Seminary, with a patrimony of nearly seven hundred thousand arpents, an accumulation which was largely the work of François de Laval, first Bishop of Quebec and founder of the Seminary. The Sulpicians had, at the time the colony passed into English hands, an estate of about a quarter of a million arpents, including the most valuable scenery of New France, on the island of Montreal. The Ursulines of Quebec and of three rivers possessed about seventy-five thousand arpents, while other orders and institutions, a half dozen in all, had estates of varying acreage. Only under its control the Church had thus acquired in Montmain over two million arpents, while the lay land-overs of the colony had secured only about three times as much. It held about one-quarter of all the granted lands, so that its position in Canada was relatively much stronger than in France. These lands came from the King, or his colonial representatives, by royal patent. They were sometimes given in Francois, or sometimes as ordinary seniors. The distinction was of little account, however, for when land once went into the dead-hand it was likely to stay there for all time. The Church and its institutions, as seniors of the land, granted farms to habitants on the usual terms, gave them their deeds duly executed by a notary, received their annual dues, and assumed all the responsibilities of a lay senior. And as a rule the Church made a good senior. Settlers were brought out from France, and a great deal of care was taken in selecting them. They were aided, encouraged, and supported through the trying years of pioneering. As early as 1667 Laval was able to point with pride to the fact that his seniors of Pupré and Ile d'Orléans contained over eleven hundred persons, more than one-quarter of the colony's entire population. These ecclesiastical seniors, moreover, were among the best in point of intelligent cultivation. With funds and knowledge at its disposal the Church was better able than the ordinary lay senior to provide banal mills and means of communication. These seniors were therefore kept in the front rank of agricultural progress, and the example which they set before the eyes of the people must have been of great value. The senorial system was also strengthened by the fact that the boundaries of seniors and parishes were usually the same. The chief reason for this is that the parish system was not created until most of the seniors had been settled. There were parishes so termed in the colonies from the very first, but not until 1722 was the entire colony set off into parish divisions. Forty-one parishes were created in the Quebec district, thirteen in the district of three rivers, and twenty-eight in the region round Montreal. These eighty-two parishes were roughly coterminous with the existing seniors, but not always so. Some few seniors had six or eight parishes within their bounds. In other cases two or three seniors were merged into a single great parish. In the main, however, the two units of civil and spiritual power were alike. From this identification of the parish and scenery came some interesting results. The senorial church became the parish church. Where no church had been provided, the manor house was commonly used as a place of worship. Not infrequently the parish cure took up his abode in the seniors' home, and the two grew to be firm friends, each aiding the other with the weight of his own special authority and influence. The whole system of neighborhood government, as the late Abbe Cousgrin once pointed out, was based upon the authority of two men, the Cure and the Senor, who walked side by side and extended mutual help to each other. The Sensitère, who was at the same time parishioner, had his two rallying points, the church and the manor house. The interests of the two were identical. From this close alliance with the parish the senorial system naturally derived a great deal of its strong hold upon the people, for their fidelity to the priest was reflected in loyalty to the senor who ranked as his chief local patron and protector. The people of the Senuries paid a tithe, or ecclesiastical tax, for the support of their parish church. In origin, as the name implies, this payment amounted to one tenth of the land's annual produce. But in New France the tithe was first fixed in 1663 at 13th, but in 1679 this was reduced to one twenty-sixth. At this figure it has remained to the present day. Tithes were at the outset levied on every product of the soil or of the handiwork of man, but in practice they were collected on grain crops only. When the habitants of New France began to raise flax, hemp and tobacco some of the priests insisted that these products should yield tithes also, but the Superior Council at Quebec ruled against this claim, and the King, on appeal, affirmed the Council's decision. The church collected its dues with strictness. The cures frequently went into the fields and estimated the total crop of each farm so that they might later judge whether any habitant had held back the church's due portion. Tithes were usually paid at Mykonos, everything being delivered to the cure at his own place of abode. When he lived with the senor the tithes and senorial dues were paid together, but the total of the tithes collected during any year of the old regime was not large. In 1700 they amounted in value to about 5,000 leaves, a sum which did not support one-tenth of the colony's body of priests. By far the larger part of the necessary funds had to be provided by generous friends of the church in France. Churches were erected in the