_Social Influence of the Troops.--A Petty Tyrant.--Brawls.--Violence
and Outlawry.--State of the Population.--Views of
Denonville.--Brandy.--Beggary.--The Past and the Present.--Inns.--State
of Quebec.--Fires.--The Country Parishes.--Slavery.--Views of La
Hontan.--Of Hocquart.--Of Bougainville.--Of Kalm.--Of Charlevoix._
|The mission period of Canada, or the period anterior to the year 1663,
when the king took the colony in charge, has a character of its own.
The whole population did not exceed that of a large French village. Its
extreme poverty, the constant danger that surrounded it, and, above all,
the contagious zeal of the missionaries, saved it from many vices, and
inspired it with an extraordinary religious fervor. Without doubt an
ideal picture has been drawn of this early epoch. Trade as well as
propagandism was the business of the colony, and the colonists were
far from being all in a state of grace; yet it is certain that zeal was
higher, devotion more constant, and popular morals more pure, than at
any later period of the French rule.
The intervention of the king wrought a change. The annual shipments of
emigrants made by him were, in the most favorable view, of a very mixed
character, and the portion which Mother Mary calls _canaille_ was but
too conspicuous. Along with them came a regiment of soldiers fresh from
the license of camps and the excitements of Turkish wars, accustomed to
obey their officers and to obey nothing else, and more ready to wear the
scapulary of the Virgin in campaigns against the Mohawks than to square
their lives by the rules of Christian ethics. “Our good king,”
writes Sister Morin, of Montreal, “has sent troops to defend us from
the Iroquois, and the soldiers and officers have ruined the Lord’s
vineyard, and planted wickedness and sin and crime in our soil of
Canada.” * Few, indeed, among the officers followed the example of one
of their number, Paul Dupuy, who, in his settlement of Isle aux Oies,
below Quebec, lived, it is said, like a saint, and on Sundays and fête
days exhorted his servants and _habitans_ with such unction that their
eyes filled with tears. ** Nor, let us hope, were there many imitators
of Major La Fredière, who, with a company of the regiment, was sent to
garrison Montreal, where he ruled with absolute sway over settlers and
soldiers alike. His countenance naturally repulsive was made more so by
the loss of an eye; yet he was irrepressible in gallantry, and women and
girls fled in terror from the military Polyphemus. The men, too, feared
and hated him, not without reason. One morning a settler named Demers
was hoeing his field, when
* Annales de l'Hôtel-Dieu St Joseph, cited by Faillon.
** Juchereau, Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, 511
he saw a sportsman gun in hand striding through his half-grown wheat.
“Steady there, steady," he shouted in a tone of remonstrance; but the
sportsman gave no heed. “Why do you spoil a poor man’s wheat?”
cried the outraged cultivator. “If I knew who you were, I would go
and complain of you.” “Whom would you complain to?” demanded the
sportsman, who then proceeded to walk back into the middle of the wheat,
and called out to Demers, “You are a rascal, and I’ll thrash you.”
“Look at home for rascals,” retorted Demers, “and keep your
thrashing for your dogs.” The sportsman came towards him in a rage to
execute his threat. Demers picked up his gun, which, after the custom of
the time, he had brought to the field with him, and, advancing to meet
his adversary, recognized La Fredière, the commandant. On this he ran
off. La Fredière sent soldiers to arrest him, threw him into prison,
put him in irons, and the next day mounted him on the wooden horse, with
a weight of sixty pounds tied to each foot. He repeated the torture a
day or two after, and then let his victim go, saying, “If I could have
caught you when I was in your wheat, I would have beaten you well.”
The commandant next turned his quarters into a dram-shop for Indians,
to whom he sold brandy in large quantities, but so diluted that his
customers, finding themselves partially defrauded of their right of
intoxication, complained grievously. About this time the intendant
Talon made one of his domiciliary visits to Montreal, and when, in
his character of father of the people, he inquired if they had any
complaints to make, every tongue was loud in accusation against La
Fredière. Talon caused full depositions to be made out from the
statements of Demers and other witnesses. Copies were deposited in the
hands of the notary, and it is from these that the above story is drawn.
The tyrant was removed, and ordered home to France. *
Many other officers embarked in the profitable trade of selling brandy
to Indians, and several garrison posts became centres of disorder.
