Above the settlement at Three Rivers some excellent deposits of bog iron ore were found in 1668, but it was not until five decades later that the first forges were established there. These were successfully operated throughout the remainder of the Old Régime, and much of the colony's iron came from them to supply the blacksmiths. From time to time rumors of other mineral discoveries came to the ears of the people. A find of lead was reported from the Gaspé peninsula, but an investigation proved it to be a hoax. Copper was actually found in a dozen places within the settled ranges of the colony, but not in paying quantities. Every one was always on thequi vivefor a vein of gold or silver, but no part of New France ever gave the slightest hint of an El Dorado. Prospecting engaged the energies of many colonists in every generation, but most of those who thus spent their years at it got nothing but a princely dividend of chagrin.
Mention should also be made of the brewing industry which Talon set upon its feet during his brief intendancy but which, like all the rest of his schemes, did not long survive his departure. In establishing a brewery at Quebec the paternal intendant had two ends in mind: first, to reduce the large consumption ofeau-de-vieby providing a cheaper and more wholesome substitute; and second, to furnish the farmers of the colony with a profitable home market for their grain. In 1671 Talon reported to the French authorities that the Quebec brewery was capable of turning out four thousand hogsheads of beer per annum, and thus of creating a demand for many thousand bushels of malt. Hops were also needed and were expensive when brought from France, so that the people were encouraged to grow hop-vines in the colony. But even with grain and hops at hand, the brewing industry did not thrive, and before many years Talon's enterprise closed its doors. The building was finally remodeled and became the headquarters of the later intendants.
Flour-making and lumbering were the two industries which made most consistent progress in the colony. Flour-mills were established both in and near Quebec at an early date, and in course of time there were scores of them scattered throughout the colony, most of them built and operated asbanalmills by the seigneurs. The majority were windmills after the Dutch fashion, but some were water-driven. On the whole, they were not very efficient and turned out flour of such indifferent grade that the bakers of Quebec complained loudly on more than one occasion. In response to a request from the intendant, the King sent out some fanning-mills which were distributed to various seigneuries, but even this benefaction did not seem to make any great improvement in the quality of the product. Yet in some years the colony had flour of sufficiently good quality for export, and sent small cargoes both to France and to the French West Indies.
The sawing of lumber was carried on in various parts of the colony, particularly at Malbaie and at Baie St. Paul. Beam-timbers, planks, staves, and shingles were made in large quantities both for use in the colony and for export to France, where the timbers and planks were in demand at the royal shipyards. Wherever lands were granted by the Crown, a provision was inserted in the title-deed reserving all oak timber and all pine of various species suitable for mastings. Though such timber was not to be cut without official permission, the people did not always respect this reservation. Yet the quantity of timber shipped to France was very large, and next to furs it formed the leading item in the cargoes of outgoing ships. For staves there was a good market at Quebec where barrels were being made for the packing of salted fish and eels.
The various handicrafts or small industries, such as blacksmithing, cabinet-making, pottery, brick-making, were regulated quite as strictly in Canada as in France. The artisans of the towns were organized intojurésor guilds, and elected a master for each trade. These masters were responsible to the civil authorities for the proper quality of the work done and for the observance of all the regulations which were promulgated by the intendant or the council from time to time.
This relative proficiency in home industry accounts in part for the tardy progress of the colony in the matter of large industrial establishments. But there were other handicaps. For one thing, the Paris authorities were not anxious to see the colony become industrially self-sustaining. Colbert in his earliest instructions to Talon wrote as though this were the royal policy, but no other minister ever hinted at such a desire. Rather it was thought best that the colony should confine itself to the production of raw materials, leaving it to France to supply manufactured wares in return. The mercantilist doctrine that a colony existed for the benefit of the mother country was gospel at Fontainebleau. Even Montcalm, a man of liberal inclinations, expressed this idea with undiminished vigor in a day when its evil results must have been apparent to the naked eye. "Let us beware," he wrote, "how we allow the establishment of industries in Canada or she will become proud and mutinous like the English colonies. So long as France is a nursery to Canada, let not the Canadians be allowed to trade but kept to their laborious life and military services."
The exclusion of the Huguenots from Canada was another industrial misfortune. A few Huguenot artisans came to Quebec from Rochelle at an early date, and had they been welcomed, more would soon have followed. But they were promptly deported. From an economic standpoint this was an unfortunate policy. The Huguenots were resourceful workmen, skilled in many trades. They would have supplied the colony with a vigorous and enterprising stock. But the interests of orthodoxy in religion were paramount with the authorities, and they kept from Canada the one class of settlers which most desired to come. Many of those same Huguenots went to England, and every student of economic history knows how greatly they contributed to the upbuilding of England's later supremacy in the textile and related industries.
If we turn to the field of commerce, the spirit of restriction appears as prominently as in the domain of industry. The Company of One Hundred Associates, during its thirty years of control, allowed no one to proceed to Quebec except on its own vessels, and nothing could be imported except through its storehouses. Its successor, the Company of the West Indies, which dominated colonial commerce from 1664 to 1669, was not a whit more liberal. Even under the system of royal government, the consistent keynotes of commercial policy were regulation, paternalism, and monopoly.
This is in no sense surprising. Spain had first given to the world this policy of commercial constraint and the great enrichment of the Spanish monarchy was everywhere held to be its outcome. France, by reason of her similar political and administrative system, found it easy to drift into the wake of the Spanish example. The official classes in England and Holland would fain have had these countries do likewise, but private initiative and enterprise proved too strong in the end. As for New France, there were spells during which the grip of the trading monopolies relaxed, but these lucid intervals were never very long. When the Company of the West Indies became bankrupt in 1669, the trade between New France and Old was ostensibly thrown open to the traders of both countries, and for the moment this freedom gave Colbert and his Canadian apostle, Talon, an opportunity to carry out their ideas of commercial upbuilding.
