FRENCH CANADIANS 19 



Normandy and Brittany. Although there is little of 

 the Parisian stamp about the inhabitants, they are 

 French in all essential particulars. Quebec and Gaspe 

 are to all intents and purposes French towns. The 

 British have conquered Canada, but their Gallic 

 cousins have preserved intact the leading character- 

 istics of their nationality. Quebec to-day is French 

 in all things but government. Its language is 

 spoken in its streets, and in its legislative assemblies ; 

 it is taught in its schools and circulated, in its Press. 

 Their population is increasing, and with it the 

 process of absorption goes on. Tocqueville well 

 said, the people of Quebec were more like the French 

 than Americans were like the English. Even the 

 staunch Scotchmen have been so merged in this 

 alien element that their characteristics have been 

 drowned out. Scottish names are met with every- 

 where, but their owners only speak French. This is 

 true of to-day ; the soil has been so impregnated, 

 that it will only grow the fleur de lys. 



But there is a per contra account. When Canada 

 became, in 1763, a British colony, the 60,000 French 

 colonists also became, for good, British subjects, with 

 the assurance that their customs should not be 

 interfered with. The British cherished a strong 

 conviction, the wish being father to the thought, that 

 the French nation would be ultimately absorbed in 

 their own. This proved a vain hope. When the 

 UnitedStates attempted to annex the Dominion, the 