Others, of the regiment became notorious brawlers. A lieutenant of the
garrison of Montreal named Carion, and an ensign named Morel, had for
some reason conceived a violent grudge against another ensign named
Lormeau. On Pentecost day, just after vespers, Lormeau was walking by
the river with his wife. They had passed the common and the seminary
wall, and were in front of the house of the younger Charles Le Moyne,
when they saw Carion coming towards them. He stopped before Lormeau,
looked him full in the face, and exclaimed, “Coward.” “Coward
yourself,” returned Lormeau; “take yourself off.” Carion drew his
sword, and Lormeau followed his example. They exchanged a few passes;
then closed, and fell to the ground grappled together. Lormeau’s wig
fell off; and Carion, getting the uppermost, hammered his bare head with
the hilt of his sword. Lormeau’s
* Information contre La Fredière. See Faillon, Colonie
Française, III. 886. The dialogue, as here given from the
depositions, is translated as closely as possible.See
Faillon, Colonie Française, III.
wife, in a frenzy of terror, screamed _murder_. One of the neighbors,
Monsieur Belêtre, was at table with Charles Le Moyne and a Rochelle
merchant named Baston. He ran out with his two guests, and they tried to
separate the combatants, who still lay on the ground foaming like a pair
of enraged bull-dogs. All their efforts were useless. “Very well,”
said Le Moyne in disgust, “if you won’t let go, then kill each other
if you like.” A former military servant of Carion now ran up, and
began to brandish his sword in behalf of his late master. Carion’s
comrade, Morel, also arrived, and, regardless of the angry protest of
Le Moyne, stabbed repeatedly at Lormeau as he lay. Lormeau had received
two or three wounds in the hand and arm with which he parried the
thrusts, and was besides severely mauled by the sword-hilt of Carion,
when two Sulpitian priests, drawn by the noise, appeared on the scene.
One was Fremont, the curé; the other was Dollier de Casson. That
herculean father, whose past soldier life had made him at home in a
fray, and who cared nothing for drawn swords, set himself at once to
restore peace, upon which, whether from the strength of his arm, or the
mere effect of his presence, the two champions released their gripe
on each other’s throats, rose, sheathed their weapons, and left the
field. *
Montreal, a frontier town at the head of the
* Requête de Lormeau a M. d'Aillebout. Dépositions de MM.
de Longueuïl (Le Moyne), de Baston, de Belêtre, et autres.
Cited by Faillon, Colonie Française, III. 393.
colony, was the natural resort of desperadoes, offering, as we have
seen, a singular contrast between the rigor of its clerical seigniors
and the riotous license of the lawless crew which infested it. Dollier
de Casson tells the story of an outlaw who broke prison ten or twelve
times, and whom no walls, locks, or fetters could hold. “A few months
ago,” he says, “he was caught again, and put into the keeping of six
or seven men, each with a good gun. They stacked their arms to play a
game of cards, which their prisoner saw fit to interrupt to play a game
of his own. He made a jump at the guns, took them under his arm like so
many feathers, aimed at these fellows with one of them, swearing that
he would kill the first who came near him, and so, falling back step by
step, at last bade them good-by, and carried off all their guns. Since
then he has not been caught, and is roaming the woods. Very likely he
will become chief of our banditti, and make great trouble in the country
when it pleases him to come back from the Dutch settlements, whither
they say he is gone along with another rascal, and a French woman so
depraved that she is said to have given or sold two of her children to
the Indians.” *
When the governor, La Barre, visited Montreal, he found there some two
hundred reprobates gambling, drinking, and stealing. If hard pressed by
justice, they had only to cross the river and place themselves beyond
the seigniorial jurisdiction. The military settlements of the Richelieu
* Dollier de Casson, Histoire de Montréal, 1671, 72
were in a condition somewhat similar, and La Barre complains of a
prevailing spirit of disobedience and lawlessness. * The most orderly
and thrifty part of Canada appears to have been at this time the _cote_
of Beaupré, belonging to the seminary of Quebec. Here the settlers had
religious instruction from their curés, and industrial instruction
also if they wanted it. Domestic spinning and weaving were practised at
Beaupré sooner than in any other part of the colony.