The great minister had as his ideal the creation of a huge fleet of merchant vessels, built and operated by Frenchmen, which would ply to all quarters of the globe, bringing raw products to France and taking manufactured wares in return. It was under the inspiration of this ideal that Talon built at Quebec a small vessel and, having freighted it with lumber, fish, corn, and dried pease, sent it off to the French West Indies. After taking on board a cargo of sugar, the vessel was then to proceed to France and, exchanging the sugar for goods which were needed in the regions of the St. Lawrence, it was to return to Quebec. The intendant's plans for this triangular trade were well conceived, and in a general way they aimed at just what the English colonies along the Atlantic seaboard were beginning to do at the time. The keels of other ships were being laid at Quebec and the officials were dreaming of great maritime achievements. But as usual the enterprise never got beyond the sailing of the first vessel, for its voyage did not yield a profit.
The ostensible throwing-open of the colonial trade, moreover, did not actually change to any great extent the old system of paternalism and monopoly. Commercial companies no longer controlled the channels of transportation, it is true, but the royal government was not minded to let everything take its own course. So the trade was taxed for the benefit of the royal treasury, and the privilege of collecting the taxes, according to the custom of the old régime, was farmed out. All the commerce of the colony, imports and exports, had to pass through the hands of these farmers-of-the-revenue who levied ten per cent on all goods coming and kept for the royal treasury one-quarter of the price fixed for all skins exported. Traders as a rule were not permitted to ship their furs directly to France. They turned them in to farmers-of-the-revenue at Quebec, where they received the price as fixed by ordinance, less one-quarter. This price they usually took in bills of exchange on Paris which, they handed over to the colonial merchants in payment for goods, and which the merchants in turn sent home to France to pay for new stocks. Nor were the authorities content with the mere fixing of prices. By ordinance they also set the rate of profit which traders should have upon all imported wares brought into the colony. This rate of profit was fixed at sixty-five per cent, but the traders had no compunction in going above it whenever they saw an opportunity which was not likely to be discovered. As far as the forest trade was concerned, the regulation was, of course, absurd.
Every year, about the beginning of May, the first ships left France for the St. Lawrence with general cargoes consisting of goods for the colonists themselves and for the Indians, as well as large quantities of brandy. When they arrived at Quebec, the vessels were met by the merchants of the town and by those who had come from Three Rivers and Montreal. For a fortnight lively trading took place. Then the goods which had been bought by the merchants of Montreal and Three Rivers were loaded upon small barques and brought to these towns to be in readiness for the annual fairs when thecoureurs-de-boisand their Indians came down to trade in the late summer. As for the vessels which had come from France, these were either loaded with timber or furs and set off directly home again, or else they departed light to Cape Breton and took cargoes of coal for the French West Indies, where the refining of sugar occasioned a demand for fuel. The last ships left in November, and for seven months the colony was cut off from Europe.
Trade at Quebec, while technically open to any one who would pay the duties and observe the regulations as to rates of profit, was actually in the hands of a few merchants who had large warehouses and who took the greater part of what the ships brought in. These men were, in turn, affiliated more or less closely with the great trading houses which sent goods from Rouen or Rochelle, so that the monopoly was nearly as ironclad as when commercial companies were in control. When an outsider broke into the charmed circle, as happened occasionally, there was usually some way of hustling him out again by means either fair or foul. The monopolists made large profits, and many of them, after they had accumulated a fortune, went home to France. "I have known twenty of these pedlars," quoth La Hontan, "that had not above a thousand crowns stock when I arrived at Quebec in the year 1683 and when I left that place had got to the tune of twelve thousand crowns."
Glancing over the whole course of agriculture, industry, and commerce in New France from the time when Champlain built his little post at the foot of Cape Diamond until the day when the fleur-de-lis fluttered down from the heights above, the historian finds that there is one word which sums up the chief cause of the colony's economic weakness. That word is "paternalism." The Administration tried to take the place of Providence. It was as omnipresent and its ways were as inscrutable. Like as a father chasteneth his children, so the King and his officials felt it their duty to chasten every show of private initiative which did not direct itself along the grooves that they had marked out for the colony to follow. By trying to order everything they eventually succeeded in ordering nothing aright.
In New France there were no privileged orders. This, indeed, was the most marked difference between the social organization of the home land and that of the colony. There were social distinctions in Canada, to be sure, but the boundaries between different elements of the population were not rigid; there were no privileges based upon the laws of the land, and no impenetrable barrier separated one class from another. Men could rise by their own efforts or come down through their own defaults; their places in the community were not determined for them by the accident of birth as was the case in the older land. Some of the most successful figures in the public and business affairs of New France, some of the social leaders, some of those who attained the highest rank in thenoblesse, came of relatively humble parentage.
In France of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the chief officials of state, the seigneurs, the higher ecclesiastics, even the officers of the army and the marine, were always drawn from the nobility. In the colony this was very far from being the case. Some colonial officials and a few of the seigneurs were among the numerousnoblesseof France before they came, and they of course retained their social rank in the new environment. Others were raised to this rank by the King, usually for distinguished services in the colony and on the recommendation of the governor or the intendant. But, even if taken all together, these men constituted a very small proportion of the people in New France. Even among the seigneurs the great majority of these landed gentlemen came from the ranks of the people, and not one in ten was a member of thenoblesse. There was, therefore, a social solidarity, a spirit of fraternity, and a feeling of universal comradeship among them which was altogether lacking at home.
