— 230 — 



opposite Montreal on the south shore." (The OldBegime, 

 Parkman p. 262.) 



Parkman traces in sombre colours, the career of several 

 of these gentilhommes francais and retired half-pay 

 officers, who unable to keep up in lavish expenditure 

 with the same class, basking in royal sunshine, at the 

 Louvre or at Versailles, cast their lot in Canadian wilds 

 — where the absence of suitable careers for their sons 

 and a handicapped trade compelled them and their 

 numerous offspring to struggle with want ; many of 

 them unfortunately taught to look down on honest toil 

 as derogatory, one is reminded of a similar worthy class 

 of British half- pay officers, eking out in the past a scanty 

 livelihood, at Woodstock, Simcoe, London, Ont., or in 

 the eastern townships of the province of Quebec. 



In dwelling on the brilliant career of the Longueuil, 

 Mr. Parkman traces so graphic an account of the French 

 gentilhornme, that I hope I will be pardoned for quo- 

 ting it. " Others learned the same lesson, at a later day, 

 adapting themselves to soil and situation, took root, grew 

 and became more Canadian than French. As population 

 increased, their seigniories began to yield appreciable 

 returns, and their reserved domains became worth culti- 

 vating. A future dawned upon them ; they saw in hope 

 their names, their seignorial estates, their manor houses, 

 their tenantry passing to their children's children. The 

 beggared noble of the early time, became a sturdy, 

 country gentleman; poor but not wretched; ignorant 

 of books, except possibly a few scraps of rusty latin, 

 picked up in a Jesuit school ; hardy as the hardiest 

 woodsman, yet never forgetting his quality of gentil- 

 hornme; scrupulously wearing his badge, the sword, 

 and copying as well as he could the fashions of the 

 court, which glowed on his vision across the sea in all 

 the effulgence of Versailles, and beamed with reflected 

 ray from the Chateau, at Quebec. He was at home 

 among the Indians, and never more at home than when, 

 a gun in his hand and a crucifix on his breast, he took 