When it is remembered that a population which in La Barre’s time did
not exceed ten thousand, and which forty years later did not much exceed
twice that number, was scattered along both sides of a great river for
three hundred miles or more; that a large part of this population was in
isolated groups of two, three, five, ten, or twenty houses at the edge
of a savage wilderness; that between them there was little communication
except by canoes; that the settlers were disbanded soldiers, or
others whose fives had been equally adverse to habits of reflection
or self-control; that they rarely saw a priest, and that a government
omnipotent in name had not arms long enough to reach them,--we may
listen without surprise to the lamentations of order-loving officials
over the unruly condition of a great part of the colony. One accuses
the seigniors, who, he says, being often of low extraction, cannot keep
their vassals in order. ** Another dwells sorrowfully on the “terrible
dispersion” of
* La Barre au Ministre, 4 Nov., 1683.
** Catalogne, Mémoire addressé au Ministre, 1712
the settlements where the inhabitants "live in a savage independence.”
But it is better that each should speak for himself, and among the rest
let us hear the pious Denonville.
“This, monseigneur, seems to me the place for rendering you an account
of the disorders which prevail not only in the woods, but also in the
settlements. They arise from the idleness of young persons, and the
great liberty which fathers, mothers, and guardians have for a long time
given them, or allowed them to assume, of going into the forest under
pretence of hunting or trading. This has come to such a pass, that, from
the moment a boy can carry a gun, the father cannot restrain him and
dares not offend him. You can judge the mischief that follows.
These disorders are always greatest in the families of those who are
_gentilshommes_, or who through laziness or vanity pass themselves off
as such. Having no resource but hunting, they must spend their lives in
the woods, where they have no curés to trouble them, and no fathers
or guardians to constrain them. I think, monseigneur, that martial law
would suit their case better than any judicial sentence.
“Monsieur de la Barre suppressed a certain order of knighthood which
had sprung up here, but he did not abolish the usages belonging to
it. It was thought a fine thing and a good joke to go about naked and
tricked out like Indians, not only on carnival days, but on all other
days of feasting and debauchery. These practices tend to encourage
the disposition of our young men to live like sav ages, frequent their
company, and be for ever unruly and lawless like them. I; cannot tell
you, monseigneur, how attractive this Indian life is to all our youth.
It consists in doing nothing, caring for nothing, following every
inclination, and getting out of the way of all correction.” He goes on
to say that the mission villages governed by the Jesuits and Sulpitians
are models of good order, and that drunkards are never seen there except
when they come from the neighboring French settlements; but that
the other Indians who roam at large about the colony, do prodigious
mischief, because the children of the seigniors not only copy their way
of life, but also run off with their women into the woods. *
“Nothing,” he continues, “can be finer or better conceived than
the regulations framed for the government of this country; but nothing,
I assure you, is so ill observed as regards both the fur trade and the
general discipline of the colony. One great evil is the infinite number
of drinking-shops, which makes it almost impossible to remedy the
disorders resulting from them. All the rascals and idlers of the country
are attracted into this business of tavern-keeping. They never dream of
tilling the soil; but, on the contrary, they deter the other inhabitants
from it, and end with ruining
* Raudot, who was intendant early in the eighteenth
century, is a little less gloomy in his coloring, but says
that Canadian children were without discipline or education,
had no respect for parents or cure's, and owned no
superiors. This, he thinks, is owing to “la folle tendresse
des parents qui les empêche de les corriger et de leur
former le caractère qu’ils ont dur et féroce.”
them. I know seigniories where there are but twenty houses, and moire
than half of them dram shops. At Three Rivers there are twenty-five
houses, and liquor may be had at eighteen or twenty of them. Villemarie
(_Montreal_) and Quebec are on the same footing.”
The governor next dwells on the necessity of finding occupation
for children and youths, a matter which he regards as of the last
importance. "It is sad to see the ignorance of the population at a
distance from the abodes of the curés, who are put to the greatest
trouble to remedy the evil by travelling from place to place through the
parishes in their charge.” *
La Barre, Champigny, and Duchesneau write in a similar strain. Bishop
Saint-Vallier, in an epistolary journal which he printed of a tour
through the colony made on his first arrival, gives a favorable account
of the disposition of the people, especially as regards religion. He
afterwards changed his views. An abstract made from his letters for the
use of the king states that he "represents, like M. Denonville, that the
Canadian youth are for the most part wholly demoralized.” **
"The bishop was very sorry,” says a correspondent of the minister at
Quebec, "to have so much exaggerated in the letter he printed at Paris
the morality of the people here.” *** He preached a sermon on the
sins of the inhabitants and issued a pastoral mandate, in which he says,
"Before we
* Denonville au Ministre, 13 Nov. 1685.