The pivot of social life in New France was the settlement at Quebec. This was the colonial capital, the seat of the governor and of the council, the only town in the colony large enough to have all the trappings and tinsel of a well-rounded social set. Here, too, came some of the seigneurs to spend the winter months. The royal officials, the officers of the garrison, the leading merchants, the judges, the notaries and a few other professional men—these with their families made up an élite which managed to echo, even if somewhat faintly, the pomp and glamor of Versailles. Quebec, from all accounts, was lively in the long winters. Its people, who were shut off from all intercourse with Europe for many months at a time, soon learned the art of providing for their own recreation and amusement. The knight-errant La Hontan speaks enthusiastically of the events in the life of this miniature society, of the dinners and dances, the salons and receptions, the intrigues, rivalries, and flirtations, all of which were well suited to his Bohemian tastes. But the clergy frowned upon this levity, of which they believed there was far too much. On one or two occasions they even laid a rigorous and restraining hand upon activities of which they disapproved, notably when the young officers of the Quebec garrison undertook an amateur performance of Moliere'sTartuffein 1694. At Montreal and Three Rivers, the two smaller towns of the colony, the social circle was more contracted and correspondingly less brilliant. The capital, indeed, had no rival.
Only a small part of the population, however, lived in the towns. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the census (1706) showed a total of 16,417, of whom less than 3000 were in the three chief settlements. The others were scattered along both banks of the St. Lawrence, but chiefly on the northern shore, with the houses grouped intocôtesor little villages which almost touched elbows along the banks of the stream. In each of these hamlets the manor-house or home of the seigneur, although not a mansion by any means, was the focus of social life. Sometimes built of timber but more often of stone, with dimensions rarely exceeding twenty feet by forty, it was not much more pretentious than the homes of the more prosperous and thrifty among the seigneur's dependents. Its three or four spacious rooms were, however, more comfortably equipped with furniture which in many cases had been brought from France. Socially, the seigneur and his family did not stand apart from his neighbors. All went to the same church, took part in the same amusements upon days of festival, and not infrequently worked together at the common task of clearing the lands. Sons and daughters of the seigneurs often intermarried with those of habitants in the seigneury or of traders in the towns. There was no socialimpassesuch as existed in France among the various elements in a community.
As for the habitants, the people who cleared and cultivated the lands of the seigneuries, they worked and lived and dressed as pioneers are wont to do. Their homes were commonly built of felled timber or of rough-hewn stone, solid, low, stocky buildings, usually about twenty by forty feet or thereabouts in size, with a single doorway and very few windows. The roofs were steep-pitched, with a dormer window or two thrust out on either side, the eaves projecting well over the walls in such manner as to give the structures a half-bungalow appearance. With almost religious punctuality the habitants whitewashed the outside of their walls every spring, so that from the river the country houses looked trim and neat at all seasons. Between the river and the uplands ran the roadway, close to which the habitants set their conspicuous dwellings with only in rare cases a grass plot or shade tree at the door. In winter they bore the full blast of the winds that drove across the expanse of frozen stream in front of them; in summer the hot sun blazed relentlessly upon the low roofs. As each house stood but a few rods from its neighbor on either side, the colony thus took on the appearance of one long, straggling, village street. The habitant liked to be near his fellows, partly for his own safety against marauding redskins, but chiefly because the colony was at best a lonely place in the long cold season when there was little for any one to do.
Behind each house was a small addition used as a storeroom. Not far away were the barn and the stable, built always of untrimmed logs, the intervening chinks securely filled with clay or mortar. There was also a root-house, half-sunk in the ground or burrowed into the slope of a hill, where the habitant kept his potatoes and vegetables secure from the frost through the winter. Most of the habitants likewise had their own bake-ovens, set a convenient distance behind the house and rising four or five feet from the ground. These they built roughly of boulders and plastered with clay. With an abundance of wood from the virgin forests they would build a roaring fire in these ovens and finish the whole week's baking at one time. The habitant would often enclose a small plot of ground surrounding the house and outbuildings with a fence of piled stones or split rails, and in one corner he would plant his kitchen-garden.
Within the dwelling-house there were usually two, and never more than three, rooms on the ground floor. The doorway opened into the great room of the house, parlor, dining-room, and kitchen combined. A "living" room it surely was! In the better houses, however, this room was divided, with the kitchen partitioned off from the rest. Most of the furnishings were the products of the colony and chiefly of the family's own workmanship. The floor was of hewn timber, rubbed and scrubbed to smoothness. A woolen rug or several of them, always of vivid hues, covered the greater part of it. There were the family dinner-table of hewn pine, chairs made of pine saplings with, seats of rushes or woven underbark, and often in the corner a couch that would serve as an extra bed at night. Pictures of saints hung on the walls, sharing the space with a crucifix, but often having for ominous company the habitant's flint-lock and his powder-horn hanging from the beams. At one end of the room was the fireplace and hearth, the sole means of heating the place, and usually the only means of cooking as well. Around it hung the array of pots and pans, almost the only things in the house which the habitant and his family were not able to make for themselves. The lack of colonial industries had the advantage of throwing each home upon its own resources, and the people developed great versatility in the cruder arts of craftsmanship.
Upstairs, and reached by a ladder, was a loft or attic running the full area of the house, but so low that one could touch, the rafters everywhere. Here the children, often a dozen or more of them, were stowed away at night on mattresses of straw or feathers laid along the floor. As the windows were securely fastened, even in the coldest weather this attic was warm, if not altogether hygienic. The love of fresh air in his dwelling was not among the habitant's virtues. Every one went to bed shortly after darkness fell upon the land, and all rose with the sun. Even visits and festivities were not at that time prolonged into the night as they are nowadays. Therein, however, New France did not differ from other lands. In the seventeenth century most of the world went to bed at nightfall because there was nothing else to do, and no easy or inexpensive artificial light. Candles were in use, to be sure, but a great many more of them were burned on the altars of the churches than in the homes of the people. For his reading, the habitant depended upon the priest, and for his writing, upon the notary.
