Lord Elgin by Sir John George Bourinot (ebooks online reader .txt) 📖

seignior's mill (_moulin banal_), and though the royal authorities at Quebec were very particular in pressing the fulfilment of this obligation, it does not appear to have been successfully carried out in the early days of the colony on account of the inability of the seigniors to purchase the machinery, or erect buildings suitable for the satisfactory performance of a service clearly most useful to the people of the rural districts. The obligation of baking bread in the seigniorial oven was not generally exacted, and soon became obsolete as the country was settled and each _habitant_ naturally built his own oven in connection with his home. The seigniors also claimed the right to a certain amount of statute labour (_corvée_) from the _habitants_ on their estates, to one fish out of every dozen caught in seigniorial waters, and to a reservation of wood and stone for the construction and repairs of the manor house, mill, and church in the parish or seigniory. In case the _censitaire_ wished to dispose of his holding during his lifetime, it was subject to the _lods et ventes_, or to a tax of one-twelfth of the purchase money, which had to be paid to the seignior, who usually as a favour remitted one-fourth on punctual payment. The most serious restriction on such sales was the _droit de retraite_, or right of the seignior to preempt the same property himself within forty days from the date of the sale.

There was no doubt, at the establishment of the seigniorial tenure, a disposition to create in Canada, as far as possible, an aristocratic class akin to the _noblesse_ of old France, who were a social order quite distinct from the industrial and commercial classes, though they did not necessarily bear titles. Under the old feudal system the possession of land brought nobility and a title, but in the modified seigniorial system of Canada the king could alone confer titular distinctions. The intention of the system was to induce men of good social position--like the _gentils-hommes_ or officers of the Carignan regiment--to settle in the country and become seigniors. However, the latter were not confined to this class, for the title was rapidly extended to shopkeepers, farmers, sailors, and even mechanics who had a little money and were ready to pay for the cheap privilege of becoming nobles in a small way. Titled seigniors were very rare at any time in French Canada. In 1671, Des Islets, Talon's seigniory, was erected into a barony, and subsequently into an earldom (Count d'Orsainville). Francois Berthelot's seigniory of St. Laurent on the Island of Orleans was made in 1676 an earldom, and that of Portneuf, René Robineau's, into a barony. The only title which has come down to the present time is that of the Baron de Longueuil, which was first conferred on the distinguished Charles LeMoyne in 1700, and has been officially recognized by the British government since December, 1880.

The established seigniorial system bore conclusive evidence of the same paternal spirit which sent shiploads of virtuous young women (sometimes _marchandises mêlées_) to the St. Lawrence to become wives of the forlorn Canadian bachelors, gave trousseaux of cattle and kitchen utensils to the newly wed, and encouraged by bounties the production of children. The seigniories were the ground on which these paternal methods of creating a farming community were to be developed, but despite the wise intentions of the government the whole machinery was far from realizing the results which might reasonably have been expected from its operation. The land was easily acquired and cheaply held, facilities were given for the grinding of grain and the making of flour; fish and game were quickly taken by the skilful fisherman and enterprising hunter, and the royal officials generally favoured the _habitants_ in disputes with the seigniors.

Unlike the large grants made by the British government after the conquest to loyalists, Protestant clergy, and speculators--grants calculated to keep large sections of the country in a state of wildness--the seigniorial estates had to be cultivated and settled within a reasonable time if they were to be retained by the occupants. During the French dominion the Crown sequestrated a number of seigniories for the failure to observe the obligation of cultivation. As late as 1741 we find an ordinance restoring seventeen estates to the royal domain, although the Crown was ready to reinstate the former occupants the moment they showed that they intended to perform their duty of settlement. But all the care that was taken to encourage settlement was for a long time without large results, chiefly in consequence of the nomadic habits of the young men on the seigniories. The fur trade, from the beginning to the end of French dominion, was a serious bar to steady industry on the farm. The young _gentilhomme_ as well as the young _habitant_ loved the free life of the forest and river better than the monotonous work of the farm. He preferred too often making love to the impressionable dusky maiden of the wigwam rather than to the stolid, devout damsel imported for his kind by priest or nun. A raid on some English post or village had far more attraction than following the plough or threshing the grain. This adventurous spirit led the young Frenchman to the western prairies where the Red and Assiniboine waters mingle, to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, to the Ohio and Mississippi, and to the Gulf of Mexico. But while Frenchmen in this way won eternal fame, the seigniories were too often left in a state of savagery, and even those _seigneurs_ and _habitants_ who devoted themselves successfully to pastoral pursuits found themselves in the end harassed by the constant calls made upon their military services during the years the French fought to retain the imperial domain they had been the first to discover and occupy in the great valleys of North America. Still, despite the difficulties which impeded the practical working of the seigniorial system, it had on the whole an excellent effect on the social conditions of the country. It created a friendly and even parental relation between _seigneur, curé,_ and _habitant_, who on each estate constituted as it were a seigniorial family, united to each other by common ties of self-interest and personal affection. If the system did not create an energetic self-reliant people in the rural communities, it arose from the fact that it was not associated with a system of local self-government like that which existed in the colonies of England. The French king had no desire to see such a system develop in the colonial dependencies of France. His governmental system in Canada was a mild despotism intended to create a people ever ready to obey the decrees and ordinances of royal officials, over whom the commonality could exercise no control whatever in such popular elective assemblies as were enjoyed by every colony of England in North America.