** N. Y. Colonial Documents, IX. 278.
*** Ibid., IX. 388.
knew our flock we thought that the English and the Iroquois were the
only wolves we had to fear; but God having opened our eyes to the
disorders of this diocese, and made us feel more than ever the weight
of our charge, we are forced to confess that our most dangerous foes are
drunkenness, luxury, impurity, and slander.” *
Drunkenness was at this time the most destructive vice in the colony.
One writer declares that most of the Canadians drink so much brandy in
the morning, that they are unfit for work all day. ** Another says that
a canoe-man when he is tired will lift a keg of brandy to his lips and
drink the raw liquor from the bung-hole, after which, having spoiled
his appetite, he goes to bed supperless; and that, what with drink
and hardship, he is an old man at forty. Nevertheless the race did
not deteriorate. The prevalence of early marriages, and the birth of
numerous offspring before the vigor of the father had been wasted,
ensured the strength and hardihood which characterized the Canadians.
As Denonville describes them so they long remained. “The Canadians
are tall, well-made, and well set on their legs (_bienplantés sur leurs
jambes_), robust, vigorous, and accustomed in time of need to live
on little. They have intelligence and vivacity, but are wayward,
light-minded, and inclined to debauchery.”
As the population increased, as the rage for
* Ordonnance contre les vices de l’ivrognerie, luxe, et
impureté, 31 Oct., 1690.
** N Y. Colonial Documents. IX. 398.
bush-ranging began to abate, and, above all, as the curés multiplied,
a change took place for the better. More churches were built, the charge
of each priest was reduced within reasonable bounds, and a greater
proportion of the inhabitants remained on their farms. They were better
watched, controlled, and taught, by the church. The ecclesiastical
power, wherever it had a hold, was exercised, as we have seen, with
an undue rigor, yet it was the chief guardian of good morals; and the
colony grew more orderly and more temperate as the church gathered more
and more of its wild and wandering flock fairly within its fold. In
this, however, its success was but relative. It is true that in 1715 a
well-informed writer says that the people were “perfectly instructed
in religion;” * but at that time the statement was only partially
true.
During the seventeenth century, and some time after its close, Canada
swarmed with beggars, a singular feature in a new country where a good
farm could be had for the asking. In countries intensely Roman Catholic
begging is not regarded as an unmixed evil, being supposed to promote
two cardinal virtues,--charity in the giver and humility in the
receiver. The Canadian officials nevertheless tried to restrain it.
Vagabonds of both sexes were ordered to leave Quebec, and nobody was
allowed to beg without a certificate of poverty from the curé or the
local judge. ** These orders were not
* Mémoire addressé au Regent.
** Réglement de Police, 1676.
always observed. Bishop Saint-Vallier writes that he is overwhelmed
by beggars, * and the intendant echoes his complaint. Almshouses
were established at Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec; ** and when
Saint-Vallier founded the General Hospital, its chief purpose was to
serve, not as a hospital in the ordinary sense of the word, but as a
house of refuge, after the plan of the General Hospital of Paris. ***
Appeal, as usual, was made to the king. Denonville asks his aid for two
destitute families, and says that many others need it. Louis XIV. did
not fail to respond, and from time to time he sent considerable sums for
the relief of the Canadian poor. ****
Denonville says, “The principal reason of the poverty of this country
is the idleness and bad conduct of most of the people. The greater part
of the women, including all the _demoiselles_, are very lazy.” (v)
Meules proposes as a remedy that the king should establish a general
workshop in the colony, and pay the workmen himself during the first
five or six years. (v*) “The persons here,” he says, “who have
wished to make a figure are nearly all so overwhelmed with debt that
they may be
* N. Y. Colonial Documents, IX. 279.
** Edits et Ordonnances, II. 119.
*** On the General Hospital of Quebec, see Juchereau, 355.
In 1692, the minister writes to Frontenac and Champigny that
they should consider well whether this house of refuge will
not “augmenter la fainéantise parmi les habitans,” by giving
them a sure support in poverty.
