CHAPTER III THE SEIGNIORIAL SYSTEM IN NEW FRANCE EVERY charter which accompanied a trade monopoly included powers to create seigniories in New France, but with the early failures in colonization the creations were comparatively few. It was only after the colony had passed under royal control in 1663 that the seigniorial system became a reality. The main credit is due to the intendant Talon, whose vigorous immigration policy from 1665 to 1672 laid the foundations of an almost inconceivable advance, when the régime of the chartered companies is recalled. Such episodes as the disbanding of the Carignan-Salières regiment and the granting of seigniories to its officers helped the policy, to which the king and intendant devoted time, energy, and money. When Gédéon de Catalogne made his report in 1712 on the seigniories of Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal, he found that several million acres had been granted, of which, however, only fifty thousand were under cultivation.1 Various tenures characterized the system. Analogous to free and common socage were those known as en franc aleu noble and en franc aleu roturier, the former carrying with it a patent of nobility. Corresponding to frankalmoign was that of en franche aumône, under which religious foundations obtained large grants. The most common tenures, however, were en fief or en seigneurie, en arrière-fief, and en censive or en roture. The seignior held direct from the crown, en fief or en seigneurie, taking an oath of fealty or homage at the castle of St. Louis in Quebec. He bound himself to perform military service, to 1 Printed in W. B. Munro, Documents relating to the Seigniorial Tenure in Canada (Toronto, 1908), and in the Bulletin des Recherches Historiques, 1915. provide a map and census of his lands, to pay a relief 1 when the seigniory passed into other hands except by direct succession, and after 1711, to sub-infeudate his seigniory on pain of forfeiture 2an obligation peculiar to Canada and one which did much towards populating the seigniories. Grants en arrièrefief or in sub-seigniory were few in Canada, as the seignior preferred to grant his lands en censive or en roture. This tenure, which was invariably ignoble, governed the holdings of the censitaire or habitant. He was obliged to pay annually to his seignior cens et rentes: nominal money-payments or payments in kind or both, according to the terms of the grant. The corvée called him to work a stipulated number of days each year, but this he could commute for a money payment. He owed to his seignior lods et ventes, corresponding to the relief of seigniorial tenure and governed by the same rules, except that the amount was only a twelfth of the mutation price. In addition, he came under certain obligations governed by the droit de banalité, and the seignior could compel him to make use of the seigniorial grist-mill and bake-oven at a stipulated price. As a matter of fact, the seigniors were lax in providing mills, and the banality in connexion with ovens appears to have been exercised in only one instance.3 As often as not it was the censitaires who appealed to the governor and council for the protection of their rights under the droit de banalité. Judicial powers did not necessarily accompany every seigniorial grant. The droit de justice, while it appears usually to have been conferred, was an expressly given right. As a general rule, the seignior possessed high, low, and middle jurisdiction— haute, moyenne et basse justice-the extent of his jurisdiction 1 The relief was also known as 'the quint`, as it amounted to one-fifth of the mutation price of the seigniory. 2 Édits, Ordonnances Royaux ..., pp. 324 ff. (Quebec, 1854). 3 W. B. Munro, The "Droit de Banalité" during the French Régime in Canada,' Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1899, vol. i, pp. 207 ff. had no relation to the area of his seigniory. A grant of haute justice covered all criminal cases except against the person and property of the crown, and it included punishment by death or mutilation. In civil cases it was all-embracing. Moyenne justice included lesser criminal and civil cases, and basse justice covered all petty cases. Theoretically these rights were great, in practice they were hardly a severe burden. There is no recorded instance of the death penalty being imposed, and most of the seigniors were content to let the royal courts exercise all haute justice. The seigniorial courts usually confined their activities to disputes over land and titles and to the many local bickerings. Indeed, there was little encouragement for the seignior outside a desire for power to hold courts. It is something of a surprise that a system which was honeycombed with decay in seventeenth-century France should be introduced into a new country and have continued there for more than two centuries. The seigniors of France had ceased to carry out their obligations. The court of an all-powerful sovereign was more attractive than provincial life, and too often the absentee