During the French régime the officials of the French government frequently repressed undue or questionable exactions imposed, or attempted to be imposed, on the _censitaires_ by greedy or extravagant seigniors. It was not until the country had been for some time in the possession of England that abuses became fastened on the tenure, and retarded the agricultural and industrial development of the province. The _cens et rentes_ were unduly raised, the _droit de banalité_ was pressed to the extent that if a _habitant_ went to a better or more convenient mill than the seignior's, he had to pay tolls to both, the transfer of property was hampered by the _lods el ventes_ and the _droit de retraite_, and the claim always made by the seigniors to the exclusive use of the streams running by or through the seigniories was a bar to the establishment of industrial enterprise. Questions of law which arose between the _seigneur_ and _habitant_ and were referred to the courts were decided in nearly all cases in favour of the former. In such instances the judges were governed by precedent or by a strict interpretation of the law, while in the days of French dominion the intendants were generally influenced by principles of equity in the disputes that came before them, and by a desire to help the weaker litigant, the _censitaire_.

It took nearly a century after the conquest before it was possible to abolish a system which had naturally become so deeply rooted in the social and economic conditions of the people of French Canada. As the abuses of the tenure became more obvious, discontent became widespread, and the politicians after the union were forced at last to recognize the necessity of a change more in harmony with modern principles. Measures were first passed better to facilitate the optional commutation of the tenure of lands _en roture_ into that of _franc aleu roturier_, but they never achieved any satisfactory results. LaFontaine did not deny the necessity for a radical change in the system, but he was too much wedded to the old institutions of his native province to take the initiative for its entire removal. Mr. Louis Thomas Drummond, who was attorney-general in both the Hincks-Morin and MacNab-Morin ministries, is deserving of honourable mention in Canadian history for the leading part he took in settling this very perplexing question. I have already shown that his first attempt in 1853 failed in consequence of the adverse action of the legislative council, and that no further steps were taken in the matter until the coming into office of the MacNab or Liberal-Conservative government in 1854, when he brought a bill into parliament to a large extent a copy of the first. This bill became law after it had received some important amendments in the upper House, where there were a number of representatives of seigniorial interests, now quite reconciled to the proposed change and prepared to make the best of it. It abolished all feudal rights and duties in Lower Canada, "whether hearing upon the _censitaire_ or _seigneur_," and provided for the appointment of commissioners to enquire into the respective rights of the parties interested. In order to enable them to come to correct conclusions with respect to these rights, all questions of law were first submitted to a seigniorial court composed of the judges of the Queen's Bench and Superior Court in Lower Canada. The commissioners under this law were as follows:--

Messrs. Chabot, H. Judah, S. Lelièvre, L. Archambault, N. Dumas, J.G.
Turcotte, C. Delagrave, P. Winter, J.G. Lebel, and J.B. Varin.

The judges of the seigniorial court were:--

Chief Justice Sir Louis H. LaFontaine, president; Judges Bowen,
Aylwin, Duval, Caron, Day, Smith, Vanfelson, Mondelet, Meredith,
Short, Morin, and Badgley.

Provision was also made by parliament for securing compensation to the seigniors for the giving up of all legal rights of which they were deprived by the decision of the commissioners. It took five years of enquiry and deliberation before the commissioners were able to complete their labours, and then it was found necessary to vote other funds to meet all the expenses entailed by a full settlement of the question.

The result was that all lands previously held _en fief, en arrière fief, en censive_, or _en roture_, under the old French system, were henceforth placed on the footing of lands in the other provinces, that is to say, free and common socage. The seigniors received liberal remuneration for the abolition of the _lods et ventes, droit de banalité_, and other rights declared legal by the court. The _cens et ventes_ had alone to be met as an established rent (_rente constituée_) by the _habitant_, but even this change was so modified and arranged as to meet the exigencies of the _censitaires_, the protection of whose interests was at the basis of the whole law abolishing this ancient tenure. This radical change