different seniors by funds and labor secured in various ways. Sometimes the bishop obtained money from France, sometimes the senor provided it, sometimes the habitants collected it among themselves. More often a part of what was necessary came from each of these three sources. Except in the towns, however, the churches were not pretentious in their architecture, and rarely cost much money. Stone, timber, and other building materials were taken freely from the lands of the scenery, and the work of construction was usually performed by the parishioners themselves. As a result, the edifices were rather ungainly as a rule, being built of rough-une timber. In 1681 there were only seven stone churches in all the seniors, and the royal officers deplored the fact that the people did not display greater pride or taste in the architecture of their sanctuaries. Bishop Laval felt strongly that this was discreditable, and steadfastly refused to perform the ceremony of consecration in any church which had not been substantially built of stone. Whereas Senor erected a church at his own expense, it was customary to let him have the patronage, or right of naming the priest. This was an honour which the seniors seemed to have valued highly. Everyone here is puffed up with the greatest vanity, wrote the intendant Duchess Noe in 1681. There is not one but pretends to be a patron, and wants the privilege of naming a cure for his lands, yet they are heavily in debt, and in extreme poverty. None of the great bishops of New France, Laval, Saint Valier, or Pompriant, had much sympathy with this senorial right of patronage or advousen, and each did what he could to break down the custom. In the end they succeeded. The bishop named the priest of every parish, although in many cases he sought the senor's counsel on such matters. In the church of his senory the lord of the manor continued, however, to have various other prerogatives. For his use a special pew was always provided, and an elaborate decree issued in 1709 set forth precisely where this pew should be. In religious processions the senor was entitled to precedence over all other laymen of the parish, taking his place directly behind the cure. He was the first to receive the tokens of the day on occasions of religious festival, as for example the Palms of Palms Sunday. And when he died the senor was entitled to interment beneath the floor of the church, a privilege accorded only to men of worldly distinction and unblemished lives. All this recognition impressed the habitants, and they in turn gave their senor polite deference. Along the line of travel his carriage or cariol had the right of way, and the habitant doffed his cap in salute as the senor drove by. Catalon mentioned that, despite all this, the Canadian seniors were not as ostentatiously given tokens of the habitants' respect as were the seniors in France. But this did not mean that the relations between the two classes were any less cordial. It meant only that the clear social atmosphere of the colony had not yet become dimmed by the mists of court duplicity. The habitants of New France respected the horny-handed men in homespun who may called their senor, the depth of this loyalty and respect could not fairly be measured by old-world standards. As a senior of lands the church had the right to hold courts, and administer justice within the bounds of its greatest states. Like most lay senors, it received its lands with full rights of high, middle, and low jurisdiction. Aute moyenne et bas justice. In its senorial courts, fines might be imposed, or terms of imprisonment meted out. Even the death penalty might be exacted. Here was a great opportunity for abuse. A very inquisition would have been possible under the broad terms in which the king gave his grant of jurisdiction. Yet the church in New France never, to the slightest degree, used its powers of civil jurisdiction to work oppression. As a matter of fact it rarely, if ever, made use of these powers at all. The evils which arose among the habitants in the church seniors were settled amicably, if possible, by the parish priest. Where the good offices of the priest did not suffice, the disputants were sent off to the nearest royal court. All this is worth comment, for in the earlier days of European feudalism the bishops and abbots held regular courts within the fives of the church, and students of jurisprudence will recall that they succeeded in tincturing the old feudal customs with those principles of the canon law which all churchmen had learned and knew. While ostensibly applying crude medieval customs, many of these courts of the church fives were virtually administering a highly developed system of jurisprudence based on the Roman law. Laval might have made history repeat itself in Canada, but he had too many other things engaging his attention. Laysenures, on the other hand, held their courts regularly. And the fact that they did so is of great historical significance, for the right of court-holding rather than the obligation of military service, is the earmark which distinguishes feudalism from all other systems of land tenure. Practically every Canadian senior had the judicial prerogative. He could establish a court in his scenery, appoint its judge or judges, impose penalties upon the habitants, and put the fees or costs in his own pocket. In France this was a great source of emolument, and too many seniors used their courts to yield income rather than to dispense even-handed justice. But in Canada, owing to the relatively small number of suitors in the seniors, the system