238 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The Normans and Bretons who colonized New France were 

 governed to the end of their nails, as they used to say, from the 

 mother country. The local self-government of the American 

 colonies, the town meeting and its ramifications, were unknown ; 

 they were not allowed to hold meetings nor even to tax themselves 

 for improvements without the royal permission. There were no 

 common schools; the Recollets, or begging friars, taught the 

 A B C as they wandered from parish to parish, but only where 

 they found lodging for the night. As late as 1835 an act of the 

 legislature was passed permitting school trustees to sign their 

 reports with a mark. The feu-follet, or Will o' the wisp, was either 

 an unshriven soul or Satan himself ; sorciers were witches and 

 imps who held their sabbaths on the Isle of Orleans ; the chasse- 

 galerie, a huntsman with a pack of dogs, appeared on the eve of a 

 storm ; but the most formidable apparition was the were-wolf, or 

 loup-garou, which was seen as late as 1767 in the county of 

 Kamouraska, seeking whom it might devour. None of these 

 ugly visitors could cross a stream which bore a saint's name. If 

 encountered in the woods, the feu follet could generally be dodged 

 by sticking a needle in the earth or holding out a half -open knife 

 after first making the sign of the cross ; but the only safeguards 

 against the others short of making a race for the St. Lawrence or 

 the St. Something- else was for the traveler to carry a bottle of 

 holy water, Le Formulaire, a prayer-book originally got up for 

 the Ursuline nuns, or the petit Albert, which contained the forms 

 for exorcising evil spirits. 



The Jesuits have described the Arcadian simplicity of life and 

 manners and the extraordinary piety of the early settlers, kept 

 fervid both by their ministrations and by the constant Indian at- 

 tacks. Every church had its own saint and relic, not necessarily 

 of that particular saint, and its own miracles. Laval's successor 

 presented the parish of Saint Paul in the Isle of Orleans with an 

 arm bone of the great apostle of the Gentiles. A few years after- 

 ward the parish changed its name to Saint Laurent, and the ad- 

 joining parish of Saint Peter thereupon called itself Saint Peter 

 and Saint Paul. The cures agreed to exchange relics, but the 

 Saint Laurent people refused to be bound by that arrangement, 

 and one night entered the church of Saint Pierre, carried off their 

 old relic, and left the other, which they deemed an inferior one. 

 Miracles beyond number were reported and passed into popular 

 belief without being vouched for by ecclesiastical authority, such 

 as missionaries using their cloaks as rafts to cross lakes and rivers, 

 checking bush fires by drawing a line on the ground, being di- 

 rected when they had lost their way and providentially supplied 

 with food. 



The Acadians had miracles in plenty. In the introduction 



