THE HISTORY OF CANADA, 



IV. 



Taken all in all, Talon is perhaps the most useful man who ever wrought in Canada, 

 and the inhabitants of New France w^ere more beholden to him than to any other single 

 man. Colbert and Talon worked together. Through Talon we come to the romance of 

 of administration. The great minister of Louis XIV devised a broad plan for the man- 

 agement of the colony, the unfolding of its resources, the permanence of its institutions 

 and the warrant of its destiny; and he entrusted the w^orkiug thereof to Talon, as Eoyal 

 Intendant. That officer was in Canada for five years, at two several intervals, and in that 

 time, may be said to have created the institutions of the country. The principle of the 

 scheme was paternal, almost everything emanating from the government at home and 

 everything being referable thereto. This was pleasantly displayed in the disposition of 

 immigrants sent over by the King. As a rule, men of the one creed were chosen, 

 Huguenots from the neighbourhood of La Eochelle being excluded, although the ban was 

 not final nor prohibitive. Young women were shipped in great numbers, after careful 

 choice for character, health, and a willingness to w^ork. And Talon took care that they 

 were diily wedded, which was the easier, because adult males not marrying might not 

 trade, hunt, or fish, and a premium was set on matrimony. The girl, for her bridal gift 

 from the King, got cattle, provisions and the wherewithal to build a hovise. Boys should 

 marry at eighteen, girls, at sixteen. There was the King's gift of 20 livres for the boon. 

 A pension of 100 livres was given to the father of ten children and of 400 to the parent of 

 of twelve. There is a smack of pastoral romance in this which inspired Abbé Eaynal in 

 his renowned description of the primitive Acadians, on which Longfellow founded much 

 of his " Evangeline," translated by our colleague M. Pamphile Le May. Military officers 

 and young men of noble families were encouraged by money rewards lo remain in the 

 country, and the result w^as the system of seigniories, which became, after a few genera- 

 tions, another romantic feature of Canadian history. The seignior received from his censi- 

 taires the fee of one twelfth of the purchase money of the estate. He was a justice 

 within his domain, sitting on capital crimes, on small debts and misdemeanors punish- 

 able by fine, and seignioral dues and profits. When the matter was worth while, appeal 

 could be made to the Seignioral or Royal Court, and thence to the Supreme Council. Talon 

 returned to France in 1672, a few weeks after the arrival of that other spectacular figure, 

 the old Marquis LoUis de Buade Frontenac, Count of Palluau, who governed Canada in 

 two terms, till the end of the century, with a gi-and presence and a hand of steel, holding 

 his own against the Iroquois, and the sailors of Sir William Phipps, who asked the capit- 

 ulation of Quebec, with the pretty story of the Admiral's flag, shot from the mast, 

 introduced by Marmette in his novel, as well as in the ecclesiastical warfare for a courtier 

 to face. Talon initiated the golden age of New France which Frontenac closed with the 

 end of the seventeenth century, a little before the death of Louis XIV. On leaving the 

 country. Talon bequeathed the institutions which he founded and which survive to this 

 day in the province of Quebec, as well as the Seigniory des Islets, erected into a barony, and 

 containing three hamlets, the Bourg Royal, the Bourg de la Reine and the Bourg Talon. 

 Talon was the farmer's friend, promoting the cultivation of flax and hemp, and the father 

 of homespun or étoffe du pays, his boast being that he would have the peasants of New 

 France clothed from head to foot in garments of their own make. He opposed the 



