[suLTsJ ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH CANADIANS 111 



withstandiug the authorities, who were in favour of tlic forniatiou of 

 villages in preference to what they styled a 'dispersed order/ The 

 advantage of such an arrangement is to bring the house a few steps 

 from the river ; to permit easy access to the public road situate between 

 the house and the river ; to keep social intercourse as close as possible 

 by the vicinity of neighbours engaged in the same occupation. In a case 

 where twenty inhabitants so covered eighty to one hundred arpents on 

 a line following the water's edge, they did nothing else but open a street, 

 and so they could visit each other with facility at all times. Four feet 

 deep of snow in the winter was beaten down within two hours by the 

 passage of forty or fifty horses and men. This of course was at first 

 done on snowshoes until horses were introduced (1670), and then this 

 arrangement worked to perfection. That was the time that the French 

 carriole — on wheels — was dismounted, put on runners, and liecame the 

 comfortal)le family vehicle so popular in Canada East during the snowy 

 season. 



III. When the business of the Hundred Partners collapsed about 

 16G2, Paris and Eochelle came in for a certain share of interest as they 

 were the creditors of the expiring company, and soon we notice immi- 

 grants arriving from the neighbouring country places of those two cities, 

 even as early as 1660. 



The settlers (1633-1663) came as a rule individually or in little 

 groups of three or four families related to each other, as many immi- 

 grants from various countries do at the present day. 



From an examination of family and other archives extending now 

 over thirty years of labour we make the following deductions : 



Perche, Normandy, Beauce, Picardy and Anjou (they are here in 

 their order of merit) contributed abovit 200 families from 1633 to 1663, 

 the period of the Hundred Partners' regime. By natural growth these 

 reached the figure of 2,200 souls in 1663. 



In 1662-63 there came about 100 men from Perche and 150 from 

 Poitou, Pochelle and Gascony, with a small number of women. This 

 opens a new i)hase in the history of our immigration by introducing 

 Poitou and Eochelle amongst the people of the northern and western 

 provinces of France already coimting two generations in the two dis- 

 tricts of Quebec and Three Eivers. 



In 1032 there were twenty-nine men in the colony, who were either 

 married or who married soon after, and became heads of families. These 

 are the roots of the Canadian tree. A few Frenclimcn engaged in the 

 fur trade formed a distint-t group outside of the scope of this paper. 



In 1640 the 'habitants' numl)cred 3T5, distributed as follows : 



Married men, 64; married women (three born in Canada), 64; 

 widower, 1 ; widows, 4 ; unmarried men, 35 ; boys (30 born in Canada), 



