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They went to the seigneuries near Montreal and Three Rivers; when the best lands in these areas were taken up, they dispersed themselves along the whole north shore of the St Lawrence from below the Montmorency to its junction with the Ottawa.
As a result the edifices were rather ungainly as a rule, being built of rough-hewn timber. In 1681 there were only seven stone churches in all the seigneuries, and the royal officers deplored the fact that the people did not display greater pride or taste in the architecture of their sanctuaries.
These were great changes which sapped the spirit of the ancient institution. No longer bound to their dependants by any personal tie, the seigneurs usually turned affairs over to their bailiffs, men with hearts of adamant, who squeezed from the seigneuries every sou the hapless peasantry could yield. These publicans of the old regime have much to answer for.
The intendant might threaten and the priest might plead. It recked not to the coureur de bois when once his knees felt the bottom of the canoe. But of the seven thousand French who peopled Canada in 1672 it is probable that not more than four hundred were scattered through the forest. The greater part of the inhabitants occupied the seigneuries along the St Lawrence and the Richelieu.
The habitant on the seigneuries of Lower Canada continued to farm as his grandfather had farmed, finding his holding sufficient for his modest needs, even though divided into ever narrower ribbons as le bon Dieu sent more and yet more sons to share the heritage.
If a contractor for the yearly sale of the woods was bankrupt and did not pay, how could I get my interest? Answer me that, Gandrin." "Certainly you must run the risk of that chance." "Of course the chance occurs, and then I foreclose, seize, Rochebriant and its seigneuries are mine."
Catalogne, who was a native of Bearn, born in 1662, came to Canada about the year 1685. He was engaged on the improvement of the colonial fortifications until the intendant set him to work on a survey of the seigneuries.
They were aided, encouraged, and supported through the trying years of pioneering. As early as 1667 Laval was able to point with pride to the fact that his seigneuries of Beaupre and Isle d'Orleans contained over eleven hundred persons more than one-quarter of the colony's entire population. These ecclesiastical seigneuries, moreover, were among the best in point of intelligent cultivation.
But not all of the seigneuries were settled in this way, and it was well for the best interests of the colony that they were not. Too often the good soldier made only an indifferent yeoman. First in war, he was last in peace. The task of hammering spears into ploughshares and swords into pruning-hooks was not altogether to his liking.
Seigneuries were also established in Acadia; but they were bought out by the Crown about 1730, after the cession of that province to Great Britain. In the opinion of such authorities as Sulte and Munro the seigneurial system answered its purpose very well. At first the French would not have it touched.
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