**** As late as 1701, six thousand livres were granted
Callieres au Ministre, 4 Nov., 1701.
(v) Denonville et Champigny au Ministre, 6 Nov,, 1687.
(v*) Meules au Ministre, 12 Nov., 1682.
considered as in the last necessity.” * He adds that many of
the people go half-naked even in winter. “The merchants of this
country,” says the intendant Duchesneau, “are all plunged in
poverty, except five or six at the most; it is the same with the
artisans, except a small number, because the vanity of the women and
the debauchery of the men consume all their gains. As for such of the
laboring class as apply themselves steadily to cultivating the soil,
they not only live very well, but are incomparably better off than the
better sort of peasants in France.” **
All the writers lament the extravagant habits of the people; and even
La Hontan joins hands with the priests in wishing that the supply of
ribbons, laces, brocades, jewelry, and the like, might be cut off: by
act of law. Mother Juchereau tells us that, when the English invasion
was impending, the belles of Canada were scared for a while into modesty
in order to gain the favor of heaven; but, as may be imagined, the
effect was short, and Father La Tour declares that in his time all the
fashions except _rouge_ came over regularly in the annual ships.
The manners of the mission period, on the other hand, were extremely
simple. The old governor, Lauzon, lived on pease and bacon like a
laborer, and kept no man-servant. He was regarded, it is true, as a
miser, and held in slight account. *** Magdeleine Boucher, sister of the
governor of Three Rivers,
* Meules, Mémoire touchant le Canada et l’Acadie, 1684.
** Duchesneau au Ministre, 10 Nov., 1679.
*** Mémoire d’Aubert de la Chesnaye, 1676
brought her husband two hundred francs in money, four sheets, two
table-cloths, six napkins of linen and hemp, a mattress, a blanket, two
dishes, six spoons and six tin plates, a pot and a kettle, a table and
two benches, a kneading-trough, a chest with lock and key, a cow, and a
pair of hogs. * But the Bouchers were a family of distinction, and the
bride’s dowry answered to her station. By another marriage contract,
at about the same time, the parents of the bride, being of humble
degree, bind themselves to present the bridegroom with a barrel of
bacon, deliverable on the arrival of the ships from France. **
Some curious traits of this early day appear in the license of Jean
Boisdon as innkeeper. He is required to establish himself on the great
square of Quebec, close to the church, so that the parishioners may
conveniently warm and refresh themselves between the services; but he is
forbidden to entertain anybody during high mass, sermon, catechism, or
vespers. *** Matters soon changed; Jean Boisdon lost his monopoly, and
inns sprang up on all hands. They did not want for patrons, and we find
some of their proprietors mentioned as among the few thriving men in
Canada. Talon tried to regulate them, and, among other rules, ordained
that no innkeeper should furnish food or drink to any hired laborer
whatever, or to any
* Contrat de marriage, cited by Ferland, Notes, 73.
** Contrat de marriage, cited by Benjamin Suite in Revue
Canadienne, IX. 111.
*** Acte officielle, 1648, cited by Ferland. Cours
d’Histoire du Canada, I. 865.
person residing in the place where his inn was situated. An innkeeper of
Montreal was fined for allowing the syndic of the town to dine under his
roof. *
One gets glimpses of the pristine state of Quebec through the early
police regulations. Each inhabitant was required to make a gutter along
the middle of the street before his house, and also to remove refuse and
throw it into the river. All dogs, without exception, were ordered home
at nine o’clock. On Tuesdays and Fridays there was a market in the
public square, whither the neighboring _habitants_, male and female,
brought their produce for sale, as they still continue to do. Smoking
in the street was forbidden, as a precaution against fire; householders
were required to provide themselves with ladders, and when the fire
alarm was rung all able-bodied persons were obliged to run to the scene
of danger with buckets or kettles full of water. ** This did not prevent
the Lower Town from burning to the ground in 1682. It was soon rebuilt,
but a repetition of the catastrophe seemed very likely. “This
place,” says Denonville, “is in a fearful state as regards fire;
for the houses are crowded together out of all reason, and so surrounded
with piles of cord-wood that it is pitiful to see.” *** Add to this
the stores of hay for the cows kept by many of the inhabitants for the
benefit of their swarming progeny.
* Faillon, Colonie Française, III. 405.
