18 lemoine on the last 



In 1*155, the wheat harvest having failed, and the produce of former years having 

 been carried out of Canada, or stored in the magazines of Bigot's ring, the people of Can- 

 ada were reduced to starvation ; in many instances they had to subsist on horse flesh and 

 decayed codfish. Instead of having recourse to the wheat stored here, the iutendant's 

 minions led him to believe that wheat was not so scarce as the peasantry pretended ; that 

 the peasants refused to sell, merely in anticipation of obtaining still higher rates ; that 

 the intendant, they argued, ought to issue orders for domiciliary visits in the rural dis- 

 tricts, and levy a tax on each inhabitant of the country, for the maintenance of the 

 residents in the city, and of the troops. 



Statements were made out, showing the rations required to prevent the people from 

 dying from starvation. Cadet was charged with the levying of this vexatious impost. 

 In a very short time, he and his clerks had overrun the country, appropriating more wheat 

 than was necessary. Some of the unfortunate peasants who saw, in the loss of their 

 seed wheat, starvation and death, loudly complained. A few called at the intendant's 

 palace, but the heartless Deschenaux, the intendant's secretary, was ever on the watch, 

 and had them questioned by his employees, and when the object of their visit was dis- 

 covered, they were ushered into the presence of Deschenaux, who browbeat them and 

 threatened to haA^e them cast into prison, for thus presuming to intrude upon the intend- 

 ant. Bigot was afterwards advised of their visit, and when they appeared before him, 

 they were so maltreated and bullied, that they left, happ}'- at believing that they had 

 escaped being thrown into prison. Soon none dared to complain. Bread was getting 

 scarcer every day. The intendant had named persons to distribute the bread at bakers' 

 shops, flour being furnished by Government. The people crowded the bakeries on the 

 days fixed ; the loaves were greedily and violently snatched up ; mothers of families com- 

 plained that they could not get any ; they occasionally besieged the intendant in his 

 palace, with loud lamentations ; it was of no avail. Surrounded by a crowd of flatterers, 

 who retired gorged with luxurious living, the intendant could not understand how the 

 poor could die of hunger. 



Land of New France, reclaimed from barbarism at the cost of so much blood, so much 

 treasure ; bountifully provided with nobles, priests, soldiers, fortifications by the great 

 Louis ; sedulously, paternally watched over by Colbert and Talon and Frontenac, to what 

 depth of despair, shall we say, degradation, ' art thou sunk ? Proud old city of Quebec, 

 have you then no more defenders to put forth, in your supreme hour of woe and deser- 

 tion? Has then that dauntless race of Gentilshommes Canadiens, the d'Iberville, Ste. Hélène, 

 de Eouville, d(> Bécancourt, de Repentigny, disappeared without leaving any successors ? 



The limit of my address forbids me rehearsing the heartrending scene in our city, 

 when the roll of multled drums and voices of wailing proclaimed that France's chivalrous 

 leader, Montcalm, had just returned through St. Louis Gate from his last campaign, 

 stricken unto death. 



This is only a faint outline of the gloomy incidents of this drooping period. 



'Servants, lacqueys and nobodies, were named storekeepers. "Leur ignorance et leur bassesse ne furent point 

 un obstacle." '" Neither their ignorance nor their baseness, were obstacles to tlieir advancement," say the Memoirs. 

 " Madame Péan had whom she choose appointed to offices ; her recommendation did more than the highest merit 

 could effect." Mémoires sur les Affaires de la Colonie, 1749—1760. 



