Marguerite Bourgeoys
From an engraving by L Massard.
At Quebec, where the matrimonial market was on a larger scale, a more ample bazaar was needed. That the girls were assorted into three classes, each penned up for selection in a separate hall, is a statement probable enough in itself, but resting on no better authority than that of La Hontan. Be this as it may, they were submitted together to the inspection of the suitor; and the awkward young peasant or the rugged soldier of Carignan was required to choose a bride without delay from among the anxious candidates. They, on their part, were permitted to reject any applicant who displeased them, and the first question, we are told, which most of them asked was whether the suitor had a house and a farm.
Great as was the call for wives, it was thought prudent to stimulate it. The new settler was at once
* Extract in Faillon, Colonie Française, III. 214.
enticed and driven into wedlock. Bounties were offered on early marriages. Twenty livres were given to each youth who married before the age of twenty, and to each girl who married before the age of sixteen. * This, which was called the “king’s gift,” was exclusive of the dowry given by him to every girl brought over by his orders. The dowry varied greatly in form and value; but, according to Mother Mary, it was sometimes a house with provisions for eight months. More often it was fifty livres in household supplies, besides a barrel or two of salted meat. The royal solicitude extended also to the children of colonists already established. “I pray you,” writes Colbert to Talon, “to commend it to the consideration of the whole people, that their prosperity, their subsistence, and all that is dear to them, depend on a general resolution, never to be departed from, to marry youths at eighteen or nineteen years and girls at fourteen or fifteen; since abundance can never come to them except through the abundance of men.” ** This counsel was followed by appropriate action. Any father of a family who, without showing good cause, neglected to marry his children when they had reached the ages of twenty and sixteen was fined; *** and each father thus delinquent was required to present himself every six months to the local authorities to declare what
* Arrêt du Conseil d’Etat du Roy (see Edits et Ordonnances,
I. 67).
** Colbert a Talon, 20 Fev., 1668.
*** Arrêts du Conseil d’Etat, 1669 (cited by Faillon);
Arrêt du Conseil d Etat, 1670 (see Edits et Ordonnances, I.
67); Ordonnance du Roy, 5 Avril, 1669. See Clément,
Instructions, etc., de Colbert, III. 2me Partie, 657.
reason, if any, he had for such delay. * Orders were issued, a little before the arrival of the yearly ships from France, that all single men should marry within a fortnight after the landing of the prospective brides. No mercy was shown to the obdurate bachelor. Talon issued an order forbidding unmarried men to hunt, fish, trade with the Indians, or go into the woods under any pretence whatsoever. ** In short, they were made as miserable as possible. Colbert goes further. He writes to the intendant, “those who may seem to have absolutely renounced marriage should be made to bear additional burdens, and be excluded from all honors: it would be well even to add some marks of infamy.” *** The success of these measures was complete. “No sooner,” says Mother Mary, “have the vessels arrived than the young men go to get wives; and, by reason of the great number they are married by thirties at a time.” Throughout the length and breadth of Canada, Hymen,
* Registre du Conseil Souverain.
** Talon au Ministre, 10 Oct., 1670. Colbert highly
approves this order. Faillon found a case of its enforcement
among the ancient records of Montreal. In December, 1670,
François Le Noir, an inhabitant of La Chine, was summoned
before the judge, because, though a single man, he had
traded with Indians at his own house. He confessed the fact,
but protested that he would marry within three weeks after
the arrival of the vessels from France, or, failing to do
so, that he would give a hundred and fifty livres to the
church of Montreal, and an equal sum to the hospital.
On this condition he was allowed to trade, but was still
forbidden to go into the woods. The next year he kept his
word, and married Marie Magdeleine Charbonnier, late of
Paris.
The prohibition to go into the woods was probably intended
to prevent the bachelor from finding a temporary Indian
substitute for a French wife.
*** “Il serait à propos de leur augmenter les charges, de
les priver de tous honneurs, même d’y ajouter quelque marque
d’infamie.” Lettre du 20 Fev., 1668.
if not Cupid, was whipped into a frenzy of activity. Dollier de Casson tells us of a widow who was married afresh before her late husband was buried. *
Nor was the fatherly care of the king confined to the humbler classes of his colonists. He wished to form a Canadian noblesse, to which end early marriages were thought needful among officers and others of the better sort. The progress of such marriages was carefully watched and reported by the intendant. We have seen the reward bestowed upon La Motte for taking to himself a wife, and the money set apart for the brother officers who imitated him. In his despatch of October, 1667, the intendant announces that two captains are already married to two damsels of the country; that a lieutenant has espoused a daughter of the governor of Three Rivers; and that “four ensigns are in treaty with their mistresses, and are already half engaged.” ** The paternal care of government, one would think, could scarcely go further.