Clothing was almost wholly made at home. It was warm and durable, as well as somewhat distinctive and picturesque. Every parish had spinning wheels and handlooms in some of its homes on which the women turned out the heavy druggets orétoffes du paysfrom which most of the men's clothing was made. A great fabric it was, this homespun, with nothing but wool in it, not attractive in pattern but able to stand no end of wear. It was fashioned for the habitant's use into roomy trousers and a long frock coat reaching to the knees which he tied around his waist with a belt of leather or of knitted yarn. The women also used thisétoffefor skirts, but their waists and summer dresses were of calico, homemade as well. As for the children, most of them ran about in the summer months wearing next to nothing at all. A single garment without sleeves and reaching to the knees was all that covered their nakedness. For all ages and for both sexes there were furs in plenty for winter use. Beaver skins were cheap, in some years about as cheap as cloth. When properly treated they were soft and pliable, and easily made into clothes, caps, and mittens.
Most of the footwear was made at home, usually from deerhides. In winter every one wore thebottes sauvages, or oiled moccasins laced up halfway or more to the knees. They were proof against cold and were serviceable for use with snowshoes. Between them and his feet the habitant wore two or more pairs of heavy woolen socks made from coarse homespun yarn. In summer the women and children of the rural communities usually went barefoot so that the soles of their feet grew as tough as pigskin; the men sometimes did likewise, but more frequently they wore, in the fields or in the forest, clogs made of cowhide.
On the week-days of summer every one wore a straw hat which the women of the household spent part of each winter in plaiting. In cold weather the knittedtuquemade in vivid colors was the great favorite. It was warm and picturesque. Each section of the colony had its own color; the habitants in the vicinity of Quebec wore bluetuques, while those around Montreal preferred red. The apparel of the people was thus in general adapted to the country, and it had a distinctiveness that has not yet altogether passed away.
On Sundays and on the numerous days of festival, however, the habitant and his family brought out their best. To Mass the men wore clothes of better texture and high, beaver hats, the women appeared in their brighter plumage of dresses with ribbons and laces imported from France. Such finery was brought over in so large a quantity that more than onemémoireto the home government censured the "spirit of extravagance" of which this was one outward manifestation. In the towns the officials and the well-to-do merchants dressed elaborately on all occasions of ceremony, with scarlet cloaks and perukes, buckled slippers and silk stockings. In early Canada there was no austerity of garb such as we find in Puritan New England. New France on ajour de fêtewas a blaze of color.
As for his daily fare, the habitant was never badly off even in the years when harvests were poor. He had food that was more nourishing and more abundant than the French peasant had at home. Bread was made from both wheat and rye flour, the product of the seigneurial mills. Corn cakes were baked in Indian fashion from ground maize. Fat salted pork was a staple during the winter, and nearly every habitant laid away each autumn a smoked supply of eels from the river. Game of all sorts he could get with little trouble at any time, wild ducks and geese, partridges, for there were in those days no game laws to protect them. In the early winter, likewise, it was indeed a luckless habitant who could not also get a caribou or two for his larder. Following the Indian custom, the venison was smoked and hung on the kitchen beams, where it kept for months until needed. Salted or smoked fish had also to be provided for family use, since the usages of the Church required that meat should not be used upon numerous fast-days.
Vegetables of many varieties were grown in New France, where the warm, sandy, virgin soil of the St. Lawrence region was splendidly suited for this branch of husbandry. Peas were the great stand-by, and in the old days whole families were reared uponsoupe aux pois, which was, and may even still be said to be, the national dish of the French Canadians. Beans, cucumbers, melons, and a dozen other products were also grown in the family gardens. There were potatoes, which the habitant calledpalatesand notpommes de terre, but they were almost a rarity until the closing days of the Old Régime. Wild fruits, chiefly raspberries, blueberries, and wild grapes, grew in abundance among the foothills and were gathered in great quantities every summer. There was not much orchard fruit, although some seedling trees were brought from France and had managed to become acclimated.
On the whole, even in the humbler homes there was no need for any one to go hungry. The daily fare of the people was not of great variety, but it was nourishing, and there was plenty of it save in rare instances. More than one visitor to the colony was impressed by the rude comfort in which the people lived, even though they made no pretense of being well-to-do. "In New France," wrote Charlevoix, "poverty is hidden behind an air of comfort," while the gossipy La Hontan was of the opinion that "the boors of these seigneuries live with, greater comfort than an infinity of the gentlemen in France." Occasionally, when the men were taken from the fields to serve in the defense of the colony against the English attacks, the harvests were small and the people had to spend the ensuing winter on short rations. Yet, as the authorities assured the King, they were "robust, vigorous, and able in time of need to live on little."
As for beverages, the habitant was inordinately fond of sour milk. Tea was scarce and costly. Brandy was imported in huge quantities, and not all thiseau-de-vie, as some writers imagine, went into the Indian trade. The people themselves consumed most of it. Every parish in the colony had its grog-shop; in 1725 the King ordered that no parish should have more than two. Quebec had a dozen or more, and complaint was made that the people flocked to these resorts early in the morning, thus rendering themselves unfit for work during most of the day, and soon ruining their health into the bargain. There is no doubt that the people of New France were fond of the flagon, for not only the priests but the civil authorities complained of this failing. Idleness due to the numerous holidays and to the long winters combined with the tradition of hospitality to encourage this taste. The habitants were fond of visiting one another, and hospitality demanded on every such occasion the proffer of something to drink. On the other hand, the scenes of debauchery which a few chroniclers have described were not typical of the colony the year round. When the ships came in with their cargoes, there was a great indulgence in feasting and drink, and the excesses at this time were sure to impress the casual visitor. But when the fleet had weighed anchor and departed for France, there was a quick return to the former quietness and to a reasonable measure of sobriety.
Tobacco was used freely. "Every farmer," wrote Kalm, "plants a quantity of tobacco near his house because it is universally smoked. Boys of twelve years of age often run about with the pipe in their mouths." The women were smokers, too, but more commonly they used tobacco in the form of snuff. In those days, as in our own, this French-Canadian tobacco was strong stuff, cured in the sun till the leaves were black, and when smoked emitting an odor that scented the whole parish. The art of smoking a pipe was one of several profitless habits which, the Frenchman lost little time in acquiring from his Indian friends.
