Chapter XI: The Seignior and the Habitant

“The original tillers of the soil in Lower Canada, who first
assumed the title of ‘Habitants’ while holding their land
under feudal tenure, would not accept any designation such as
‘censitaire’ which carried with it some sense of the servile
status of the feudal vassal in Old France, but preferred to be
called a Habitant or inhabitant of the country—a free man and
not a vassal.”

—SIR LOMER GOUIN.

THE SEIGNIOR AND THE HABITANT.

The colony of New England was planted by men who protested against the kind of government under which they had lived and it was to be expected that customs of government in their new home would differ materially from those under which they had suffered. On the other hand the colony of New France was essentially a part of France subsidized and supported by the Government of that country. Hence we can understand how the customs of government of New France in practically all respects would be like the customs at home.

It is hardly worth while to speak of government or social life in New France until after the restoration of Quebec and the return of Champlain in 1633. Valued at home merely as a possible revenue producer through the fur trade, the Home Government gave over the general direction of the affairs of New France into the hands of a company known generally as the Company of One Hundred Associates. In return for fulfilling certain obligations this Company was to have exclusive control of the fur trade and have power to govern, create trade, grant lands and bestow titles of nobility. The chief obligation laid upon it was to furnish to the colony each year at least two hundred settlers and give them support until they should get a fair start. In this way the Home Government thought the country would gradually have a number of people on the land who could be looked upon as permanent settlers in contrast to the wandering hunters and traders.

This method of governing a colony by means of a chartered company was not unique. India was governed by the East India Company for many years, Java by a Dutch trading company, and the incident of the Jameson Raid illustrated some aspects of the great Company of South Africa.

To further encourage settlement the Government recognized the title of seignior given to the man who, taking up a fair amount of land, undertook to settle persons upon it, live upon it himself, and thus develop an estate. In return for this social and political distinction he engaged to serve his country with his men about him in time of need. In other words, the idea of it was an adaptation of the feudal system of holding lands in return for national service.

This system was more or less in operation for over a quarter of a century, but the company was so intent on making money out of the fur trade that they neglected their obligations in regard to settlement on their land, and there were less than 2,000 people and not more than 4,000 acres of cultivated land in this great country.

When this state of affairs was brought to the attention of King Louis XIV., who was genuinely interested in the colony, he cancelled the charter of the company, and in 1663 New France was made a crown colony under a governor who represented the dignity and military power of the Crown, an Intendant, who was something more than a Minister of the Crown and less than a Governor, and who looked after the details of government, and the Bishop who as head of the church shared the problems of government in this triumvirate.

While much depended upon the Governor, much more to help or hinder progress was in the power of the Intendant, and the colony was very fortunate in the earliest years in having such a capable man as Talon, just as we shall find she was equally unfortunate in the last years in having Bigot, a corrupt holder of that office. It is interesting to notice that the two holders of this office who are of such prominence as to be remembered in anything other than name, were the first and the last, to the one the colony owing much of the stability of government, to the latter much that led to the loss to France of her greatest colony.

Talon was the real organizer of the seigniorial system and was perhaps the most capable man who ever administered the affairs of the colony. On his own farm on the St. Charles River he gave this country the first scientific farming, rude as it was in that early time, and this was the first of the model farms which we think of as comparatively modern institutions. He encouraged ship-building at Quebec by actually building ships; he distributed looms in the farmhouses that the settler might be independent in the matter of clothing, a very important matter in a country with such a climate; and he built a tannery that the precious commodity of leather might be available for protection of men and equipment of beast.

Under the Intendant in the actual working out of the Government came the seigniors, and hence the real social and political life of the colony. True, it was before the governor in the Chateau St. Louis in Quebec, seated upon the throne under the clustered white flags stamped with the golden lilies of France, the seignior appeared and on bended knee presented his homage and oath of allegiance, but it was with the Intendant that he transacted his business, and it was the report of the Intendant to the King of France which the neglectful seignior had cause to fear.

The Home Government at once undertook to help emigration and the Council of New France gave seigniories with a lavish and not always discriminating hand. During this century of royal rule there were about three hundred seigniories granted. In size these differed greatly but practically nothing could be called by that name which had not at least a dozen square miles. This land the seignior was expected to have surveyed into farms and to place settlers upon them.

As the St. Lawrence was the roadway of the colony and the means of communication, the seigniories were granted first along its shores and the farms were as close to the river as possible. The shape of a farm was that of a parallelogram with the short end fronting the river. Usually this frontage was nearly a quarter of a mile, and the depth from about a half to three miles with an orchard, meadow, grain and woods. So for purposes of protection, as well as access to fish and water supply, the shores of the St. Lawrence showed a row of whitewashed cottages in contact with the highway, even as it does to-day.

This brought about a very interesting land problem, for when the habitant died, his property, according to the French law known as Custom of Paris, was divided into equal parts among his children. Each of these was anxious to have a part of the river front, so that soon some farms were divided into ribbons of perhaps fifty to sixty feet frontage. The habitant each year paid a small fee in money to his seignior and brought him some of the produce of the farm. It was generally on St. Martin’s Day in November and they gathered at the seigniory for a genuine harvest home with games and feasting.

The seignior’s house, or the manor house, as it was often called, was the centre of his estate. It was generally built of stone, with four rooms and an attic. Behind the house was a great store room and root house. Nearby was the bake-oven built of stones, mortar and earth, into which the wood was thrust until the oven was heated sufficiently, when the ashes were pulled out and the bread pans inserted. Even to this day in some parts of the Province of Quebec one may see the bake-oven near the roadway and sometimes upon its roof the brown crusted loaves put out to cool. Sometimes there was an oven common to the village, so that even the idea of communal cooking, about which we hear so much these days, is a reversion to early practices in our country. Somewhere near was the grist mill to which all habitants must bring their grain to be ground, and of which the seignior took every fourteenth bushel as his pay.

The habitant’s house followed the general plan of that of the seignior’s, long and narrow with projecting eaves and high peaked dormer windows, whitewashed each year, a red roof, and among the green trees it is decidedly picturesque even to this day. There were but few windows as glass was a rarity. The cooking as well as heating was by the open fireplace. The habitant was, and in some respects still is, a very independent person, for the family wove its own cloth, made its own shoes and the knitted toque of many colours, and grew its own tobacco, besides the general produce of the farm. Happy and contented in disposition, fond of music, especially that of the ballad and the dance, they enjoyed the long winter evenings.

The other great man of the seigniory was the curé, or priest, for generally the parish and the seigniory had the same boundaries. The church was near the seignior’s manor house and often in the early days the curé and the seignior lived together. It was supported by a tax by which each habitant brought to the curé one-twenty-sixth of the grain he raised. In every way the church was the centre of the community life. In it all children were baptised, all marriages performed, and all burial services held. It was the source of all information on secular, as well as religious affairs, and the curé was the general counsellor of the parish as the seignior was the judge. Matters of local or national importance which could not be discussed in the church were explained after mass in front of the church, a custom which prevails to this day.

The seigniory was sometimes held, not by one man, but by a church corporation such as the Order of the Jesuits, the Franciscans, or the Sulpicians. This reminds us of the feudal days in England when the Abbey was often as powerful a part of the man power of the army as was the Castle.

There were but two seigniories granted outside of what is known as the Province of Quebec. One of these was that given to La Salle at Frontenac (Kingston) and one granted to Repentigny at Sault Ste. Marie, both French settlements of importance. Cadillac, who founded Detroit, asked to be granted one on Lake Erie along the banks of the Grand River, and to have conferred upon him the title of Marquis, but he was unsuccessful in both requests.