He never strove to make his post serve to increase his fortune, although, like his lieutenants, he could have legitimately traded in peltry, then beginning to be very profitable. He seems rather to have embraced the "Lady Poverty" and to have been singularly unselfish and altruistic. Dollier de Casson tells us, as an example of his magnanimity and generosity, how, ever ready to recompense the good actions of his soldiers, he would deprive himself of his provisions, even those on his own table, to give them away. "On one occasion," says this historian, "when the savages came to trade at this place, noticing that one of his soldiers who had often given proofs of courage against the enemy was in extreme depression, and having found out on enquiry that it was caused by having nothing to trade with the Indians who were then here, he thereupon led him into his own room, and, since the man was a tailor, gave him all the cloth stuffs he could find, even to the curtains of his bed, to make into wearing apparel which he might sell to the Indians." Thus he sent the young soldier away happy. Such generosity endeared him to his men.
The military organization of Montreal may be said to have become solidified this year. For hitherto, beyond readiness to respond to the call to arms, the soldier's sense of duty and esprit de corps had not been cultivated.
The governor took this work of formation into his own hands and chose sixty-three of his most devoted men and erected a military confraternity with the title of the "Soldiers of the Blessed Virgin." He was proud to command these himself. These met in religious meetings and the knightly de Maisonneuve would address them with glowing words of encouragement to acquit themselves like good Christians and soldiers. These were the governor's guard of honour, which came into prominence whenever there was a great religious ceremony or civil function, such as the reception of a distinguished visitor to the island.
During the week, each of these in turn had the duty of sentinel, parading the fields, on the lookout for traces of the dreaded Iroquois. To be selected one of this military order was a high favour. One of the privileges of this guard of honour was to escort Mademoiselle Bourgeoys, shortly after her arrival, to the mountain to visit the cross placed there by de Maisonneuve in 1642, but now found to have been destroyed by the Iroquois in the recent war. It was immediately replanted, under her direction, by Gilbert Barbier and four other men, who placed a palisading around it. This monument was the Mecca of pilgrimages until the occupation by the British in 1760.
The necessity of providing themselves with the needful and indispensable objects of life stimulated the industry and inventiveness of all, so that each man fulfilled many rôles. In addition, the spirit of enterprise and initiative was encouraged by the cancellation of their contracts made with the Company in France for mostly all now were independent workers, anxious to make good for their own interests. Still the Company had the onus of providing the public works, and the contracts of this period show that it paid just salaries for services rendered.
We have an insight into the medical history of the city in a contract made by the first surgeon, Etienne Bouchard, on March 30, 1655, with twenty-six families to treat them regularly for a certain sum. To these were shortly added others to the number, in all, of forty-six. This shows that the cancellation of the original contract, by which the surgeon was appointed to give free medical treatment to all the inhabitants, was a consequence of the new order of things.
The government of the settlement was very simple. Besides the governor, there was a fiscal procurator or treasurer, a public notary, a keeper of the storehouse of the Company, and a syndic.
The last named office was first filled in 1644, when Louis XIV gave the Company of Montreal the right to erect a corporation. The syndic was elected by a plurality of votes from the inhabitants themselves to represent their interest and thus became a tribune of the people. He had the privilege with those of Quebec and Three Rivers of assisting at the election of the two councillors (or three in the absence of the governor), who were chosen to compose the General Council of Nouvelle France, with the governor general and the ecclesiastical superior, for the time being, in Canada. They were even privileged to represent the interests of their corporation at the council meetings and to have a "voix délibérative" in these same matters.
By a royal act of 1647 the syndics could only be appointed for three years, and by another of 1648 they could not negotiate any loan for their corporations without the express sanction of the council at Quebec, under pain of nullity, damages and interests incurred by the syndics themselves.