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And when it cleared they saw how deadly their aim had been at those close quarters. Only nine shots had been fired, and seven Indians were littered up and down on the straight stone stair. Five of them lay motionless, but two tried to crawl slowly back to their friends. Du Lhut and the censitaire raised their muskets, and the two crippled men lay still.
It abolished all feudal rights and duties in Lower Canada, "whether hearing upon the censitaire or seigneur," and provided for the appointment of commissioners to enquire into the respective rights of the parties interested.
Unfortunately for this simple solution, there was a great and fundamental difference between these two tenures. The Canadian censitaire had a written title-deed which stated explicitly the dues and services he was bound to give his seigneur; the copyholder had nothing of the kind. The habitant, moreover, had various rights guaranteed to him by royal decrees.
In such instances the judges were governed by precedent or by a strict interpretation of the law, while in the days of French dominion the intendants were generally influenced by principles of equity in the disputes that came before them, and by a desire to help the weaker litigant, the censitaire.
Martin's day, November 11th, approached the people were reminded of the falling due of the cens et rentes. The meaning of the two terms is somewhat obscure. The cens was a trifling payment by the censitaire in recognition of the seigneur's position and rights as landowner; while the rentes represented a real rental based in some degree on the supposed value of the land.
Consequently at the present day the traveller who visits French Canada sees the whole country divided into extremely long and narrow parallelograms each with fences and piles of stones as boundaries in innumerable cases. The conditions on which the censitaire held his land from the seignior were exceedingly easy during the greater part of the French regime.
The whole success of the seigniorial system, as a means of settling the country, depended on the extent to which the seigniors were able to grant their lands en censive or en roture. The censitaire who held his lands in this way could not himself sub-infeudate.
The ancient obligation of military service, no longer needed, gave place to dues and payments. The old personal bond relaxed; the feudal lord became the seigneur, a mere landlord. The vassal became the censitaire, a mere tenant, paying heavy dues each year in return for protection which, he no longer received nor required.
He was gravely led up to the dais, where stood the lady of the Manor, by the steward bearing his wand of office. The worthy censitaire knelt down before the lady, and repeating her name three times, pronounced the formula of foi et hommage prescribed by the law, as owing to the lords of the Manor of Tilly. "My Lady de Tilly! My Lady de Tilly! My Lady de Tilly!
The two Americans and the old pioneer held the barricade, while the eyes of all the others were turned upon the approaching boat. A groan broke suddenly from the only surviving censitaire. "It is an Iroquois canoe!" he cried. "Impossible!" "Alas, your excellency, it is so, and it is the same one which passed us last night." "Ah, then the women have escaped them." "I trust so.