— 194 — 



created a Baron by Louis XIV, it was found impos- 

 sible to produce any record establishing the place 

 assigned to him by virtue of his royal patent. 



Thus has remained in abeyance the ticklish question 

 whether Charles Colmore Grant, the lineal descendant 

 of the Baron de Longueuil, so graciously recognized as 

 a Baron by Her Majesty, the Queen, ought to take 

 precedence on state occasions of Canadian knights, &c. 



The " period of high living, fast women and gambling "' 

 generally styled in Canadian annals— the Bigot regime 

 is better known to us in this respect. Franquet and 

 other contemporary chroniclers have left lively accounts 

 of social customs, without forgetting those fashionable 

 routs and charming petits soupers of which the Inten- 

 dance was the chief theatre before the conquest. There 

 yet however remained several decades undescribed. 

 M. de Gaspe has bridged over a large portion of the 

 lacuna. 



Whilst the Memoirs bring out in relief several impor- 

 tant historical incidents, they also furnish a number of 

 light, gossipy pages, and familiar anecdotes showing the 

 inner-life and domestic ways of those at the top of the 

 social ladder. 



M. de Gaspe has a happy manner of setting forth 

 some of those airy nothings. I append an example in 

 point ; though, translated in a different idiom, it neces- 

 sarily loses much of its freshness and charm. 



One regrets that the old Laird of St. Jean Port-Joly 

 has not furnished more reminiscences of the protracted 

 existence vouchsafed to him and comprising the admi- 

 nistration of so many English Governors : Haldimand, 

 Lord Dorchester, General Prescott, Sir J. Coape sher- 

 brooke, the Duke of Bichmond, the Earl of Dalhousie, 

 Lords Aylmer and Gosford, Lord Durham, Sir John 

 Colborne, Lord Bagot, Earl Cathcart, Lord Elgin, Sir 

 Edmund W. Head, Lord Monck. 



* The following anecdotes relate to a serious trouble 

 between one of our most beloved administrators, Lord 