This convivial temperament of the inhabitants of New France has been noted by more than one contemporary. The people did not spend all their energies and time at hard labor. From October, when the crops were in, until May, when the season of seedtime came again, there was, indeed, little hard work for them to do. Aside from the cutting of firewood and the few household chores the day was free, and the habitants therefore spent it in driving about and visiting neighbors, drinking and smoking, dancing and playing cards. Winter, accordingly, was the great social season in the country as well as in the town.
The chief festivities occurred at Michaelmas, Christmas, Easter, and May Day. Of these, the first and the last were closely connected with the seigneurial system. On Michaelmas the habitant came to pay the annual rental for his lands; on May Day he rendered the Maypole homage which, has been already described. Christmas and Easter were the great festivals of the Church and as such were celebrated with religious fervor and solemnity. In addition, minor festivals, chiefly religious in character, were numerous, so much so that their frequency even in the months of cultivation was the subject of complaint by the civil authorities, who felt that these holidays took altogether too much time from labor. Sunday was a day not only of worship but of recreation. Clad in his best raiment, every one went to Mass, whatever the distance or the weather. The parish church indeed was the emblem of village solidarity, for it gathered within its walls each Sunday morning all sexes and ages and ranks. The habitant did not separate his religion from his work or his amusements; the outward manifestations of his faith were not to his mind things of another world; the church and its priests were the center and soul of his little community. The whole countryside gathered about the church doors after the service while thecapitaine de la côte, the local representative of the intendant, read the decrees that had been sent to him from the seals of the mighty at the Château de St. Louis. That duty over, there was a garrulous interchange of local gossip with a retailing of such news as had dribbled through from France. The crowd then melted away in groups to spend the rest of the day in games or dancing or in friendly visits of one family with another.
Especially popular among the young people of each parish were thecorvées récréatives, or "bees" as we call them nowadays in our rural communities. There were theépuchletteor corn-husking, thebrayageor flax-beating, and others of the same sort. The harvest-home orgrosse-gerbe, celebrated when the last load had been brought in from the fields, and theIgnoléeor welcoming of the New Year, were also occasions of goodwill, noise, and revelry. Dancing was by all odds the most popular pastime, and every parish had its fiddler, who was quite as indispensable a factor in the life of the village as either the smith or the notary. Every wedding was the occasion for terpsichorean festivities which lasted all day long.
The habitant liked to sing, especially when working with others in the woods or when on the march. The voyageurs relieved the tedium of their long journeys by breaking into song at intervals. But the popular repertoire was limited to a few folksongs, most of them songs of Old France. They were easy to learn, simple to sing, but sprightly and melodious. Some of them have remained on the lips and in the hearts of the French-Canadian race for over two hundred years. Those who do not know theClaire fontaineandMa boulë roulanthave never known French Canada. Theforêtierof today still goes to the woods chanting theMalbrouck s'en va-t-en guerrewhich his ancestors caroled in the days of Blenheim and Malplaquet. When the habitant sang, moreover, it was in no pianissimo tones; he was lusty and cheerful about giving vent to his buoyant spirits. And his descendant of today has not lost that propensity.
The folklore of the old dominion, unlike the folk music, was extensive. Some of it came with the colonists from their Norman firesides, but more, perhaps, was the outcome of a superstitious popular imagination working in the new and strange environment of the wilderness. The habitant had a profound belief in the supernatural, and was prone to associate miraculous handiwork with every unusual event. He peopled the earth and the air, the woods and the rivulets, with spirits of diverse forms and varied motives. The red man's abounding superstition, likewise, had some influence upon the habitant's highstrung temperament. At any rate, New France was full of legends and weird tales. Every island, every cove in the river, had one or more associated with it. Most of these legends had some moral lessons attached to them: they were tales of disaster which came from disobeying the teachings of the Church or of miraculous escape from death or perdition due to the supernatural rewarding of righteousness. Taken together, they make up a wholesome and vigorous body of folklore, reflecting both the mystic temper of the colony and the religious fervor of its common life. A distinguished son of French Canada has with great industry gathered these legends together, a service for which posterity will be grateful.[1]
[Footnote 1: Sir J.M. Lemoine,Legends of the St. Lawrence(Quebec, 1878).]
Various chroniclers have left us pen portraitures of the habitant as they saw him in the olden days. Charlevoix, La Hontan, Hocquart, and Peter Kalm, men of widely different tastes and aptitudes, all bear testimony to his vigor, stamina, and native-born vivacity. He was courteous and polite always, yet there was no flavor of servility in this most benign trait of character. It was bred in his bone and was fostered by the teachings of his church. Along with this went abonhomieand a lightheartedness, a touch of personal vanity, with a liking for display and ostentation, which unhappily did not make for thrift. The habitant "enjoys what he has got," writes Charlevoix, "and often makes a display of what he has not got." He was also fond of honors, even minor ones, and plumed himself on the slightest recognition from official circles. Habitants who by years of hard labor had saved enough to buy some uncleared seigneury strutted about with the airs of genuine aristocrats while their wives, in the words of Governor Denonville, "essayed to play the fine lady." More than one intendant was amused by this broad streak of vanity in the colonial character. "Every one here," wrote Meulles, "begins by calling himself an esquire and ends by thinking himself a nobleman."
Yet despite this attempt to keep up appearances, the people were poor. Clearing the land was a slow process, and the cultivable area available for the support of each household was small. Early marriages were the rule, and families of a dozen or more children had to be supported from the produce of a fewarpents. To maintain such a family as this every one had to work hard in the growing season, and even the women went to the fields in the harvest-time. One serious shortcoming of the habitant was his lack of steadfastness in labor. There was a roving strain in his Norman blood. He could not stay long at any one job; there was a restlessness in his temperament which would not down. He would leave his fields unploughed in order to go hunting or to turn a fewsousin some small trading adventure. Unstable as water, he did not excel in tasks that required patience. But he could do a great many things after a fashion, and some that could be done quickly he did surprisingly well.
