THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE 83 
mordial principle contains an element of permanence 
which is independent of peculiar local circumstances. 
Whithersoever transplanted, it will take root and 
flourish. It has all the reproductive vitality of cellular. 
tissue, whereas the centralized bureaucracy is as rigid 
and unplastic as cartilage or bone. 
The force of these considerations is nowhere better 
illustrated than in the contrasted fortunes of the French 
and English settlements in North America. The 
French colonies, as we have observed, were planted in 
accordance with a far-reaching imperial policy, and 
they were favoured by the especial solicitude of the 
home government, which well understood their value, 
and was bitterly chagrined when it became necessary 
to part with them. Louis XIV. in particular, whose 
long reign covered something like half of the brief his- 
tory of New France, thought very highly of his Amer- 
ican colonies, and laboured industriously to promote 
their welfare. One of his pet schemes was to repro- 
duce in the New World the political features of French 
society in Europe, modifying them only so far as it 
was necessary in order to secure in the New France a 
bureaucratic despotism even more ideally complete 
than that which had grown up in the old country. By 
a reminiscence of vanquished feudalism the land was 
parcelled out in seigniories, but the management of 
affairs was in the hands of a viceroy, or governor-gen- 
eral appointed by the king. The instructions of the 
governor were prepared with extreme prolixity and 
minuteness by the king and his ministers; and to in- ° 
sure his carrying them out in every particular another 
officer was appointed, called the zz¢endant, whose prin- 
cipal business was to keep an eye on the governor, and 
