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Not but that I take it occasionally the Prince Bishop may have indulged himself in what Richelieu styled "the honest man's recreation," yet the jus primae noctis, of which also you will have heard, was not the privilege of the seigneurial bishops, but the fine or compensation paid to the Church by the impatient bridegroom, who in early days of clerical discipline was enjoined to mortification of the flesh for the first three nights of marriage.
And a better illustration is found in the operation of the seigneurial system upon which Canadian society was based. In France a belated feudalism still held the common man in its grip, and in Canada the forms of feudalism were at least partially established. Yet the Canadian habitant lived in a very different atmosphere from that breathed by the Norman peasant.
Seigneurs were glad to give them land without any initial payment and frequently promised exemption from the usual seigneurial dues for the first few years. In any case these dues and services, which will be explained more fully later on, were not burdensome. Any settler of reasonable industry and intelligence could satisfy these ordinary demands without difficulty.
Moreover, the new judicial system was more expensive than the old, so that when a seigneur chose to take his claims into court the habitants often let him have judgment by default rather than incur heavy costs. During the twenty years following the conquest the externals of the seigneurial system remained unaltered; but its spirit underwent a great change.
A gross and gratuitous outrage, a characteristic manifestation of Bourbon stupidity that is a common verdict upon the royal action. But it may well be asked: What else was there to do? The seigneurial system was still the basis of land tenure in France. The nobility and even the throne rested upon it. The Church sanctioned and supported it.
A dozen other seigneurial properties, bearing names of less conspicuous interest, scattered themselves along both sides of the great waterway. Along the Richelieu from its junction with the St Lawrence to the outer limits of safe settlement in the direction of Lake Champlain, a number of seigneurial grants had been effected.
And so the yellow cockleshell became Carette's golden bridge, and thereafter her comings and goings knew no bounds but her own wilful will and the states of the tides and the weather. Krok's ideas in the matter of seigneurial rights of flotsam and jetsam were by no means as strict as his master's, especially where Carette was concerned. In his mute, dog-like way he worshipped Carette.
During the first session after the formation of the Liberal-Conservative party the two great questions which had long distracted the united province of Canada the Clergy Reserves and the Seigneurial Tenure were settled on terms which were accounted satisfactory by all moderate and reasonable men.
This is, of course, a rough estimate, but it conveys an idea that is approximately correct and, indeed, about as near the mark as one can come after a study of the seigneurial system in all its phases.
Only in the days after the conquest, when land rose in value and transfers became more frequent, could the lods et ventes be counted among real sources of seigneurial income. Then there were the so-termed banalites. In France their name was legion; no one but a seigneur could own a grist-mill, wine-press, slaughter-house, or even a dovecot.
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