** Réglement de Police, 1672. Ibid., 1676.
*** Denonville au Ministre, 20 Août, 1686
The houses were at this time low, compact buildings, with gables of
masonry, as required by law; but many had wooden fronts, and all had
roofs covered with cedar shingles. The anxious governor begs that, as
the town has not a _sou_ of revenue, his Majesty will be pleased to make
it the gift of two hundred crowns’ worth of leather fire-buckets.
* Six or seven years after, certain citizens were authorized by the
council to import from France, at their own cost, “a pump after the
Dutch fashion, for throwing water on houses in case of fire.” ** How
a fire was managed at Quebec appears from a letter of the engineer,
Yasseur, describing the burning of Laval’s seminary in 1701. Vasseur
was then at Quebec, directing the new fortifications. On a Monday in
November, all the pupils of the seminary and most of the priests went,
according to their weekly custom, to recreate themselves at a house and
garden at St. Michel, a short distance from town. The few priests who
remained went after dinner to say vespers at the church. Only one,
Father Petit, was left in the seminary, and he presently repaired to the
great hall to rekindle the fire in the stove and warm the place
against the return of his brethren. His success surpassed his wishes. A
firebrand snapped out in his absence and set the pine floor in a blaze.
Father Boucher, curé of Point Levi, chanced to come in, and was half
choked by the smoke. He cried _fire!_ the servants
* Denonville au Ministre, 20 Août, 1685.
** Réglement de 1691, extract in Ferland.
ran for water; but the flames soon mastered them; they screamed
the alarm, and the bells began to ring. Vasseur was dining with the
intendant at his palace by the St. Charles, when he heard a frightened
voice crying out, “Monsieur, you are wanted; you are wanted.” He
sprang from table, saw the smoke rolling in volumes from the top of
the rock, ran up the steep ascent, reached the seminary, and found an
excited crowd making a prodigious outcry. He shouted for carpenters.
Four men came to him, and he set them at work with such tools as they
had to tear away planks and beams, and prevent the fire from spreading
to the adjacent parts of the building; but, when he went to find others
to help them, they ran off. He set new men in their place, and these
too ran off the moment his back was turned. A cry was raised that the
building was to be blown up, on which the crowd scattered for their
lives. Vasseur now gave up the seminary for lost, and thought only of
cutting off the fire from the rear of the church, which was not far
distant. In this he succeeded, by tearing down an intervening wing or
gallery. The walls of the burning building were of massive stone, and by
seven o’clock the fire had spent itself. We hear nothing of the Dutch
pump, nor does it appear that the soldiers of the garrison made any
effort to keep order. Under cover of the confusion, property was stolen
from the seminary to the amount of about two thousand livres, which is
remarkable, considering the religious character of the building, and
the supposed piety of the people. “There were more than three hundred
persons at the fire," says Yasseur; “but thirty picked men would have
been worth more than the whole of them.” *
August, September, and October were the busy months at Quebec. Then the
ships from France discharged their lading, the shops and warehouses of
the Lower Town were filled with goods, and the _habitants_ came to town
to make their purchases. When the frosts began, the vessels sailed away,
the harbor was deserted, the streets were silent again, and like ants or
squirrels the people set at work to lay in their winter stores. Fathers
of families packed their cellars with beets, carrots, potatoes, and
cabbages; and, at the end of autumn, with meat, fowls, game, fish, and
eels, all frozen to stony hardness. Most of the shops closed, and the
long season of leisure and amusement began. New Year’s day brought
visits and mutual gifts. Thence till Lent dinner parties were frequent,
sometimes familiar and sometimes ceremonious. The governor’s little
court at the chateau was a standing example to all the aspiring spirits
of Quebec, and forms and orders of precedence were in some houses
punctiliously observed. There were dinners to the military and civic
dignitaries and their wives, and others, quite distinct, to prominent
citizens. The wives and daughters of the burghers of Quebec are said to
have been superior in manners to women of the corresponding
* Vasseur au Ministre, 2-4 Nov., 1701. Like Denonville
before him, he urges the need of fire-buckets.
class in France. “They have wit,” says La Potherie, “delicacy,
good voices, and a great fondness for dancing. They are discreet, and
not much given to flirting; but when they undertake to catch a lover it
is not easy for him to escape the bands of Hymen.” *
So much for the town. In the country parishes, there was the same
autumnal stowing away of frozen vegetables, meat, fish, and eels, and
unfortunately the same surfeit of leisure through five months of the
year. During the seventeenth century, many of the people were so
poor that women were forced to keep at home from sheer want of winter
clothing. Nothing, however, could prevent their running from house to
house to exchange gossip with the neighbors, who all knew each other,
and, having nothing else to do, discussed each other’s affairs with
an industry which often bred bitter quarrels. At a later period, a more
general introduction of family weaving and spinning served at once to
furnish clothing and to promote domestic peace.
