OLD CANADIAN MANORS— MADAME DE BERCY— 1789. 



To the restless plodder of this progressive age as well 

 as to the thoughtful student of the past, a kaleidoscopic 

 glimpse of the old order of things, in feudal Canada, 

 under some of their picturesque aspects, may not be 

 unwelcome. Under this inspiration, it would seem, 

 was given to the public, in a review lately published at 

 Quebec, La Kermesse, a rather striking letter from its 

 truthfulness and also a dainty poetical effusion, writ- 

 ten some sixty years ago, by the clever chatelaine of a 

 seigniorial manor not many miles from Montreal, 

 Madame de Bercy. 



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Few indeed are the traces of the former oppressive 

 feudal tenure of Canada, its seigneurs, its manors ; 

 Lewis T. Drummond, himself a seigneur, grappled with 

 and after protracted opposition, succeeded in strangling, 

 the ogre, in 1854, with the assistance of great leaders 

 of public opinion : Sir Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine, Sir 

 George Etienne Cartier, Sir Francis Hincks and other 

 distinguished members of our parliament. 



It may therefore, not be out of place, to recall, what 

 a Canadian seigneur and a Canadian manor meant, prior 

 to that auspicious date. 



Canadians owed feudalism on their soil to Cardinal 

 de Bichelieu, as set forth in the charter of the company 

 of Hundred associates, in 1627. So says Francis Park- 

 man, a high authority on similar points : 



" It was an offshoot of the feudalism of France, modified 

 by the lapse of centuries, and further modified by the royal 

 will." " Canadian feudalism was made to serve a double 

 end." The Old Regime in Canada, Parkman, pp. 243. 4-5. 



