The Seigneurs of Old Canada : A Chronicle of New World Feudalism

by William Bennett Munro

The Norman habitant, as has already been pointed out, was by nature restive, impulsive, and quarrelsome. That he did not make every seigneury a hotbed of petty strife was due largely to the stern hand held over him by priest and seigneur alike, but by his priest particularly. The Church in the colony never lost, as in France, the full confidence of the masses; the higher dignitaries never lost touch with the priest, nor the latter with the people. The clergy of New France did not form a privileged order, living on the fruits of other men's labour. On the contrary, they gave the colony far more than they took from it. Although paid a mere pittance, they never complained of the great physical drudgery that their work too often required. Indeed, if labourers were ever worthy of their hire, such toilers were the spiritual pioneers of France beyond the seas. No one who does not approach their aims and achievements with sympathy can ever fully understand the history of these earlier days. No one who does not appreciate the dominating place which the Church occupied in every walk of colonial life can fully realize the great help which it gave, both by its active interest and by its example, to the agricultural policy of the civil power. The Church owed much to the seigneurial system, but not more than the system owed to it.

CHAPTER VII

THE TWILIGHT OF FEUDALISM

When the fleurs-de-lis of the Bourbons fluttered down from the ramparts of Quebec on September 18, 1759, a new era in the history of Canadian feudalism began. The new British government promptly allayed the fears of the conquered people by promising that all vested rights should be respected and that 'the lords of manors' should continue in possession of all their ancient privileges. This meant that they intended to recognize and retain the entire fabric of seigneurial tenure.

Now this step has been commonly regarded as a cardinal error on the part of the new suzerains, and on the whole the critics of British policy have had the testimony of succeeding events on their side. By 1760 the seigneurial system had fully performed for the colony all the good service it was ever likely to perform. It could easily have been abolished then and there. Had that action been taken, a great many subsequent troubles would have been avoided. But in their desire to be generous the English authorities failed to do what was prudent, and the seigneurial system remained.

Many of the seigneurs, when Canada passed under British control, sold their seigneuries and went home to France. How great this hegira was can scarcely be estimated with exactness, but it is certain that the emigres included all the military and most of the civil officials, together with a great many merchants, traders, and landowners. The colony lost those who could best afford to go; in other words, those whom it could least afford to let go. The priests, true to their traditions, stood by the colony in its hours of trial. But whatever the extent and character of the out-going, it is true that many seigneuries changed hands during the years 1763-64. Englishmen bought these lands at very low figures. Between them and the habitants there were no bonds of race, religion, language, or social sympathy. The new English seigneur looked upon his estate as an investment, and proceeded to deal with the habitants as though they were his tenantry. All this gave the seigneurial system a rude shock.

There was still another feature which caused the system to work much less smoothly after 1760 than before. The English did not retain the office of intendant. Their frame of government had no place for such an official. Yet the intendant had been the balance-wheel of the whole feudal machine in the days before the conquest. He it was who kept the seigneurial system from developing abuses; it was his praetorian power 'to order all things as may seem just and proper' that kept the seigneur's exactions within rigid bounds. The administration of New France was a government of men; that of the new regime was a government of laws. Hence it was that the British officials, although altogether well-intentioned, allowed grave wrongs to arise.

The new English judges, not unnaturally, misunderstood the seigneurial system. They stumbled readily into the error that tenure en censive was simply the old English tenure in copyhold under another name. Now the English copyholder held his land subject to the customs of the manor; his dues and services were fixed by local custom both as regards their nature and amount. What more easy, then, than to seek the local custom in Canada, and apply its rules to the decision of all controversies respecting seigneurial claims?

Unfortunately for this simple solution, there was a great and fundamental difference between these two tenures. The Canadian censitaire had a written title-deed which stated explicitly the dues and services he was bound to give his seigneur; the copyholder had nothing of the kind. The habitant, moreover, had various rights guaranteed to him by royal decrees. No custom of the manor or seigneury could prevail against written contracts and statute-law. But the judges do not seem to have grasped this distinction; when cases involving disputed obligations came before them they called in notaries to establish what the local customs were, and rendered judgment accordingly. This gave the seigneur a great advantage, for the notaries usually took their side. Moreover, the new judicial system was more expensive than the old, so that when a seigneur chose to take his claims into court the habitants often let him have judgment by default rather than incur heavy costs.

During the twenty years following the conquest the externals of the seigneurial system remained unaltered; but its spirit underwent a great change. This was amply shown during the American War of Independence, when the province was invaded by the Arnold-Montgomery expeditions. In all the years that the colony had been under French dominion a single word from any seigneur was enough to summon every one of his able-bodied habitants to arms. But now, only a dozen years after the English had assumed control, the answer made by the habitant to such appeals was of a very different nature. The authorities at Quebec, having only a small body of regular troops available for the defence of Canada against the invaders, called on the seigneurs to rally the old feudal array. The proclamation was issued on June 9, 1775. Most seigneurs responded promptly and called their habitants to armed service. But the latter, for the most part, refused to come. The seigneurs threatened that their lands would be confiscated; but even this did not move the habitants to comply. A writer of the time narrates what happened in one of the seigneuries, and it is doubtless typical of what took place in others. 'M. Deschambaud went over to his seigneury on the Richelieu,' he tells us, 'and summoned his tenants to arms; they listened patiently to what he had to say, and then peremptorily refused to accede to his demands. At this the seigneur was foolish enough to draw his sword; whereupon the habitants gave both him and a few friends who accompanied him a severe thrashing, and sent them off vowing vengeance. Fearing retaliation, the habitants armed themselves, and to the number of several hundred prepared to attack any regular forces which might be sent against them. Through the discretion of Governor Carleton, however, who hastened to send one of his officers to disavow the action of the seigneur, and to promise the habitants that if they returned quietly to their homes they would not be molested, they were persuaded to disperse.' [Footnote: Maseres, Additional Papers concerning the Province of Quebec (1776), pp. 71 et seq.]