One racial characteristic which drew comment from observers of the day was the litigious disposition of the people. The habitant would have made lawsuits his chief diversion had he been permitted to do so. "If this propensity be not curbed," wrote the intendant Raudot, "there will soon be more lawsuits in this country than there are persons." The people were not quarrelsome in the ordinary sense, but they were very jealous each one of his private rights, and the opportunities for litigation over such matters seemed to provide themselves without end. Lands were given to settlers without accurate description of their boundaries; farms were unfenced and cattle wandered into neighboring fields; the notaries themselves were almost illiterate, and as a result scarcely a legal document in the colony was properly drawn. Nobody lacked pretexts for controversy. Idleness during the winter was also a contributing factor. But the Church and the civil authorities frowned upon this habit of rushing to court with every trivial complaint.Curésand seigneurs did what they could to have such difficulties settled amicably at home, and in a considerable measure they succeeded.
New France was born and nurtured in an atmosphere of religious devotion. To the habitant the Church was everything—his school, his counselor, his almsgiver, his newspaper, his philosopher of things present and of things to come. To him it was the source of all knowledge, experience, and inspiration, and to it he never faltered in ungrudging loyalty. The Church made the colony a spiritual unit and kept it so; undefiled by any taint of heresy. It furnished the one strong, well-disciplined organization that New France possessed, and its missionaries blazed the way for both yeoman and trader wherever they went.
Many traits of the race have been carried on to the present day without substantial change. The habitant of the old dominion was a voluble talker, a teller of great stories about his own feats of skill and endurance, his hair-raising escapes, or his astounding prowess with musket and fishing-line. Stories grew in terms of prodigious achievement as they passed from tongue to tongue, and the scant regard for anything approaching the truth in these matters became a national eccentricity. The habitant was boastful in all that concerned himself or his race; never did a people feel more firmly assured that it was the salt of the earth. He was proud of his ancestry, and proud of his allegiance; and so are his descendants of today even though their allegiance has changed.
To speak of the habitants of New France as downtrodden or oppressed, dispirited or despairing, like the peasantry of the old land in the days before the great Revolution, as some historians have done, is to speak untruthfully. These people were neither serfs nor peons. The habitant, as Charlevoix puts it, "breathed from his birth the air of liberty"; he had his rights and he maintained them. Shut off from the rest of the world, knowing only what the Church and civil government allowed him to know, he became provincial in his horizon and conservative in his habits of mind. The paternal policy of the authorities sapped his initiative and left him little scope for personal enterprise, so that he passed for being a dull fellow. Yet the annals of forest trade and Indian diplomacy prove that the New World possessed no sharper wits than his. Beneath a somewhat ungainly exterior the yeoman and the trader of New France concealed qualities of cunning, tact, and quick judgment to a surprising degree.
These various types in the population of New France, officials, missionaries, seigneurs, voyageurs, habitants, were all the scions of a proud race, admirably fitted to form the rank and file in a great crusade. It was not their fault that France failed to dominate the Western Hemisphere.
On the earlier voyages of discovery to the northern coasts of the New World the most informing book is H.P. Biggar'sPrecursors of Jacques Cartier(Ottawa, 1911). Hakluyt'sVoyagescontain an English translation of Cartier's own writings which cover the whole of the first two expeditions and a portion of the third. Champlain's journals, which describe in detail his sea voyages and inland trips of exploration during the years 1604-1618 inclusive, were translated into English and published by the Prince Society of Boston during the years 1878-1882.
For further discussions of these explorations and of the various other topics dealt with in this book the reader may be referred to several works in theChronicles of Canada(32 vols. Toronto, 1914-1916), namely, to Stephen Leacock'sDawn of Canadian HistoryandMariner of St. Malo; Charles W. Colby'sFounder of New FranceandThe Fighting Governor; Thomas Chapais'sGreat Intendant; Thomas G. Marquis'sJesuit Missions, also toSeigneurs of Old CanadaandCoureurs-de-Boisby the author of the present volume. In each of these books, moreover, further bibliographical references covering the several topics are provided.
The series known asCanada and Its Provinces(22 vols. and index, Toronto, 1914) contains accurate and readable chapters upon every phase of Canadian history, political, military, social, economic, and literary. The first two volumes of this series deal with the French regime. Mention should also be made of the biographical series dealing withThe Makers of Canada(22 vols. Toronto, 1905-1914) and especially to the biographies of Champlain, Laval, and Frontenac which this series includes among its earlier volumes.
The writings of Francis Parkman, notably hisPioneers of New France, Old Régime in Canada, Jesuits in North America, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, andCount Frontenacare of the highest interest and value. Although given to the world nearly two generations ago, these volumes still hold an unchallenged supremacy over all other books relating to this field of American history.
Other works which may be commended to readers who seek pleasure as well as instruction from books of history are the following:
PÈRE F.-X. CHARLEVOIX,Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle-France, translated by John Gilmary Shea (6 vols. N.Y., 1866-1872).
C.W. COLBY,Canadian Types of the Old Régime(N.Y., 1908).
A.G. DOUGHTY,A Daughter of New France(Edinburgh, 1916).
JAMES DOUGLAS,Old France in the New World(Cleveland, 1906).
F.-X. GARNEAU,Histoire du Canada(5th ed. by Hector Garneau, Paris, 1913. As yet only the first volume of this edition has appeared.)
P. KALM,Travels into North America(2 vols. London, 1772).
LE BARON DE LA HONTAN,New Voyages to NorthAmerica(ed. R.G.Thwaites. 2 vols. Chicago, 1905).
MARC LESCARBOT,Histoire de la Nouvelle-France(translated by W.L.Grant. 3 vols. Toronto, 1907-1914. Publications of the ChamplainSociety).
FREDERIC A. OGG,The Opening of the Mississippi(N.Y., 1904).
