TORONTO OF OLD. 451 



supremacy of man, -wlien, directing his view to the intermediate spaces, to the -winding of the 

 valleys, or the expanse of plains beneath, he could only have distinguislied a few insulated 

 patches of culture, each encircling a village of wretched cabins, among which would still be 

 remarked one rude mansion of wood, scarcely equal in comfort to a modern cottage, yet there 

 rising proudly eminent above the rest, where the Saxon lord, surrounded by liis faitliful cotarii, 

 enjoyed a rude and solitary independence, having no superior but his sovereign." This writer 

 asks us to carry ourselves nine or ten centuries bade, to realize the picture which he has 

 conceived. From the upland here in the vicinity of Drynoch, less tlian half a century ago, 

 gazing southwards over the expanse thence to be commanded, we should have beheld a scene 

 closely resembling that which, as he supposed, was seen from the summit of Pendle in the 

 Saxon days ; while, at the present day, we see everywhere throughout the same expanse, an 

 approximation to the old mother-lands, England, Ireland, and Scotland, in condition and 

 appearance : in its style of agriculture, and the character of its towns, villages, hamlets, farm 

 houses, and country villas. 



We now entered a region once occupied by a number of French military refugees. During 

 the Revolution in France, at the close of the last century, inauj' of the devotees of the royalist 

 cause passed over into England, where, as elsewhere, they were known and spoken of as 

 emigres. Amongst them were numerous officers of the regular army, all of them, of course, of 

 the uoblesse-order, or else, as the inherited rule was, no commission in the king's service could 

 have been theirs. When now tlie royal cause became despei-ate, and they had suffered the loss 

 of all their worldly goods, the British Government of the day, in its symj^athy for the monar- 

 chical cause in Prance, offered them grants of land in the newly-organized province of Upper 

 Canada. Some of them availed themselves of the generosity or the British Crown. Having 

 been comrades in arms they desired to occupy a block of contiguous lots. Wliilst there was 

 yet almost all Western Canada to choose from, by some chance these Oak Ridges, especially 

 difficult to bring under cultivation and somewhat sterile when subdued, were preferred, partly 

 perhaps through the influence of sentiment ; they may have discovered some resemblance to 

 regions familiar to themselves in their native land. Or in a mood inspired and made fashion- 

 able by Rousseau they may have longed for a lodge in some vast wilderness " where the mortal 

 coil" which had crushed the old society of Europe should no longer harass them. When 

 twitted by the passing wayfarer who had selected land in a more propitious situation, they 

 would iioint to the gigantic boles of the surrounding pines in proof of the iutriu.sic excellence 

 of the soil below, which must be good, they said, to nourish such a vegetation. After all, how- 

 ever, this particular locality may have been selected rather for them, than by them. On the 

 early map of 1798 a range of nine lots on each side of Yonge Street, just here in the Ridges, is 

 bracketed and marked, " French Royalists : by order of his Honor," i.e., the President, Peter 

 Russell. A postscript to the Gazetteer of 17C9 gives the reader the information that " lands 

 have been appropriated in the rear of York as a refuge for some French Royalists, and their 

 settlement has comuieneed." On the Vaughan side. No. 56 was occupied conjointly by Michel 

 Saigeon and Francis Reneoux ; No. 57 by Julien le Bugle ; No. 58 by Rene Aug. Conite de 

 Chalus, Amboise de Farcy and Quetton St. Oeorge conjointly ; No. 59 by Quetton St. George ; 

 No. 60 by Jean Louis Vicomte des Chalus. In King, No. 61 by Rene Aug. Comte de Chalus 

 and Augustin Boiton conjointly. On the Markham side : No. 5:2 is occupied by tlie Comte de 

 Puisaye ; No. 53 by Rene Aug. Comte de Chalus ; No. 54 by Jean Louis Vicomte de Chalus and 

 Rdne Aug. Comte de Chalus conjointly ; No. 55 by Jean Louis Vicomte de Chalus ; No. 56 by 

 le Chevalier de IMarseuil and Michel Fauchard conjointly ; No. 57 by the Chev. de Marseuil ; 

 No. 58 by Rene Letourneaux, Augustin Boiton and J. L. Vicomte de Chaliis conjointly ; No. 59 

 by Quetton St. George and Jean Furon conjointly ; No. 60 by Amboise de Farcy. In Whit- 

 church, No. 61 by Michel Saigeon 



After felling the trees in a few acres of their respective allotments, some of these emigres 

 withdrew from the country. Hence in the Ridges was to be seen here and there the rather 

 unusual sight of abandoned clearings returning to a state of nature. 



The officers styled Comte and Vicomte de Chalus derived their title from the veritable domain 

 and castle of Chalus in Normandy, associated in the minds of all young readers of English 

 History with the death of Richard Cffiur do Lion. Jean Louis de Chalus, whose name appears 

 on numbers 54 and 55 in Markham and on other lots, was a Major-General in the Royal Army 

 of Brittany. At the balls given by the Governor and others at York, the jewels of Madame la 