landlord's only interest in his seigniory lay in the hard-wrung remittances from his bailiff. In Canada conditions allowed the revival of the system in its primitive freshness, and when we recollect the essence of feudalism, its introduction need cause little surprise. The military protection which it afforded was very useful to the little colony against Indians and English, while the simple social life provided opportunity for many of the best sides of seigniorialism to flourish. There the seignior lived in close touch with his people-their leader and protector in battle, their supporter and patron in peace. His privileges were not troublesome, and the general customs of life and work in New France were not corrupted by the class hatred of centuries. It is not too much to say that the introduction of the seigniorial system gave to New France its most enduring element. It was a source of strength for every colonizing scheme. In some degree it took the place of municipal institutions, and it gave the colony a military organization much superior to anything which the Thirteen Colonies possessed. Autres temps, autres mœurs. With the fall of Canada and the gradual elimination of paternalism the system finally became an anachronism. Sentimental attachment alone can explain its survival till 1854, when seigniorial tenures were converted by the parliament of Canada into a general tenure en franc aleu roturier, free from all feudal service.1 From the constitutional point of view the system thus disappeared from Canadian history; but relics of it linger, as many of the habitants did not take advantage of the legislation of 1854 to compensate their seignior by a lump sum, and the terms rentes constituées' and 'seigniors' can still be heard in the language of modern Quebec. The system of French colonization was defective in theory and practice. We are forced to make use of the threadbare comparison between French and British methods, as it still remains the best illustration. Both nations employed companies to advance their colonial enterprises, but the inherent difficulty with those French companies which had any pretence to reality was their dependence on the state. They thus lacked the creative initiative of the British type, and they were too easily made and unmade. Time, so necessary in colonization, waited on political and royal caprice. Even when as a royal province New France was most successful, it was an attempt to set up in Canada the old régime. It derived its life from above. Its vitality depended not on roots in the native soil, but on the benevolence of a distant despotism. Everything was organized on a system of perpetual political tutelage. Britain, on the other hand, cared for nothing outside commerce, and soon the unhampered colonists outstripped the motherland in political thinking, in independence of outlook, and in the conception of liberty. Thus, on the one side lie political apathy, indifference 1 18 Victoria, c. 3. 6 to citizenship-a paternal theocracy where everything was done for the colonists, not by them; on the other, the keenest interest in the theory of government, a fierce democracy', as it has been described, a belief in popular consent, a general political selfreliance, a wide flourishing through neglect. What New France gained as a unit was lost in lack of initiative, and what New England lost as a unit was recovered by those lasting qualities which lie behind and postulate development. The lack of initiative in New France killed its political unity for practical purposes, and Montcalm could tell a sorry enough tale of the closing scenes. New England's possession of initiative made up finally for the lack of unity and brought that unity as a certain development in the necessary hours of New England's history. Without disparaging the statesmanship of Chatham, the brilliant combination of Saunders and Wolfe, the more brilliant military achievements of Amherst, and the heroic defenders of the colony, the failure of New France lay deep in the nature of things, independent of the devious ways of diplomacy or of the caprice of the god of battles. The idyllic dream settlements along the St. Lawrence were not made of the stuff for endurance in a new continent, where the vigorous group-life of Anglo-Saxon pioneers was preparing lessons in political experiment destined to change the civilized world. It may be asked, then, Why trouble to survey the constitutional history of New France? Is it not wasted energy to study a system so lacking in permanence? A moment's thought, however, will show that it is impossible to understand Canadian constitutional development without some such survey. The complete answer will appear running through the history; but it may be well to note here that every important landmark in Canadian history bears marks of New France. Indeed, there are few other cases in the world's history where a conquered people have left, within such a short period, so many permanent impressions on the government set up by their conquerors. An |