A. SALONE,La colonisation de la Nouvelle-France(Paris, 1905).
G.M. WRONG,A Canadian Manor and its Seigneurs(Toronto, 1908).
For further references the reader should consult, inTheEncyclopaedia Britannica, the articles onFrance, Canada, Louis XIV,Richelieu, Colbert, andThe Jesuits.
Index
Algonquins, The, act as guides to Champlain, 41; friendly to the French, 45 Anticosti, Island of, 19,20Arrêts of Marly(1711), 143
Belle Isle, 18, 19, 20Bigot, François, 68Brébeuf, Jean de, Jesuit missionary, 56Brouage, birthplace of Champlain, 33
Cambrai, Peace of (1729), 15Canada,seeNew FranceCap Rouge, Cartier winters at, 26;Roberval winters at, 28Cartier, Jacques, sets out on first voyage of discovery, (1534), 16;a corsair, 16;former voyages, 17;reaches New World, 18;purpose of expedition, 19;returns home, 19;begins second voyage, 19-20;his ships, 20;winters at Stadacona, 21-23;learns of Great Lakes, 22;takes Indians to King, 23;account of voyage, 24;sails on third voyage from St. Malo (1541), 25;winters at Cap Rouge, 26;defies patron, Roberval, 27;personal characteristics, 29;later life, 29;death (1557), 29;bibliography, 29Catalogne, Gedéon de, makes survey and maps of Quebec region (1712),143-44;makes agricultural census, 184Cataraqui (Kingston), fort established at, 85-86;La Salle receives grant of land at, 103Chaleurs, Baie des, 18Champlain, Samuel de, born at Brouage (1567), 33;sails with expedition of De Chastes (1603), 33;personal characteristics, 33-34;embarks as chief geographer (1604), 35;winters at St. Croix, 36-37;Order de Bon Temps, 38;returns to France, 39;sails again for the St. Lawrence (1608), 39;raid against the Iroquois, 41;seeks western passage to Cathay, 44;takes journeys into interior (1613 and 1616), 44-47;journals, 47;as viceroy's deputy, 48;surrenders to English, 51-52;returns to Quebec as representative of Company of One HundredAssociates, 52;death (1635), 53;appreciation of, 53-54Champlain, Lake, 41Chastes, Amyar, Sieur de, 32, 33, 34.Chauvin of Honfleur, 32Church in New France, loyalty to, 113;Récollets, 115;Jesuits, 116et seq.;aid to civil power, 127-28;revenues, 129-130;see alsoJesuitsColbert, Jean Baptiste, personal characteristics, 8;interest incolonial ventures, 8-9;plans for French interest, 60-61;plans fleet of merchant vessels, 197-98Courcelle, Daniel de Rémry, Sieur de, Governor of New France, 75Coureurs-de-bois,attack Indians (1687), 95-96;kind of men engaged as, 161-62;number, 162-63;leaders, 163-64;methods of trading, 165 et seq.;licenses granted to, 172Crèvecoeur, Fort, 106, 107
D'Ailleboust, Governor of New France, 55Denonville, Marquis de, Governor of New France, 94Donnacona, head of Indian village, 23Duchesneau, Jacques, Intendant of New France, 88;quarrels with Frontenac, 89-91;recalled, 91Du Lhut, Daniel Greysolon, 87, 95, 131Dumesnil, Péronne, 73
Education in New France, 130-132England,early explorations, 15, 16;colonial ventures, 49
Five nations, appellation of the Iroquois Indians, 42France in the seventeenth century,population, 1, 3;army, 1;power and prestige, 2-4;outstripped in commerce, 3;racial qualities, 3-4;government, 4-5;church, 5;tardiness in American colonization, 6-8;weakness of colonial policy, 10-14Frontenac, Louis de Buade, Count,chosen to carry out colonial policy, 9;sent as Governor to Quebec (1672), 80;early life, 80;personal characteristics, 81-82;inauguration, 83;plans checked by King, 83-84;expansion policy, 84 et seq.;builds fort at Cataraqui, 86;opposed by Bishop and Intendant, 89-91;recalled (1682), 91;returns to Quebec as Governor (1689), 97-98:death (1698), 98Frontenac, Fort, 85-86, 103, 108Fur trade with the Indians, 155 et seq.
Gallican branch of the Catholic Church, 5, 114Gaspé Bay, 18Georgian Bay, Champlain's journey to, 46-47Giffard, Robert, 142Green Bay, 163Griffin, The, ship, 104-105, 106
Habitants, 147-51, 207-26Hakluyt, account of meeting of Cartier and Roberval, 27Hébert, Louis, 137Hennepin, Louis, Récollet friar, 104Hochelaga (Montreal), 21-22, 26, 34Huguenots excluded from Canada, 195-96Hurons, The,act as guides to Champlain, 41;friendly to the French, 45-46;destroyed by the Iroquois, 55-56;Jesuits among, 118-19Hurons, Lake of the,seeGeorgian Bay
Illinois River, La Salle reaches, 106, 109Indians,hostility toward Cartier, 26;fur trade with, 156 et seq.;effect of trade upon, 178;see alsoAlgonquins, Hurons, Iroquois, OnondagasIrondequoit Bay, 102Iroquois, The, Champlain's encounter with, 41-43;friends of English, enemies of French, 42-43;troubles with, 56-58, 74-78, 93et seq.
