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Updated: May 13, 2025
So it turned out that if the habitant's crop failed he had little chance to do anything else without the seigneur's consent; he is, says the report of a Commission of Enquiry in 1843, "kept in a perpetual state of feebleness and dependence. He can never escape from the tie that forever binds to the soil him and his progeny; a cultivator he is born, a mere cultivator he is doomed to die."
Twice again did the Seigneur's weapon draw blood, once from the shoulder and once from the leg of his opponent, and the blood was flowing from each wound. After the second injury they stood panting for a moment. Now the outside world was shut out from Fournel's senses as it was from Louis Racine's.
Medallion went, and for hours sat beside the Seigneur's chair, while the Little Chemist watched and sighed softly in a corner, now and again rising to feel the sick man's pulse or to prepare a cordial. The housekeeper hovered behind the high-backed chair, and when the Seigneur dropped his handkerchief now, as always, of the exquisite fashion of a past century she put it gently in his hand.
She was freshly startled by a struggle behind her, and, turning quickly, she saw Madame Marie holding the Seigneur's arm to prevent him from ending his own life. She sprang up and laid her hand upon her husband's arm. "He is not dead you need not do it, Louis," she said quietly. There was no alarm, no undue excitement in her face now. She was acting with good presence of mind.
He it was who kept the seigneurial system from developing abuses; it was his praetorian power 'to order all things as may seem just and proper' that kept the seigneur's exactions within rigid bounds. The administration of New France was a government of men; that of the new regime was a government of laws.
The day before, M. Dauphin and the Seigneur's steward had arrived in safety from Quebec with twenty thousand dollars in bank-bills. These M. Rossignol had exchanged for the notes of hand of such of the habitants as had not ready cash to give. All of this twenty thousand dollars had been paid over.
The seigneur had the droit de banalité, the banal rights, under which in France the habitant must use the seigneur's wine-press, his oven and his mill. In Canada no wine was made, so the seigneur's winepress did not exist.
The confidence of the Cure and the Seigneur was restored. The prohibition against strangers had had its effect, and for three whole days the valley had been at rest again. Apparently there was not a stranger within its borders, save the Seigneur's brother, the Abbe Rossignol, who had come to see the moving spectacle.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat! the Seigneur's gold-headed cane rattled on the front door of the tailor-shop. It was plain to be seen his business was urgent. Madame Dauphin came hurrying from the postoffice, followed by Maximilian Cour and Filion Lacasse. "Ah, M'sieu', the tailor will not answer. There's no use knocking not a bit, M'sieu' Rossignol," said Madame.
She stepped back as I shut the door and turned the key in the lock. I put my finger to my lips, for she seemed about to cry out. "Hush!" said I. "I watch for those who love her. I am here to serve her and you." "You are a servant of the Seigneur's?" she said, the alarm passing out of her face. "I served the Seigneur, good Mother," I answered, "and I would lay down my life for ma'm'selle."
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