The most important persons in a parish were the curé, the seignior, and
the militia captain. The seignior had his bench of honor in the church.
Immediately behind it was the bench of the militia captain, whose
duty it was to drill the able-bodied men of the neighborhood, direct
road-making and other public works, and serve as deputy to the
intendant, whose ordinances he was required to enforce. Next in honor
came the local judge any there was, and the church-wardens.
* La Potherie. I. 279.
The existence of slavery in Canada dates from the end of the seventeenth
century. In 1688, the attorney-general made a visit to Paris, and urged
upon the king the expediency of importing negroes from the West Indies
as a remedy for the scarcity and dearness of labor. The king consented,
but advised caution, on the ground that the rigor of the climate would
make the venture a critical one. * A number of slaves were brought
into the colony; but the system never flourished, the climate and other
circumstances being hostile to it. Many of the colonists, especially at
Detroit and other outlying posts, owned slaves of a remote Indian tribe,
the Pawnees. The fact is remarkable, since it would be difficult to find
another of the wild tribes of the continent capable of subjection to
domestic servitude. The Pawnee slaves were captives taken in war
and sold at low prices to the Canadians. Their market value was much
impaired by their propensity to run off.
It is curious to observe the views of the Canadians taken at different
times by different writers. La Hontan says, “They are vigorous,
enterprising, and indefatigable, and need nothing but education. They
are presumptuous and full of self-conceit, regard themselves as
above all the nations of the earth, and, unfortunately, have not the
veneration for their parents that they ought to have. The women are
generally pretty; few of them are
* Instruction au Sr. de Frontenac, 1689. On Canadian
slavery, see a long paper, l'Esclavage en Canada, published
by the Historical Society of Montreal.
brunettes; many of them are discreet, and a good number are lazy. They
are fond to the last degree of dress and show, and each tries to outdo
the rest in the art of catching a husband.” *
Fifty years later, the intendant Hocquart writes, “The Canadians are
fond of distinctions and attentions, plume themselves on their courage,
and are extremely sensitive to slights or the smallest corrections. They
are self-interested, vindictive, prone to drunkenness, use a great deal
of brandy, and pass for not being at all truthful. This portrait is true
of many of them, particularly the country people: those of the towns are
less vicious. They are all attached to religion, and criminals are rare.
They are volatile, and think too well of themselves, which prevents
their succeeding as they might in farming and trade. They have not the
rude and rustic air of our French peasants. If they are put on their
honor and governed with justice, they are tractable enough; but their
natural disposition is indocile.” *
The navigator Bougainville, in the last years of the French rule,
describes the Canadian _habitant_ as essentially superior to the French
peasant, and adds, “He is loud, boastful, mendacious, obliging, civil,
and honest; indefatigable in hunting, travelling, and bush-ranging, but
lazy in tilling the soil.” ***
The Swedish botanist, Kalm, an excellent observer, was in Canada a few
years before Bougainville,
* La Hontan, II. 81 (ed. 1709).
