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In 1670, however, he was back at Quebec again, and having married a daughter of the colony, applied at once for the grant of a seigneury. This was given to him in the form of a large tract, two leagues square, on the south shore of the lower St Lawrence, between the seigneury of Beaumont des Islets and the Bellechasse channel.
As he had come home from the futile public meeting, galloping through the streets and out upon the Seigneury road in the dusk, his horse had shied upon a bridge, where mischievous lads waylaid travellers with ghostly heads made of lighted candles in hollowed pumpkins, and horse and man had been plunged into the stream beneath.
Already the king had recognized Le Moyne's progressive spirit by giving him rank in the noblesse, the letters-patent having been issued in 1668. On this seigneury the first of the Le Moynes de Longueuil lived and worked until his death in 1685. Charles Le Moyne had a family of eleven sons, of whom ten grew to manhood and became figures of prominence in the later history of New France.
One day as Ferrol, entirely convalescent, was sitting in an arbour of the Manor garden, half asleep, he was awakened by voices near him. He did not recognise one of the voices; the other was Nic Lavilette's. The strange voice was saying: "I have collected five thousand dollars all that can be got in the two counties. It is at the Seigneury. Here is an order on the Seigneur Duhamel.
"Manette wanted it when the leaves first flourish and the birds come back," he said gaily; "and so she's not going to live with me at the Seigneury, you see. No, there it is, as fine a house, good enough for a prince, and I shall be there alone, unless " His eyes met hers, and he caught the light that was in them, before the eyelids drooped over them and she turned her head to the fire.
There was a definite limit to their loyalty to him; and, deprived of the Seigneury, he would count for nothing. A hundred thoughts like these went through her mind as she stood by the table under the hanging lamp, her face white as the loose robe she wore, her eyes hot and staring, her figure rigid as stone. To-morrow how could she face to-morrow, and Louis! How could she tell him this!
He took what the law gave him, what has been in his family for over two hundred years. Monsieur, it has meant more to him than a hundred times greater honour could to you. When his trouble came, when " she paused, as though it was difficult to speak "when the other legacy of his family descended on him, that Seigneury became to him the one compensation of his life.
If La Salle intended to become a yeoman of New France, his choice of a site was not of the best. The seigneury which he acquired was one of the most dangerous spots in the whole colony, being right in the path of Iroquois attack. He was able to gather a few settlers around him, it is true, but their homes had to be enclosed by palisades, and they hardly dared venture into the fields unarmed.
No custom of the manor or seigneury could prevail against written contracts and statute-law. But the judges do not seem to have grasped this distinction; when cases involving disputed obligations came before them they called in notaries to establish what the local customs were, and rendered judgment accordingly. This gave the seigneur a great advantage, for the notaries usually took their side.
He had won distinction in his profession as a notary, as a speaker in the Assembly, and as a soldier in the defense of Quebec against the American invaders of 1775. In 1804 he had purchased the seigneury of La Petite Nation, far up the Ottawa. Louis Joseph Papineau followed in his father's footsteps. Born in 1786, he served loyally and bravely in the War of 1812.
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