could not be made to pay its way. Some seniors appointed judges who held court once or twice a week. Others tried to save this expense by doing the work themselves. Behind the big table in the main room of his manor-house the seniors sat in state, and meted out justice in rough and ready fashion. He was supposed to administer it in true accord with the custom of Paris. He might as well have been asked to apply the code of Hammurabi or the capitularies of Charlemagne. But if the senior did not know the law, he at least knew the disputants, and his decisions were not often wide of the eternal equities. At any rate, if a suitor was not satisfied, he could appeal to the royal courts. Only minor cases were dealt with in the senorial courts, and the appeals were not numerous. On the whole, despite its crudeness, the administration of senorial justice in New France was satisfactory enough. The habitants, as far as the records show, made no complaint. Justice was prompt and inexpensive. It discouraged chicane and common baritry. Even the sarcastic lontain, who had little to say in general praise of the colony and its institutions, accords the judicial system a modest tribute. I will not say, he writes, that the goddess of justice is more chaste here than in France, but at any rate, if she is sold, she is sold more cheaply. In Canada we do not pass through the clutches of advocates, the talons of attorneys, and the claws of clerks. These vermin do not, as yet, infest the land. Everyone here pleads his own cause. Our thymus is prompt, and she does not bristle with fees, costs, and charges. The testimony of others, though not so rhetorically expressed, is enough to prove that both royal and senorial courts did their work in fairly acceptable fashion. The Norman habitant, as has already been pointed out, was by nature restive, impulsive, and quarrelsome. That he did not make every scenery a hotbed of petty strife was due largely to the stern hand held over him by priest and senor alike, but by his priest particularly. The church in the colony never lost, as in France, the full confidence of the vassals, the higher dignitaries never lost touch with the priest, nor the latter with the people. The clergy of New France did not form a privileged order, living on the fruits of other men's labours. On the contrary, they gave the colony far more than they took from it. Although paid a mere pittance, they never complained of the great physical drudgery that their work too often required. Indeed, if labourers were ever worthy of their hire, such toilers were the spiritual pioneers of France beyond the seas. No one who does not approach their aims and achievements with sympathy can ever fully understand the history of those earlier days. No one who does not appreciate the dominating place which the church occupied in every walk of colonial life can fully realise the great help which it gave, both by its active interest and by its example, to the agricultural policy of the civil power. The church owed much to the senorial system, but not more than the system owed to it. CHAPTER VII. THE TWILIGHT OF FEWDALISM. When the fleur-de-lis of the Bourbons fluttered down from the ramparts of Quebec on September the 18th, 1759, a new era in the history of Canadian feudalism began. The new British government promptly allayed the fears of the conquered people by promising that all vested rights should be respected and that the lords of manners should continue in possession of all their ancient privileges. This meant that they intended to recognise and retain the entire fabric of senorial tenure. Now this step has been commonly regarded as a cardinal error on the part of the new Souserans, and on the whole the critics of British policy have had the testimony of succeeding events on their side. By 1760 the senorial system had fully performed for the colony, all the good service it was ever likely to perform. It could easily have been abolished then and there. Had that action been taken a great many subsequent troubles would have been avoided. But in their desire to be generous the English authorities failed to do what was prudent and the senorial system remained. Many of the seniors, when Canada passed under British control, sold their seniors and went home to France. How great this hedgerow was can scarcely be estimated with exactness, but it is certain that the emigres included all the military and most of the civil officials, together with a great many merchants, traders, and landowners. The colony lost those who could best afford to go, in other words those whom it could least afford to let go. The priests, true to their traditions, stood by the colony in its hours of trial. But whatever the extent and character of the outgoing it is true that many seniors changed hands during the years 1763 to 64. Englishmen bought these lands at very low figures. Between them and the habitants there were no bonds of race, religion, language, or social sympathy. The new English senior looked upon his estate as an investment, and proceeded to deal with the habitants as though they were his tenantry. All this gave the senorial system a rude shock. There was still another feature which caused the system to work much less smoothly after 1760 than before. The English did not retain the office of intendant. Their frame of government had no place for such an official. Yet the intendant had been the balance-wheel of the whole feudal machine in the days before the conquest. He it was who kept the senorial system from developing abuses. It was his praetorian power to order all