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For several decades preceding 1854 it had failed to adjust itself to the new environment, and its continuance was an obstacle to the economic progress of Canada. Its abolition was wise a generation or two earlier it would have been even wiser. All this is not to say, however, that the seigneurial system did not serve a highly useful purpose in its day.
It is true that a law has been passed enabling a fixed commutation, in money, of these seigneurial rights; but I am told that the parties adhere in most cases to the old usage, and despise innovation. "A singular custom, too, prevails.
"Tell the notary," she said, endeavoring to maintain her usual haughty manner, "to put down that, at my death, I bequeath to my niece all of which I die possessed the palace at Lucca, and the heirlooms, plate, jewels, armor, and the picture of my great ancestor Castruccio Castracani, to be kept hanging in the place where it now is, opposite the seigneurial throne in the presence-chamber."
Maurice, and are subject to the temporal and seigneurial justice of the Archbishop of Tours; besides which, in consequence of the nature of the crimes imputed to her, she is liable to the tribunal and council of ecclesiastical justice, the which we have made known to her, to the end that she should not ignore it.
Each was therefore permitted to have a bake-oven of his own, and there was, of course, plenty of wood near by to keep it blazing. Many allusions have been made, in writings on the old regime, to the habitant's corvee or obligation to give his seigneur so many days of free labour in each year. In France this incident of seigneurial tenure cloaked some dire abuses.
As his gloomy imagination pictured the future, when Madelinette should return and see him as he was and cease to love him to build up his Seigneurial honour to an undue importance, to give his position a fictitious splendour, became a mania with him. No ruler of a Grand Duchy ever cherished his honour dearer or exacted homage more persistently than did Louis Racine in the Seigneury of Pontiac.
Our Themis is prompt, and she does not bristle with fees, costs, and charges. The testimony of others, though not so rhetorically expressed, is enough to prove that both royal and seigneurial courts did their work in fairly acceptable fashion. The Norman habitant, as has already been pointed out, was by nature restive, impulsive, and quarrelsome.
'Every one here is puffed up with the greatest vanity, wrote the intendant Duchesneau in 1681; 'there is not one but pretends to be a patron and wants the privilege of naming a cure for his lands, yet they are heavily in debt and in extreme poverty. None of the great bishops of New France Laval, St Vallier, or Pontbriand had much sympathy with this seigneurial right of patronage or advowson, and each did what he could to break down the custom.
Without the intendancy the seigneurial system would soon have become an agent of oppression, for some Canadian seigneurs were quite as avaricious as their friends at home. The heyday of Canadian feudalism was the period from 1663 to about 1750. During this interval nearly three hundred fiefs were granted.
Now the English copyholder held his land subject to the customs of the manor; his dues and services were fixed by local custom both as regards their nature and amount. What more easy, then, than to seek the local custom in Canada, and apply its rules to the decision of all controversies respecting seigneurial claims?
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