* Mémoire a Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignday, présenté
par les Sieurs Chalons et Riverin, 1686.
** Champigny au Ministre, 1688.
*** Ibid.
**** Denonville au Ministre, 1686.
(v) Mémoire de Catalogue, 1712.
(v*) Denonville au Ministre, 1686.
(v**) Mémoire de Chalons et Riverin présenté au Marquis de
Seignelay.
in 1682, “to raise any crops except what each family wants for itself.” In vain the government sent out seeds for distribution. In vain intendants lectured the farmers, and lavished well-meant advice. Tillage remained careless and slovenly. “If,” says the all-observing Catalogne, “the soil were not better cultivated in Europe than here, three-fourths of the people would starve.” He complains that the festivals of the church are so numerous that not ninety working days are left during the whole working season. The people, he says, ought to be compelled to build granaries to store their crops, instead of selling them in autumn for almost nothing, and every habitant should be required to keep two or three sheep. The intendant Champigny calls for seed of hemp and flax, and promises to visit the farms, and show the people the lands best suited for their culture. He thinks that favors should be granted to those who raise hemp and flax as well as to those who marry. Denonville is of opinion that each habitant should be compelled to raise a little hemp every year, and that the king should then buy it of him at a high price. * It will be well, he says, to make use of severity, while, at the same time, holding out a hope of gain; and he begs that weavers be sent out to teach the women and girls, who spend the winter in idleness, how to weave and spin. Weaving and spinning, however, as well as the culture of hemp and flax, were neglected till 1705, when the loss of a ship laden with goods for the colony
* Denonville au Ministre, 13 Nov.. 1685
gave the spur to home industry; and Madame de Repentigny set the example of making a kind of coarse blanket of nettle and linden bark. *
The jealousy of colonial manufactures shown by England appears but rarely in the relations of France with Canada. According to its light, the French government usually did its best to stimulate Canadian industry, with what results we have just seen. There was afterwards some improvement. In 1714, the intendant Bégon reported that coarse fabrics of wool and linen were made; that the sisters of the congregation wore cloth for their own habits as good as the same stuffs in France; that black cloth was made for priests, and blue cloth for the pupils of the colleges. The inhabitants, he says, have been taught these arts by necessity. They were naturally adroit at handiwork of all kinds; and during the last half century of the French rule, when the population had settled into comparative stability, many of the mechanic arts were practised with success, notwithstanding the assertion of the Abbé La Tour that every thing but bread and meat had still to be brought from France. This change may be said to date from the peace of Utrecht, or a few years before it. At that time, one Duplessis had a new vessel on the stocks. Catalogne, who states the fact, calls it the beginning of ship-building in Canada, evidently ignorant that Talon had made a fruitless beginning more than forty years before.
Of the arts of ornament not much could have
* Beauharnois et Raudot au Ministre, 1705.
been expected; but, strangely enough, they were in somewhat better condition than the useful arts. The nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu made artificial flowers for altars and shrines, under the direction of Mother-Juchereau; * and the boys of the seminary were taught to make carvings in wood for the decoration of churches. ** Pierre, son of the merchant Le Ber, had a turn for painting, and made religious pictures, described as very indifferent. *** His sister Jeanne, an enthusiastic devotee, made embroideries for vestments and altars, and her work was much admired.
The colonial finances were not prosperous. In the absence of coin, beaver-skins long served as currency. In 1669, the council declared wheat a legal tender, at four francs the minot or three French bushels; **** and, five years later, all creditors were ordered to receive moose-skins in payment at the market rate. (v) Coin would not remain in the colony. If the company or the king sent any thither, it went back in the returning ships. The government devised a remedy. A coinage was ordered for Canada one-fourth less in value than that of France. Thus the Canadian livre or franc was worth, in reality, fifteen sous instead of twenty. (v*) This shallow expedient produced only a nominal rise of prices, and coin fled the colony as before.
* Juchereau, Hist, de l'Hôtel-Dieu, 244.
** Abeille, II., 13.
*** Faillon, Vie de Mlle. Le Ber, 331.
**** Edits et Ord., II. 47.
(v) Ibid., II. 55.
(v*) This device was of very early date. See Boucher, Hist.
Véritable chap, xiv