JesuitRelations, 54, 119-20, 132Jesuits, The, settle Montreal, 54-55;oppose Frontenac, 88;come to Canada (1625), 115-16;characteristics, 110, 117-18;missionaries to Indians, 118et seq.;progress among French settlers, 122et seq.;service to trade interests, 156-58Joliet, Louis, 103, 164
Kalm, Peter,Travels, 185-86, 188Kirke, Sir David, Commander of English privateers, 51
La Barre, Le Febvre de, Governor of New France, 92-94, 109La Durantaye, Olivier Morel de, 95, 164La Forêt, François Dauphine de, 87, 95, 163Lalemant, Jesuit missionary, 56La Mothe-Cadillac, Antoine de 87, 163La Roche, Sieur de, 32La Salle, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de,foremost among French pathfinders, 87;born (1643), 100;comes to Montreal (1666), 100-01;equips expedition (1669), 102;receives trading rights and land at Fort Frontenac, 103;goes to France for further aid, 103-04;first journey down the Illinois, 105-107;returns to Montreal, 107;reaches the Mississippi, 107;winters at Fort Miami, 108;journeys down the Mississippi, 108-09;plans for founding colony in lower Mississippi valley (1684), 109-10;death (1687), 110;later estimates of, 111-12Lauzon, Jean de, Governor of New France, 57Laval, François-Xavier de,Abbé de Montigny, Bishop of Quebec, arrives in New France (1659), 58;friction with civil authorities, 58-69;relations with Mézy, 72-73;returns to colony, 88;opposed to Frontenac, 89et seq.;born (1622), 124;personal characteristics, 125-26;opposed to liquor traffic. 126-27Law, John, 67Le Caron, Joseph, Récollet, missionary, 46Le Moyne, Jesuit missionary, 57Lescarbot, Marc, 38Liquor traffic with the Indians, 126-27, 173-78Longueuil, Baron de, 142Louis XIV,centralization of power under, 4-5;interest in colonial ventures, 9;assumes power (1658), 60;edict of 1663, 62-63;personal interest in New France, 70-71
Maisonneuve, Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de, 54-55 Mance, Jeanne, 55 Marquette, Jacques, Jesuit missionary, 103 Matagorda Bay, 110 Mazarin, Jules, not interested in colonial ventures, 8 Meules, Intendant of New France, 93 Mézy, de, Governor of New France, 72-74 Miami, Fort, 108 Michilimackinac, 105, 108 Mingan Islands, 20 Mississippi River, La Salle reaches, 108 Montmagny, Charles Jacques Huault. Sieur de, 54, 55 Montreal, settled, 54-55; annual fur fair at, 166-71;see alsoHochelaga Monts, Pierre du Guast, Sieur de, granted trade monopoly, 35; organizes company, 35-39; loses influence at court, 48
New France,reflects old France, 10, 14;difficulty of communication with Europe, 12-13;population (1663), 61-62;colonial intendant, 67-69;administration, 69-70;requests for money, 71-72;period of prosperity, 78, 79;seigneurial system of land tenure, 133 et seq.;military seigneuries, 145-46;forced labor in, 150;merrymaking in, 151;courts, 151-53;fur trade, 155 et seq.;competition with English in trade, 159-61;liquor traffic, 173-78;effect of trade upon, 178-79;agriculture, 180 et seq.;industries, 188 et seq.;minerals, 190-92;exclusion of Huguenots from, 195-96;trade conditions, 198-201;social organization, 203 et seq.;seigneurs, 206-07;homes of habitants, 207-11;clothing, 211-13;food, 213-17;use of tobacco, 217;festivities, 217-21;folklore, 221-22;poverty of habitants, 223;litigious disposition of people, 224-25;religion, 225;characteristics of people, 225-26;types of population, 227;bibliography, 229-31New France, Company of,seeOne Hundred Associates, Company ofNewfoundland, Cartier's expeditions rests at, 18Niagara,fort rebuilt by Denonville, 96;La Salle builds post at, 104
Old Council, 55One Hundred Associates, Company of,organization, 50;powers and duties, 50-51;sends fleet to the St. Lawrence (1628), 51;sends Champlain as representative, 52-53;charter revoked, 61;failure of, 62;grants by, 137-38;restricts industry, 196Onondagas, The, Champlain's attack upon, 46Ontario, Lake, 46Ottawa River, 44
Perrot, Nicholas, 95, 163 Pontgravé of St. Malo, 32, 29 Port Royal (Annapolis), 36, 37 Portugal, early explorations, 15, 16; colonial ventures, 49 Poutrincourt, Biencourt de, 35, 36, 38
Quebec,Champlain settles, 39-40;population, 48;surrenders to English, 51-52;burns, 93;pivot of social life, 204-05;see alsoStadacona
Récollets, The, 115Richelieu, Cardinal,interest in colonial ventures under, 7-8;becomes chief minister of Louis XIII, 49;prevails upon King to organize colonizing company (1627), 50;interest in New France not lasting, 60Richelieu River, 41Roberval, Jean François de la Roque, Sieur de,enlists services of Cartier, 25-26,meets Cartier returning to France, 27;winters at Cap Rouge, 28Rouen, birthplace of La Salle, 100
Sable Island, 32Saguenay River, 34St. Croix, 36-37St. Germain-en-Laye, Treaty of (1632), 52St. John's, Newfoundland, 27§t. Lawrence, Gulf of, 18St. Louis, Fort, 109St. Malo, 16-17, 19, 25, 29St. Maurice, 28Seigneurs of New France, 133 et seq., 206-07Sovereign Council, 63-66Spain,early explorations, 15, 16;colonial ventures, 49Stadacona (Lower Quebec), 21, 26, 39Sully, Due de, opposed to colonial ventures, 7Sulpicians, The, 102, 128Superior Council,seeSovereign Council
Talon, Jean, first Intendant of New France (1665), 63; arrives in Quebec, 66-67, 68, 75; report to the King, 80-81; fosters industries, 188-89; plans trade with West Indies and France, 197-98 Three Rivers, 28, 53 Ticonderoga, fight between French and Indians at, 41 Tocqueville, de, French historian, 10 Tonty, Henri de, 87, 95, 104, 163 Tracy, Prouville de, 74-78
Ursulines, The, 128
Vignau tells Champlain of English shipwreck, 44-45
West Indies, Company of the, 78, 196, 197
End of Project Gutenberg's Crusaders of New France, by William Bennett Munro