things as may seem just and proper, that kept the seniors' exactions within rigid bounds. The administration of New France was a government of men. That of the new regime was a government of laws. Hence it was that the British officials, although altogether well intentioned, allowed grave wrongs to arise. The new English judges, not unnaturally, misunderstood the senorial system. They stumbled readily into the error that Tenure-en-Sensive was simply the old English tenure in Copyhold under another name. Now the English copyholder held his land subject to the customs of the manor. His dues and services were fixed by local custom, both as regards their nature and amount. What more easy, then, than to seek the local custom in Canada, and apply its rules to the decision of all controversies respecting senorial claims. Unfortunately for this simple solution there was a great and fundamental difference between these two tenures. The Canadian censitaire had a written title deed which stated explicitly the dues and services he was bound to give his seneur. The copyholder had nothing of the kind. The habitant, moreover, had various rights guaranteed to him by royal decrees. No custom of the manor, or scenery, could prevail against written contracts and statute law. But the judges do not seem to have grasped this distinction. When cases involving disputed obligations came before them, they called in notaries to establish what the local customs were, and rendered judgment accordingly. This gave the seneur a great advantage, for the notaries usually took their side. Moreover the new judicial system was more expensive than the old, so that when a seneur chose to take his claims into court, the habitants often let him have judgment by default, rather than incur heavy costs. During the twenty years following the conquest, the externals of the senorial system remained unaltered, but its spirit underwent a great change. This was amply shown during the American War of Independence, when the province was invaded by the Arnold Montgomery Expeditions. In all the years that the colony had been under French dominion, a single word from any seneur was enough to summon every one of his able-bodied habitants to arms. But now, only a dozen years after the English had assumed control, the answer made by the habitant to such appeals was of a very different nature. The authorities at Quebec, having only a small body of regular troops available for the defence of Canada against the invaders, called on the seniors to rally the old feudal array. The proclamation was issued on June 9th, 1775. Most seniors responded promptly, and called their habitants to armed service. But the latter, for the most part, refused to come. The seniors threatened that their lands would be confiscated, but even this did not move the habitants to comply. A writer of the time narrates what happened in one of the seniors, and it is doubtless typical of what took place in others. Monsieur Deschambours went over to his seniors on the Richelieu, he tells us, and summoned his tenants to arms. They listened patiently to what he had to say, and then foremptorily refused to exceed to his demands. At this the seniors foolish enough to draw his sword, whereupon the habitants gave both him and a few friends who accompanied him a severe thrashing, and sent them off vowing vengeance. Fearing retaliation the habitants armed themselves, and to the number of several hundred prepared to attack any regular forces which might be sent against them. Through the discretion of Governor Carlton, however, who hastened to send one of his officers to disavow the action of the seniors, and to promise the habitants that if they returned quietly to their homes they would not be molested, they were persuaded to disperse. Footnote, maziers, additional papers concerning the province of Quebec, 1776, Pages 71 and Sequence. As the eighteenth century drew to a close, it became evident that the people were getting restive under the restraints which the senorial system imposed. Lands had risen in value, so that the l'au de Zevant now amounted to a considerable payment when lands changed owners. With the growth of population the banal right became very valuable to the seniors, and an equally great inconvenience to the habitants. Many seniors made no attempt to provide adequate milling facilities. They gave the habitants a choice between bringing their grain to the half-broken-down windmill of the scenery, or paying the senior a money fine for his permission to take their grist elsewhere. New senorial demands, unheard of in earlier days, were often put forth and enforced. The grievances of the habitants were not mitigated, moreover, by the way in which the authorities of the province gave lands to the United Empire loyalists. These exiles from the revolted seaboard colonies came by thousands during the years following the war, and they were given generous grants of land. And these lands were not made subject to any senorial Jews. They were given in freehold, in free and common socketage. The new owners of these lands paid no annual Jews, and rendered no regular services to any superior authority. Their tenure seemed to the habitants to be very attractive. Hence the influx of the loyalists gave strength to a movement for the abolition of senorial tenure, a movement which may be said to have had its first real beginning about 1790. It was in that year that the solicitor general of the province, in response to a request of the Legislative Council, presented a long report on the land tenure situation. The Council, after due