The Seigneurs of Old Canada : A Chronicle of New World Feudalism

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ... ILLUSTRATIONS LE CANADIEN ...... Frontispiece After a painting by Krieghoff. MAP OF THE SEIGNEURIES, 1790 . Facing page 2 Prepared by the author on the basis of an official map in the Dominion Archives. CARDINAL RICHELIEU ,18 From a painting in the Louvre, Paris. THE HABITANT ,,96 Painting by Macnaughton. INTERIOR OF A FRENCH-CANADIAN FARM- HOUSE ,106 After a painting by Krieghoff. LA CANADIEN NE ,112 After a painting by Krieghoff. HABITANT PLOUGHING ,118 From the painting by Huot. THE SEIGNEURIAL COURT, 1855 . . ?? 146 From a drawing by W. W. Smith. CHAPTER I AN OUTPOST OF EMPIRE What would history be without the picturesque annals of the Gallic race? This is a question which the serious student may well ask himself as he works his way through the chronicles of a dozen centuries. From the age of Charlemagne to the last of the Bonapartes is a long stride down the ages; but there was never a time in all these years when men might make reckonings in the arithmetic of European politics without taking into account the prestige, the power, and even the primacy of France. There were times without number when France among her neighbours made herself hated with an undying hate; there were times, again, when she rallied them to her side in friendship and admiration. There were epochs in which her hegemony passed unquestioned among men of other lands, and there were times when a sudden shift in fortune seemed to lay the nation prostrate, with none so poor to do her reverence. s.o.c. A It was France that first brought an orderly nationalism out of feudal chaos; it was her royal house of Capet that rallied Europe to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre and led the greatest of the crusades to Palestine. Yet the France of the last crusades w