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Updated: June 27, 2025
It was a positive grievance, and indeed it was a partial destruction of the constitution, at the instance of a placeman. There was one good thing in the Act. The power of commuting the seigniorial or feudal tenure into free and common soccage was given to the censitaire in transactions with the crown. This rude assault upon the Commons of Lower Canada came at an unfortunate period.
"Why should they fly before six men when they have conquered sixty?" But the censitaire had looked out of the other window, and in an instant he was down upon his knees with his hands in the air, and his powder blackened face turned upwards, pattering out prayers and thanksgivings. His five comrades rushed across the room and burst into a shriek of joy.
A person who acquired, by purchase or otherwise, the lands of a censitaire, or vassal, was held to perform foi et hommage for the lands so acquired, and to acquit all other feudal dues owing by the original holder to his seigneur.
All feudal rights and duties, whether bearing on censitaire or seigneur, were abolished by law, and a double court was appointed to inquire into the claims of all parties and to secure compensation in equity for the loss of the seigneurs' vested interests.
In case the censitaire wished to dispose of his holding during his lifetime, it was subject to the lods et ventes, or to a tax of one-twelfth of the purchase money, which had to be paid to the seignior, who usually as a favour remitted one-fourth on punctual payment.
I had as lief go censitaire for Monsieur L'as as for any seignieur on the Richelieu; of that be sure, old Pierre." "Faith," replied the latter, "when it comes to frightening crows, I'll even agree to sit on a stump with my musket across my knees and watch you work.
The obligation of military service, when no longer needed, was replaced by dues and payments. The modern cash nexus replaced the old personal bond between vassal and lord. The feudal system became the seigneurial system. The lord became the seigneur; the vassal became the censitaire or peasant cultivator whose chief function was to yield revenue for his seigneur's purse.
He was a born censitaire of the house of Tilly, and felt shame and pity as he beheld the dishevelled figure of his young Seigneur shaking the dice-box and defying one and all to another cast for love, liquor, or whole handfuls of uncounted coin.
M. Bourdon, the first Canadian surveyor-general, originally mapped out the seigniories in oblong shapes with very narrow frontage along the river a frontage of two or three arpents against a depth of from forty to eighty arpents and the same inconvenient oblong plan was followed in making sub-grants to the censitaire or habitant.
So the Canadian peasant, a feudal tenant en censive or en roture, yet wished not to be called censitaire or roturier, names which he thought degrading; he preferred to be called a habitant, an inhabitant of the country, a free man, not a vassal.
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