not only among the Indians but the colonists as well.1 Denonville and Champigny, in a letter to the Minister on the evils of the brandy traffic point out that

The Canadians also ruin their health thereby, and as the greater number of them drink a large quantity of it [brandy] early in the morning, they are incapable of doing anything the remainder of the day so that it is considered absolutely necessary to find means to diminish its use among the Canadians. . 2

A contemporary well described this prevalent type of character: "The Canadians are . . . robust, vigorous, and accustomed in time of need to live on little. They have intelligence and vivacity, but are wayward, light-minded, and inclined to debauchery ".3

Their apparent light-hearted indifference to the future, coupled with a love of ostentation and display, occasioned much extravagance among the people, especially the noblesse and bourgeoisie, which often brought them to the verge of bankruptcy. Charlevoix contrasts this trait of the Canadian with that of the colonists of New England.

One finds here no rich persons whatever, and this is a great pity; for the Canadians like to get the credit of their money,

1 Mandements des Evêques de Québec, vol. i, p. 352; Jugements et Dél., vol. i, pp. 77-78; Duchesneau au Ministre, 10 Nov., 1679, cited by Parkman, op. cit., vol. viii, p. 183; C. G., xii, et seq., 382, 384, cited by Eastman, op. cit., p. 275.

'Denonville and Champigny to the Minister, 1688, Colon. Docs., vol. ix, p. 398. "Public drinking must have been very common, for Denonville complained to the king that there were no end of wine shops. The king in consequence ordered that the number be reduced. In 1725 the number was fixed at two for each parish." (Gosselin, Henri de Berniéres, p. 119.)

3 Mémoire Addressé au Régent, cited by Parkman, op. cit., vol. viii, p. 181; cf. Colon. Docs. N. Y., vol. ix, p. 273.

and scarcely anybody amuses himself with hoarding it. They say it is very different with our neighbors the English; and one who knew the two colonies by the way of living, acting, and speaking of the colonists would not hesitate to judge ours the more flourishing. . . . In New France poverty is hidden under an air of ease which appears entirely natural. . . . The French colonist enjoys what he has got, and often makes a display of what he has not got.1

Duchesneau, the Intendant, states that "all except five or six of the merchants and a small number of artisans are plunged in poverty because the vanity of the women and the debauchery of the men consume all their gains ".2

Kalm, seventy years later, appears to have been of much the same opinion, for he says, "The Frenchmen who considered things in their true light, complained very much that a great part of the ladies in Canada had got into the pernicious custom of taking too much care of their dress, and squandering all their fortunes, and more, upon it, instead of sparing something for future times." "

It is true that there were many of the austere type among the clergy and religious orders, as well as among the faithful of the laity; still, the mass of the people, although devoutly religious," belonged to the forceful and

1 Charlevoix, cited by Parkman, Old Régime, vol. ii, p. 195.

2 Duchesneau au Ministre, 10 Nov., 1679, cited by Parkman, vol. viii, p. 183. 3 Kalm, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 281. 'Giddings, Ind. Soc., p. 83; cf. ibid., Hist. and Desc. Soc., pp. 230-231, 234, 236.

"The French, in their colonies, spend much more time in prayer and external worship than the English and Dutch settlers in the British colonies. . . . The French here have prayers every morning and night on board their shipping, and on Sundays they pray more than commonly; they regularly say grace at their meals; and every one of them says prayers in private as soon as he gets up. At Fort St. Frederic all the soldiers assembled together for morning and evening prayers." (Kalm, vol. iii, pp. 43-44; cf. Const. Docs., vol. i, p. 53; Stillman, Remarks on Quebec, p. 386.)

convivial groups; and any austerity of life which they assumed was very largely the result of isolation and the rigorous discipline of the church. This is very vividly brought out by Le Jeune when he writes:

I have here a request to make of all those who wish to express an opinion of the condition of our colony,-to close their eyes while the ships are at anchor in our ports, and to open them at their departure, or shortly afterwards, to the agreeable sight of our countrymen. They wish to make merry and they fall into excesses; their good habits grow drowsy, and vice begins to raise its head; there is a greater indulgence in drink and feasting during that time than in all the rest of the year. But when the fleet has departed, when visits come to an end, when the winter begins to rally us, how they lend ear to the word of God, and how those who have taken too much liberty recognize their shortcomings! Then those who thought that lawlessness reigned in our colony joyfully praise the piety and devotion thereof . 1

Although given to ostentation and display, and fond of honors and attentions," they " were not wanting in many of the virtues of a simple and industrious life or those which common consent attributes to the nation from which they had sprung While generally acknowledged to be litigious, they were little given to offences against property,

4

1 Rel. 1636-1637, vol. xi, p. 73.

• Munro, Docs. S. T., p. xci.

