The institutions of France which were transferred to the New World or which exercised a direct influence on its political development belong to a period a century or a century and a half later than those of Spain which have just been described. Yet during that period there had been no essential alteration in the general direction of political development in France, and the system which Canada reflected in the seventeenth century was a more elaborate rather than a different system from that of the sixteenth. This development had, indeed, been in progress since the Hundred Years' War, and consisted in the steady rise of the power of the centralized monarchy. In Spain we have seen a sudden growth of absolutism and centralization within one reign. In France the foundation of the absolute monarchy was laid earlier, it was constructed more uniformly, and the resulting edifice was more firm and symmetrical.
The extension of the royal household, the sub-division of the royal councils, the creation of the parlements, [Footnote: Lavisse, Histoire de France, V., pt. i., 215.] the appointment of governors of provinces, bailiffs, and intendants, and the establishment of a complicated hierarchy of financial and judicial officers and official bodies, [Footnote: Ibid., V., 247.] were processes which arose from the fundamental conditions of France and from the genius of her government. In this development there were periods of rapid growth, as that of Francis I.; of temporary reaction, as that of the religious wars. Of the periods of the former none was more important and definitive than that which was in progress during the years in which Canada was struggling into existence—that is to say, the reigns of Henry IV. and Louis XIII., from 1589 to 1643. By the latter date, that of the accession of Louis XIV., the work was accomplished. France was, in theory and in practice, a despotism. It was so in theory, for Louis himself could declare, "All power, all authority, are in the hand of the king, and there can be none other in the kingdom than those which be established there." The epigram attributed to that monarch, "L'etat, c'est moi," was not an exaggerated description of the royal functions, according to the views of the king and of his most thoughtful ministers. "The ruler ought not to render accounts to any one of what he ordains. … No one can say to him, 'Why do you do thus?'" said Bossuet. In his copy-book as a child Louis XIV. was taught to write, "To kings homage is due; they do what they please." In practice the absolute power was no less a reality, since by royal decree the king not only made war and peace, determined upon foreign and internal policy, established religion, and codified law, but also disposed of the property of his subjects through arbitrary taxation. A systematic scheme of government, in which all lines should converge upward to the sovereign, could be drawn more justly for France in the seventeenth century than for any political structure since the Notitia Dignitatum was drawn up for the later Roman Empire.
The royal government was as simple territorially as it was in functions. It extended over all the territory of France and of the French possessions beyond the seas. Instead of a collection of provinces, of some of which the king was direct ruler, of others only feudal lord, as had been his position in the fourteenth century, he was now king equally over every one of his subjects in every part of his dominions. The administration of this territory had been transferred from its feudal lords to the king by the appointment in the fifteenth century of governors of the provinces, whose position was almost that of viceroys.
An even more effective instrument of royal control was afterwards created in the form of the intendants. Dating in their beginning from the middle of the sixteenth century, reintroduced by Henry IV. in his reconstruction of France after the religious wars, [Footnote: Rambaud, Hist. de la Civilisation Francaise, I., 537.] these officials were settled upon by Richelieu in the period between 1624 and 1641 as the principal agents and representatives of royal power. Eventually each province had its intendant alongside of the governor, and these thirty- four officials exercised the real government over France. They were drawn not from the great nobility, as were the governors, but from the petty nobility or purely official class; they had no local connections or interests apart from the crown which they served; they could be removed at will; they exercised powers only by consent and direction of the crown; they were, therefore, absolutely dependent. On the other hand, they were habitually invested with powers of almost unbounded extent. They could withdraw cases from the ordinary judges and hear and decide them themselves; they recruited and organized the army; they had oversight of the churches, the schools, roads, canals, agriculture, trade, and industries; they must see that peace was kept; and they must watch over and report on the actions of all other royal officials in the province, including the governor. It was the intendant who made the despotic government of the king a reality. John Law declared, in a letter to D'Argenson, that "this kingdom of France is governed by thirty intendants."
