144 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



like Bishop Laval, who resided here and could superintend affairs through 

 an employe engaged for that purpose. 



In round figures, 159 of those seigneurs obtained lands between 1626 and 

 1760. Five or six of them were high officials in the colony; seven or eight 

 officers discharged from their regiments — the rest (IbO or more) men who 

 did not ranis with the noblesse in France and who looked to Canada as a 

 country where they could build a future for themselves. I wocder at the 

 imagination of Mr. Parkman when he speaks of the Canadian seigneur 

 fresh from the court of Paris or Versailles ! I wish he would name those 

 who ever met with the splendor of " le roi-soleil ! " 



These men were full of courage and the spirit of enterprise. The very- 

 fact of trying to make a living in Canada and to rise to a higher situatioa 

 here than in their mother country, speaks loud in their favor. 



They were under obligation to establish settlers on their seigneuries at a 

 certain rate per annum. For this purpose, they recruited in the villages 

 where they were best known in France, young farmers with their wives and 

 thus formed in each seigneurie a facsimile of the group left at home. From 

 1626 to 1662, each seigneurie was governed after the particular code of law 

 (coutume) adopted in the part of France which [they came fro3i. In 1664, 

 the Coutume de Paris was extended over all the colony. Each settler was 

 given a lot measuring three or four acres ^ in front by forty deep. In this 

 manner the road from Quebec to Montreal was quickly open for use in all 

 sea'ons — because the narrowness of the land made the houses close to each 

 other, and instead of having a village — a continuous street of 180 miles in 

 length was obtained. The king remonstrated against this arrangement — he 

 was in favor of villages — but the " habitans " never listened to his objec- 

 tions. They knew better. 



The seigneur was the first amongst the pioneers, the first to attack the for- 

 est the first in the field with the plow. After three years, a settler needed no 

 more assistance. From that moment, he was able to pay his " redevance " to 

 the seigneur. His taxes were partly in money, but more often " en nature " — • 

 the whole amounted to about $7 or $10 per annum, — all included, except 

 what he had to give the miller when using the mill belonging to the seig- 

 neur — namely, the 26th part of the flour produced. A seigneur who was the 

 recipient of $2,000 was a wonderfully rich man. Most of them never re- 

 ceived more than $700 or $800 per annum. 



They were representatives of the people as their seigneurs at Quebec and 

 elsewhere when required. Their interest was so closely connected with the 

 welfare of their retainers that no better system of " deputation " can be con- 

 ceived, and ra-^rk that the laws concerning the administration of seigneur's 

 were not in the bands of the seigneurs. Far from that, these laws were 

 greatly in favor of the tenants. The consequence is that the seigneurs very 

 seldom got the better in their contests with the farmers. These laws, inter, 

 preted from time to time by the King's ministers, always ran this way: In 

 the beginning the seigneur is a father to his clausmen, because he and they 



' By acres arpents each of 180 French feet are probably meant. J. D. B. 