** Mémoire de 1736.
*** Mémoire de 1757, printed in Margry, Relations Inédites.
and sketches from life the following traits of Canadian manners. The
language is chat of the old English translation. “The men here (_at
Montreal_) are extremely civil, and take their hats off to every person
indifferently whom they meet in the streets. The women in general are
handsome; they are well bred and virtuous, with an innocent and becoming
freedom. They dress out very fine on Sundays, and though on the other
days they do not take much pains with the other parts of their dress,
yet they are very fond of adorning their heads, the hair of which is
always curled and powdered and ornamented with glittering bodkins and
aigrettes. They are not averse to taking part in all the business of
housekeeping, and I have with pleasure seen the daughters of the better
sort of people, and of the governor (_of Montreal_) himself, not too
finely dressed, and going into kitchens and cellars to look that every
thing be done as it ought. What I have mentioned above of their dressing
their heads too assiduously is the case with all the ladies throughout
Canada. Their hair is always curled even when they are at home in a
dirty jacket, and short coarse petticoat that does not reach to the
middle of their legs. On those days when they pay or receive visits they
dress so gayly that one is almost induced to think their parents possess
the greatest honors in the state. They are no less attentive to have the
newest fashions, and they laugh at each other when they are not dressed
to each other’s fancy. One of the first questions they propose to a
stranger is, whether he is married; the next, how he likes the ladies of
the country, and whether he thinks them handsomer than those of his
own country; and the third, whether he will take one home with him. The
behavior of the ladies seemed to me somewhat too free at Quebec, and
of a more becoming modesty at Montreal. Those of Quebec are not very
industrious. The young ladies, especially those of a higher rank, get
up at seven and dress till nine, drinking their coffee at the same time.
When they are dressed, they place themselves near a window that opens
into the street, take up some needlework and sew a stitch now and then,
but turn their eyes into the street most of the time. When a young
fellow comes in, whether they are acquainted with him or not, they
immediately lay aside their work, sit down by him, and begin to chat,
laugh, joke, and invent _double-entendres_, and this is reckoned being
very witty. In this manner they frequently pass the whole day, leaving
their mothers to do the business of the house. They are likewise
cheerful and content, and nobody can say that they want either wit or
charms. Their fault is that they think too well of themselves. However,
the daughters of people of all ranks without exception go to market and
carry home what they have bought. The girls at Montreal are very much
displeased that those at Quebec get husbands sooner than they. The
reason of this is that many young gentlemen who come over from France
with the ships are captivated by the ladies at Quebec and marry them;
but, as these gentlemen seldom go up to Montreal, the girls there are
not often so happy as those of the former place." *
Long before Kalm’s visit, the Jesuit Charlevoix, a traveller and a
man of the world, wrote thus of Quebec in a letter to the Duchesse de
Lesdiguières: “There is a select little society here which wants
nothing to make it agreeable. In the _salons_ of the wives of the
governor and of the intendant, one finds circles as brilliant as in
other countries.” These circles were formed partly of the principal
inhabitants, but chiefly of military officers and government officials,
with their families. Charlevoix continues, “Everybody does his part
to make the time pass pleasantly, with games and parties of pleasure;
drives and canoe excursions in summer, sleighing and skating in winter.
There is a great deal of hunting and shooting, for many Canadian
gentlemen are almost destitute of any other means of living at their
ease. The news of the day amounts to very little indeed, as the country
furnishes scarcely any, while that from Europe comes all at once.
Science and the fine arts have their turn, and conversation does not
fail. The Canadians breathe from their birth an air of liberty, which
makes them very pleasant in the intercourse of life, and our language is
nowhere more purely spoken. One finds here no rich persons whatever, and
this is a great pity; for the Canadians like to get the credit of their
money, and scarcely anybody
* Kalm, Travels into North America, translated into English
by John Reinold Forster (London, 1771), 56, 282, etc.
amuses himself with hoarding it. They say it is very different with our
neighbors the English, and one who knew the two colonies only by the way
of living, acting, and speaking of the colonists would not hesitate to
judge ours the more flourishing. In New England and the other British
colonies, there reigns an opulence by which the people seem not to know
how to profit; while in New France poverty is hidden under an air of
ease which appears entirely natural. The English colonist keeps as much
and spends as little as possible: the French colonist enjoys what he has
got, and often makes a display of what he has not got. The one labors
for his heirs: the other leaves them to get on as they can, like
himself. I could push the comparison farther; but I must close here:
the king’s ship is about to sail, and the merchant vessels are getting
ready to follow. In three days perhaps, not one will be left in the
harbor.” * And now we, too, will leave Canada. Winter draws near, and
the first patch of snow lies gleaming on the distant mountain of Cape
Tourmente. The sun has set in chill autumnal beauty, and the sharp
spires of fir-trees on the heights of Sillery stand stiff and black
against the pure cold amber of the fading west. The ship sails in the
morning; and, before the old towers of Rochelle rise in sight, there
will be time to smoke many a pipe, and ponder what we have seen on the
banks of the St Lawrence.
* Charlevoix. Journal Historique 80 (ed. 1744).