This despotism undoubtedly made France great, but it cost a terrible price. Like all supreme powers, it was jealous, and suffered no other public institutions to exist alongside of it. In competition with its power all older bodies became weak. The Estates General did not meet again after 1614; the parlements humbled themselves; provincial, municipal, and communal governments dropped into obscurity; the individual man, unless he was a functionary, lost all habit of political initiative, independence, or criticism. The mighty machine of the government was too vast, too complicated, and too distant for the common man to do aught but submit himself to it and lose much of his individual force thereby.
Enforced orthodoxy in religion was a natural outcome of the unity and symmetry of government; hence, notwithstanding the large number of Huguenots, the economic value of the Protestant element in the population, and the tolerance which might be expected from so enlightened a government, the Edict of Nantes was repealed in 1685, and, theoretically at least, all the population of France and of the French possessions were after this time orthodox Catholic Christians, thus again obtaining uniformity, but at the price of almost irreparable loss of population and of activity of mind.
Yet alongside this supreme despotic government had been preserved certain relics of feudalism. The sovereigns and great ministers who had humbled the aristocracy did not wish to humiliate it. While depriving the nobles of all political power they had carefully preserved to them their social privileges. This was done partly by giving them a favored position in the administration of the great machine of centralized royal government, partly by allowing the continuance of old feudal privileges. To the nobles were reserved all the higher positions in the army, navy, civil service, administration of the provinces, and in the church; [Footnote: Rambaud, Hist. de la Civilisation Francaise, II., 75-78.] and the government of French possessions beyond the seas was in almost all cases given to noblemen.
Of the feudal privileges of the nobility a number were profitable in money or gratifying to pride. Every landed noble had some degree of jurisdiction, frequently that of "high, mean, and petty justice"—that is to say, the right of trying and settling a large variety of judicial matters among his tenants; his right of punishment extending in some cases even to the infliction of the death penalty. He had the right to receive certain payments upon every sale or lease of the lands of any inhabitant of his fief; he received fees upon sales of cattle, grain, wine, meat, and other articles within the limits of his lands; he alone had the privilege of hunting and fishing or of collecting a fee for granting the privilege to others; and he alone could keep a dove-cote or a rabbit-warren; he had the banalites—i.e., the right of requiring all tenants on his estates to grind their grain at his mill and to bake at his oven; he had corvees—the right to a certain amount of unpaid labor from his tenants; his land was exempt from the taille, the most burdensome of taxes; and he had many other and diverse seigneurial rights, often, indeed, more vexatious to the tenant than they were profitable to the seigneur. [Footnote: Rambaud, Hist. de la Civilisation Francaise, II., 84-90.] These rights of land-holders were survivals from an earlier period; but they were survivals which still had great value and considerable vitality. Although permitted to exist by the absolute monarchy, they were in reality antagonistic to it in spirit, and might at any time, and actually did, become a serious disadvantage to it. Among the more primitive surroundings of Canada these privileges of a landed aristocracy obtained new life and vigor, and feudalism played a conspicuous if not a leading part in the troubled history of that colony. [Footnote: Parkman, The Old Regime in Canada, chaps. xii.-xv.]
Of the political institutions of Holland not so much need be said, for New Netherland was a commercial not a political creation, the factory of a trading company, not a self-governing colony. Yet, under the general control of the West India Company, municipal institutions were established at Manhattan, and in the form of the patroonships feudal powers were granted to large landholders along the Hudson and Long Island Sound; and in both these cases the models were drawn in large part from the home land.
The United Netherlands was a confederation of seven provinces, Holland being far the most influential. But Holland itself, as was true of the others, was in many respects a confederation of municipalities. The peculiar history of the country had been such that from a comparatively early period the towns and cities had obtained charters from their overlord, the count of Holland, or from lesser noblemen, granting them the most extensive rights and privileges. These rights had continued to be extended till the power of the count within the towns was narrowly restricted. His representative was the schout, but that official exercised rather a prosecuting and executing than an independent power, bringing offenders before a town court, [Footnote: Davies, History of Holland, I., 77.] and carrying out its judgments.