THE MAKIHG OF CANADA. 3 



a new generation grew np. The born Canadians looked upon Canada with the same 

 aflFection that their fathers had felt for France. Some old usages ' were preserved, but 

 they, as well as the songs that were brought from across the Atlantic and even the spoken 

 tongue were somewhat modified in the course of years. The French Canadian was being 

 developed. 



Local Differentiation. 



The great distance of the little fortified settlements of this province from each other 

 and the still greater distance between Quebec and Acadia, also tended to create local 

 peculiarities of character, manner and language. But there was less perceptible difference 

 between any one French Canadian and another, however far apart may have been their 

 places of birth or however diverse their surroundings, than there was between the French- 

 speaking native of Canada and the native of France. 



The Acadians. 



The frequent interruptions and constant alarms experienced in Acadia from English 

 rivalry, especially during the continuance of European wars, made society there less settled 

 than in the more western colonies. The civil organization was less complete. Such feuds 

 as that between Latour andd'Auluay de Charuisay were unknown at Quebec or Montreal. 

 Their isolation and the neglect of the mother-country were sorely against the Acadians, 

 and yet, though a prey to frequent raids, to cruel abandonment and to internal disorder, 

 there were intervals of steady progress as well as inspirations of enterprise, which tended 

 to develop the resources of the country and which show what might have been effected 

 had France only appreciated her duty. In 16Y1 the population was 440, which in 1619 

 had grown to 515, and in 168G to 900 or 920 souls. The population of the four seigneuries 

 and the scattered settlements in 170*7 was 1,838—965 men and 813 women. An impulse 

 to immigration had set in after ItOl, some 400 persons arriving at Port Royal between that 

 year and 1707, but the day was now at hand when " this colonial flower should be 

 ravished from the crown of France." It was too late. When the cession to England took 

 place in 1713, the population was 2,100. Shortly before the sentence of banishment was 

 pronounced in 1755 there were between 8,000 and 9,000. Many of these had taken refuge 



'Some old beliefs that once existed among the hahifanls are, M. LelSIay, tlie translator of Evangeline, 

 tolls us, fast dying away. One of them was that of the temporary resurrection, at Christmas-tide, of the last cure of 

 the parish; who, with his dead flock around him, recited the office for the day, his ghostly audience repeating the 

 responses. Another tradition is that on Christmas night the light of the stars penetrates the opened recesses of the 

 earth, sometimes revealing hidden treasures. The supposed genuflexions of the oxen at that sacred season are 

 common to most Christian communities. With Christmas among the French Canadians, as among other peoples, 

 are connected many curious rhymes which have been handed down from generation to generation. The strangest 

 of these is what is known as La GuignoUc, of which there are several versions. It is more immediately associated 

 with New Year's Day than with Christmas, but formerly the two holidays wore closely related. The Christmas 

 season may, indeed, be said to terminate only with Epipliany, which by many is still called Old Christmas Day. 

 The origin of La GuignoUe is unknown. The explanation au gui, l'an neuf ! (the one generally given) would 

 carry the custom back to the Druids and the gathering of the sacred mistletoe {gui, viscum') to which Pliny makes 

 reference (Nat. Hist, svi., 249). The custom is still kept up, M. Suite says, in some parishes of the Province of 



