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That night, which an enemy of the revolution designated at the time, the Saint Bartholomew of property, was only the Saint Bartholomew of abuses. It swept away the rubbish of feudalism; it delivered persons from the remains of servitude, properties from seigneurial liabilities; from the ravages of game, and the exaction of tithes.

On the whole, however, the habitants who took farms within the seigneuries fared pretty well in the matter of the feudal dues and services demanded from them. Compared with the seigneurial tenantry of Old France their obligations were few in number, and imposed almost no burden at all.

The seigneurial system of land tenure, as all students of history know, was feudalism in a somewhat modernized form.

Her voice died away into the corner of the darkening room; her thoughts wandered. She sat in spirit upon the seigneurial throne, below, in the presence-chamber. Should Nobili sit there, on that hallowed seat of her ancestors? the old Lombard palace call him master, living gather his bones with their ashes, dead? Never! Better far moulder into ruin as they had mouldered.

Of these, the first and the last were closely connected with the seigneurial system. On Michaelmas the habitant came to pay the annual rental for his lands; on May Day he rendered the Maypole homage which, has been already described. Christmas and Easter were the great festivals of the Church and as such were celebrated with religious fervor and solemnity.

In each parish he proposed to establish judges having the power to hear and decide in the first instance all civil cases involving not more than ten livres. He had jurisdiction in the first instance over all cases civil and criminal in the Quebec district and in appeal from the judgments of the local or seigneurial judges.

We see this in matters of language, religion, in certain antipathies, and even in attire. They are justly famed for hospitality, not only amongst themselves, but also towards strangers, and a very pleasing trait, no doubt handed down from the seigneurial Huguenots, is the genial politeness which a stranger will receive in an otherwise wholly uncultured Boer family.

The Crown gave up all taxation except commercial duties, which were to be applied solely for the benefit of the provinces. Lands outside the seigneuries were to be in free and common socage, while seigneurial tenure itself could be converted into freehold on petition. One-seventh of the Crown lands was reserved for the endowment of the Church of England.

All the seigneurial rights accumulated during a thousand years by the dominant military caste, the right of justice, the privilege of commanding armies, the hunting privileges, the warren, the dovecot, serfage, were sacrificed on the altar of patriotic regeneration. The burden of the centuries was suddenly lifted from the shoulders of Jacques Bonhomme.

They are obliged to appear in Arms for the King's defence, in case his Province is attacked. Carleton pointed out that a hundred men of the Canadian seigneurial families were being kept on full pay in France, ready to return and raise the Canadians at the first opportunity. 'On the other hand, there are only about seventy of these officers in Canada who have been in the French service.