* On the seigniorial tenure, I have examined the whole of
the mass of papers printed at the time when the question of
its abolition was under discussion. A great deal of legal
research and learning was then devoted to the subject. The
argument of Mr. Dunkin in behalf of the seigniors, and the
observations of Judge Lafontaine, are especially
instructive, as is also the collected correspondence of the
governors and intendants with the central government on
matters relating to the seigniorial system.
came into possession of persons on very humble degrees of the social scale. A seigniory could be bought and sold, and a trader or a thrifty habitant might, and often did become the buyer. * If the Canadian noble was always a seignior, it is far from being true that the Canadian seignior was always a noble.
In France, it will be remembered, nobility did not in itself imply a title. Besides its titled leaders, it had its rank and file, numerous enough to form a considerable army. Under the later Bourbons, the penniless young nobles were, in fact, enrolled into regiments, turbulent, difficult to control, obeying officers of high rank, but scorning all others, and conspicuous by a fiery and impetuous valor which on more than one occasion turned the tide of victory. The gentilhomme, or untitled noble, had a distinctive character of his own, gallant, punctilious, vain; skilled in social and sometimes in literary and artistic accomplishments, but usually ignorant of most things except the handling of his rapier. Yet there were striking exceptions; and to say of him, as has been said, that “he knew nothing but how to get himself killed,” is hardly just to a body which has produced some of the best writers and thinkers of France.
Sometimes the origin of his nobility was lost in
* In 1712, the engineer Catalogne made a very long and
elaborate report on the condition of Canada, with a full
account of all the seigniorial estates. Of ninety-one
seigniories, fiefs, and baronies, described by him, ten
belonged to merchants, twelve to husbandmen, and two to
masters of small river craft. The rest belonged to religious
corporations, members of the council, judges, officials of
the Crown, widows, and discharged officers or their sons.
the mists of time; sometimes he owed it to a patent from the king. In either case, the line of demarcation between him and the classes below him was perfectly distinct; and in this lies an essential difference between the French noblesse and the English gentry, a class not separated from others by a definite barrier. The French noblesse, unlike the English gentry, constituted a caste.
The gentilhomme had no vocation for emigrating. He liked the army and he liked the court. If he could not be of it, it was something to live in its shadow. The life of a backwoods settler had no charm for him. He was not used to labor; and he could not trade, at least in retail, without becoming liable to forfeit his nobility. When Talon came to Canada, there were but four noble families in the colony. * Young nobles in abundance came out with Tracy; but they went home with him. Where, then, should be found the material of a Canadian noblesse? First, in the regiment of Carignan, of which most of the officers were gentilshommes; secondly, in the issue of patents of nobility to a few of the more prominent colonists. Tracy asked for four such patents; Talon asked for five more; ** and such requests were repeated at intervals by succeeding governors and intendants, in behalf of those who had gained their favor by merit or otherwise. Money smoothed the path.
* Talon, Mémoire sur l'Etat présent du Canada, 1667. The
families of Repentigny, Tilly, Poterie, and Aillebout appear
to be meant.
** Tracy’s request was in behalf of Bourdon, Boucher,
Auteuil, and Juchereau. Talon’s was in behalf of Godefroy,
Le Moyne, Denis, Amiot, and Couillard to advancement, so far
had noblesse already fallen from its old estate.
Thus Jacques Le Ber, the merchant, who had long kept a shop at Montreal, got himself made a gentleman for six thousand livres. *
All Canada soon became infatuated with noblesse; and country and town, merchant and seignior, vied with each other for the quality of gentilhomme. If they could not get it, they often pretended to have it, and aped its ways with the zeal of Monsieur Jourdain himself. “Everybody here,” writes the intendant Meules, “calls himself Esquire, and ends with thinking himself a gentleman.” Successive intendants repeat this complaint. The case was worst with roturiers who had acquired seigniories. Thus Noel Langlois was a good carpenter till he became owner of a seigniory, on which he grew lazy and affected to play the gentleman. The real gentilshommes, as well as the spurious, had their full share of official stricture. The governor Denonville speaks of them thus: “Several of them have come out this year with their wives, who are very much cast down; but they play the fine lady, nevertheless. I had much rather see good peasants; it would be a pleasure to me to give aid to such, knowing, as I should, that within two years their families would have the means of living at ease; for it is certain that a peasant who can and will work is well off in this country, while our nobles with nothing to do can never be any thing but beggars. Still they ought not to be