This list of names has been given, since it is synonymous with that of many of the parishes hereafter erected in these districts, for not many of the seigneurs were as yet wealthy, and they could not fulfill the double condition of providing a village mill and a village church. Though noble in name, many were as poor as church mice. Having been granted their lands, for a nominal sum, in return for "fealty and homage," the new noble had to work hard to clear his land within a limited time, else he would forfeit it, for few had capital to work it. To make his claim permanent he had to subdivide his domain to cultivators en censive, or censitaires who tilled the land and paid his "cens et rente" on St. Martin's day to the seigneur, as was common at Montreal, in the shape of half a sou and a pint of wheat for each arpent. There were, however, restrictions such as having to grind his corn at the seigneur's mill, when there was one, for such was an expensive luxury. This was practically the only one of the "banalités," as they were called, of the French feudal system introduced into Canada, and it was not very much of a hardship. The "corvée" still existed, by which the seigneur could demand personal labor. In Canada this was about six days a year and was frequently remitted, as the seigneur found that the expense of food for the workers, etc., made it not worth his while to use their labour.
Not all the seigneurs were as diligent and as fortunate as Charles Le Moyne, of Montreal, who, from being the son of an innkeeper at Dieppe, founded the noble house of Longueuil and whose son Charles, Baron Longueuil, built a fort and a home which Frontenac said, gave an idea of the fortified châteaux of France.
Still many of these struggling nobles, with the revenue of a peasant, but who did sell their seigneuries, became fairly wealthy in time, and were the nucleus of the Canadian "noblesse" and "gentilhommes" for many a long day, though it must not be understood that all seigneurs were also ennobled, as in France.
Some of the lazier sort, who perchance looked to the "get rich quick" method of peltry trading, rather than the laborious toil of tilling the earth, were soon the victims of their own circumstances; for a few years later, in 1679, Duchesneau, the intendant, writing to the minister in France, says: "Many of our gentilhommes, officers and other holders of seigneuries, lead what in France is called the life of a country gentleman and spend most of their time in hunting and fishing. As their requirements in food and clothing are greater than those of the simple 'habitants' and as they do not devote themselves to improving their land, they mix themselves up in trade, run into debt on all hands, incite their young 'habitants' to range the woods and send their own children there to trade for furs in the Indian villages and in the depths of the forest, in spite of the prohibition of His Majesty. Yet, with all this, they are miserably poor." [98]
"It is pitiable," says another intendant, Champigny, in 1687, "to see their children, of which they have great numbers, passing all summer with nothing on them but a shirt, and their wives and daughters working in the fields."
Later, an intendant wrote to France not to create any more gentilhommes, for it meant making "beggars."
But it must be remembered that later letters of patent of nobility were not so easily granted as at this early tentative period, when noble, habitant, and peasant had a hard struggle with the soil to make all ends meet.
To form an idea of the establishment of a parish, it must be remembered that each seigneur was required to build a mill and a chapel to be served by a priest. The mill meant a heavy expense; the machinery had all to come from France, and the miller's wages had to be paid; the farmers, bringing grain, small in number. Beyond the three mills belonging to the seigneurs of the island at this period there was the one erected at Pointe aux Trembles and that erected by Jean Milot, a toolmaker, at a cost of 1,000 écus, after purchasing on November 9, 1670, La Salle's lands at Lachine, and that was finally taken over by the seminary also, on November 2, 1673. La Salle had been required to construct a mill, since his concession was larger than the military fiefs of 200 arpents granted to the other petty seigneurs. To these latter, the necessity of erecting their own mills was foregone on the stipulation that their grain and that of their censitaires, should be ground in the seminary mill.
The building of a parish church and providing a priest, both difficult tasks in this poverty-stricken time, were delayed for some time. The seminary meanwhile sent out its missioners to conduct services at Lachine and Pointe aux Trembles and the surrounding district. A temporary chapel was made in the rooms of farmers' houses as is done in country districts in the Northwest today. It was not till November 18, 1674, that the people of Pointe aux Trembles took definite steps for church erection, which resulted in the church of L'Enfant Jésus, blessed by the superior of the seminary on March 13, 1678, with the assistance of the curé of the new church and M. Jean Cavelier, brother of La Salle and a priest of the seminary.