consideration of this report and other data submitted to it, passed a series of resolutions, declaring that the senorial system was retarding the agricultural progress of the province, and that, while its immediate abolition was not practicable, steps should be taken to get rid of it gradually. But nothing came of these resolutions. The Constitutional Act of 1791 greatly complicated the situation by its provisions relating to the so-termed clergy reserves, or reservations of land for church endowments, and it was not until 1825 that the Canada Trade and Tenures Act opened the way for a commutation of tenures whenever the senior and his habitants could agree. This act was permissive only. It did not apply any compulsion to the seniors. Very few, accordingly, took advantage of its provisions. This was the situation when the uprising of 1837 to 38 took place. The senorial system was not a leading cause of the rebellion, but it was one of the grievances included by the habitants in their general bill of complaint. Hence, when Lord Durham came to Quebec to investigate the causes of colonial discontent, the system came in for its share of study. In his masterly report on the affairs of British North America, he recognized that the old system had outlived its day of usefulness, and that its continuance was unwise. But Durham outlined no plan for its abolition. He believed that if the province were given a government responsible to the masses of its own people, the problem of abolition would soon be solved. One of Durham's secretaries, Charles Buller, drafted a scheme for commuting the tenures into freehold, but his plan did not find acceptance. For nearly twenty years after Durham's investigation, the question of abolishing the senorial tenures remained a football of Canadian politics. Legislative commissions were appointed, they made investigations, they presented reports, but none succeeded in getting any comprehensive plan of abolition on the statute books. In 1854, however, the question was made a leading issue at the general election. A definite mandate from the people was the result, and an act for the abolition of feudal rights and duties in lower Canada received its enactment during the same year. The provisions of this act for changing all senorial tenures into freehold are long and somewhat technical, they would not interest the reader. In brief, it was arranged that the valid rights of each senior should be translated by special commissioners into an annual money rental, and that the habitants should pay this annual sum. The senior was required to pay no quit rent to the public treasury. What he would have paid by reason of getting his own lands into freehold was applied pro rata to the reduction of the annual rentals payable by the habitants. It was arranged, furthermore, that any habitant might commute this yearly rental by paying his senior a lump sum such as would represent his rent capitalised at the rate of six percent. The whole undertaking was difficult and complicated. A great many perplexing questions arose, and a special court had to be created to deal with them. Footnote. This court was constituted of four judges of the Court of the Queen's Bench, and nine judges of the Superior Court of Lower Canada, as follows. Sir Louis H. Lafontaine, Chief Justice. Justice's Duval, Arlwyn, and Karen of the Court of the Queen's Bench. The Honourable Edward Bowen, Chief Justice. Justice's Marin, Mondele, Van Felsen, Day, Smith, Meredith, Short, and Badgley of the Superior Court. On the whole, however, the commissioners performed their tasks carefully and without causing undue friction. Class prejudice was strong, and by most of the seniors the whole scheme was regarded as a high-handed piece of legislative confiscation. They opposed it bitterly from first to last. Among the habitants, however, the abolition of the old tenure was popular, for it meant, in their opinion, that everyone would henceforth be a real landowner. But in the long run it signified nothing of the sword, for a few of the habitants took advantage of the provision which enabled them to pay a lump sum in lieu of an annual rental. Down to the present day the great majority of them continued to pay their own to constitue, as did their fathers before them. With due adherence to ancient custom they pay it to each St. Martin's Day, and to the man whom they still call the Seigneur. Seigneur he is no longer, for the act of 1854 abolished not only the emollience, but the honors attaching to this rank. But traditions live long in isolated communities, and the habitants of the St. Lawrence Valley still give, along with their annual rent, a great deal of old-time deference to the man who holds the lands upon which they live. The twilight of European feudalism was more prolonged in French Canada than in any other land. Its prolongation was unfortunate. For several decades preceding 1854 it had failed to adjust itself to the new environment, and its continuance was an obstacle to the economic progress of Canada. Its abolition was wise, a generation or two earlier it would have been even wiser. All this is not to say, however, that the Seigneurial system did not serve a highly useful purpose in its day. So long as it fitted into the needs of the colony, so long as the intendancy remained to guard the people against Seigneurial avarice, the system had a great deal to be said in its behalf. It helped to make New France stronger in arms than she could have become under any other plan of land tenure. And with states, as with men, self-preservation is the first law of nature.