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And to accomplish this they inflame the people. Already in Dauphiny we have seen blood run like water the blood of the populace, always the blood of the populace. Now in Brittany we may see the like. And if in the end the new ideas prevail? if the seigneurial rule is overthrown, what then? You will have exchanged an aristocracy for a plutocracy. Is that worth while?
It will be noted, however, that Hebert received his title-deed before Richelieu assumed the reins of power, so that, whatever influence the latter may have had on the extension of the seigneurial system in the colonies, he could not have prompted its first appearance there. Hebert died in 1627.
Seigneuries were also established in Acadia; but they were bought out by the Crown about 1730, after the cession of that province to Great Britain. In the opinion of such authorities as Sulte and Munro the seigneurial system answered its purpose very well. At first the French would not have it touched.
Our Themis is prompt, and she does not bristle with fees, costs, and charges." Throughout the French period there was no complaint from the habitants concerning the burdens of the seigneurial tenure. Here and there disputes arose as to the exact scope and nature of various obligations, but these the intendant adjusted with a firm hand and an eye to the general interest.
Buckingham Smith made a marked contrast to him. Tall, with newish clothes, a powerful voice and decisive gestures, Mr. Buckingham Smith dominated, though he was younger than his friend. He tried to please, and he mingled the grand seigneurial style with the abrupt. It was he who played both the parlourmaid and the host.
Disaster came, debt and difficulty followed, fire consumed the old house in which their dignity had been cherished, and at last they had no longer their seigneurial position, but that of ordinary farmers who work and toil in the field like any of the fifty-acre farmers on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. Monsieur Louis Lavilette, the present head of the house, had not married well.
In a few populous districts there were seigneurial courts with regular judges who held sessions once or twice each week. In some others the seigneur himself sat in judgment behind the living-room table in his own home and meted out justice after his own fashion.
The seigneur, for his part, did not usually exact even this amount, because the neighborhood custom required that he should furnish both food and tools to those whom he called upon to work for him. Besides, there were various details of a minor sort incidental to the seigneurial system. If the habitant caught fish in the river, one fish in every eleven belonged to the seigneur.
And some of the seigneurial estates were eight or ten miles square!
Black Angers, white Saumur, with its double in the calm broad water below, the melancholy seigneurial woods of Blois, ranged themselves in his memory as so many distinct types of what was dignified or pleasant in human habitations.
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