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A bustling, loquacious crowd of habitans and citizens, wives and maid-servants, were buying, selling, exchanging compliments, or complaining of hard times. The marketplace was full, and all were glad at the termination of the terrible war, and hopeful of the happy effect of peace in bringing plenty back again to the old market.
There is not even what Coleridge with such exquisite happiness defined as being the quintessential property of Swift "anima Rabelaesii habitans in sicco the soul of Rabelais dwelling in a dry place." It is the fallen soul of Swift himself at its lowest, dwelling in a place yet drier: the familiar spirit or less than Socratic daemon of the Dean informing the genius of Shakespeare.
But our stout Governor, Count de Frontenac, came upon them from the woods with his brave soldiers, habitans, and Indians, and drove them pell-mell back to their boats, and stripped the ship of Admiral Phipps of his red flag, which, if you doubt my word, which no one does, still hangs over the high altar of the Church of Notre Dame des Victoires.
The habitans of the Lower Province, though moral and amiable, are not ambitious, and hold their ancient customs with a tenacity which opposes itself to their advancement. The various changes in the tariff made by the Imperial Government affected Lower Canada very seriously.
But," continued he, looking round admiringly on the bands of citizens and habitans who were at work strengthening every weak point in the fortifications, "my brave Canadians are busy as beavers on their dam. They are determined to keep the saucy English out of Quebec. They deserve to have the beaver for their crest, industrious fellows that they are! I am sorry I kept you waiting, however."
The crowd had come to the Rue Buade to see the famous tablet of the Golden Dog, which was talked of in every seigniory in New France; still more, perhaps, to see the Bourgeois Philibert himself the great merchant who contended for the rights of the habitans, and who would not yield an inch to the Friponne.
"But what became of the families of the habitans after this swoop of your foragers?" asked the Seigneur de Beauce, a country gentleman who retained a few honorable ideas floating on top of the wine he had swallowed. "Oh! the families that is, the women and children, for we took the men for the army.
Eight millions of inhabited acres were freed from the incubus, and Lower Canada has removed one great obstacle in the way of her prosperity. At the period when Hiram Holt expressed himself so strongly on the subject, a grinding vassalage repressed the industry of the habitans. Though their annual rent, as censitaires or tenants, was not large, a variety of burdensome obligations was attached.
The Friponne!" ejaculated Jean. "The foul fiend fly away with the Friponne! My ferryboat is laden every day with the curses of the habitans returning from the Friponne, where they cheat worse than a Basque pedler, and without a grain of his politeness!" The Friponne, as it was styled in popular parlance, was the immense magazine established by the Grand Company of Traders in New France.
"Let no one in!" added he "'tis against the rule to open the doors when the Grand Company are met for business! Take whips, valets, and scourge the insolent beggars away. Some miserable habitans, I warrant, whining for the loss of their eggs and bacon taken by the King's purveyors!" A servant returned with a card on a silver salver.
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