3 Durham, op. cit., p. 17. Cf. "Though not slothful in business, they sought mainly to serve themselves, whom they esteemed the salt of the earth-a truculent conceit which was not, the intendant [Hocquart] thought, a useful handmaid to industrial, commercial or agricultural progress. Their enforced idleness in the long winter period was also, in his opinion, somewhat detrimental to industrious habits, especially since by nature they loved the chase and the roving life in general." (Munro, op. cit., pp. xci-xcii.)

4 Charlevoix, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 190; A Pol. and Hist. Account of L. C., p. 140.

or violence against the person; rather, although naturally independent and self-assertive, were they held by common consent to be kindly and hospitable, virtuous and honest.2

They were largely of the ideo-emotional type of mind and less dogmatic-emotional than their descendants of to-day.3 Cheerful and good-humored, they were distinguished for courtesy and politeness, and while not as lively and vivacious as their French ancestors, yet they were by no means dull.* Swayed largely by feeling, and under the control of the unquestioned authority of the church and state, reason had very little opportunity to assert itself. As they were shut off for most of the year from the outside world, conservatism and traditionalism prevailed.5 "They clung to ancient prejudices, ancient customs, and ancient laws, not from any strong sense of their beneficial effects, but with the unreasoning tenacity of an uneducated and unprogressive people.'

It is very clear that traits of the sort described in the

1 Charlevoix, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 190; The Canadian French, Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1882, p. 65.

2

Revolutionary Letters, p. 31; cf. Const. Docs., vol. i, p. 60; Mass. B. of L., p. 52.

'Giddings, Ind. Soc., pp. 84-87; cf. ibid., Hist. and Disc. Soc., pp. 236-240.

"A more good-humoured people than the latter (French Canadian) can hardly be found; but the sparkling vivacity, the vehemence of temper, the tiger-like passion and the brilliant fiery wit of a Frenchman are not to be found among them." (A Pol. and Hist. Account of L. C., p. 141.) Cf. "Notwithstanding their poverty, they are always cheerful and in high spirits." (Kalm, vol. iii, p. 192.) Cf. "They will be out of doors talking and singing between themselves. They are just like the French in the Canadian villages. They like to sing, and they are a little noisy, but always friendly. . . ." (Mass. B. of L., 1882, p. 54.) 5" The news of the day amounts to very little indeed, as the country furnishes scarcely any, while that from Europe comes all at once." (Charlevoix, cited by Parkman, vol. viii, p. 195.)

6 Durham, op. cit. p. 17.

foregoing pages were such as to render the population as a whole readily amenable to ecclesiastical control. It is in the sphere of religion, however, that the greatest degree of homogeneity among the French Canadians was exhibited. The policy begun under Richelieu of a rigorous exclusion of Protestants, although it robbed the church of the stimulus which comes through criticism and the fear of proselytizing, had, nevertheless, been of primary importance for unity of faith and practice. Everywhere throughout New France there was uniformity of worship. There was one church and one religious leadership, under the supervision of a watchful bishop. The attendance at church represented the whole community as most of the people were to be found at the services. The presence, from almost the beginning, of a strong and relatively large group of clergy in the colony, backed by a highly organized church with rather liberal financial support, and in control of all education, gave to the church, in Quebec, stability and prestige; and at the same time, enabled it not only to maintain the ordinances of religion with dignity and fitting solemnity in the older parishes, but also to follow the people into the newer settlements and thus retain them within the fold.

The rigorous exclusion of Protestants from New France merely reflected the attitude of Roman Catholicism to Protestantism during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

66

Excessive intolerance was inwrought in the moral sanctions of the period ".1 In no other country except The Netherlands was the struggle more bitter than in France.

From the beginning of French colonization in Canada, the evangelization of the natives was held to be the exclusive field of Roman Catholic missions. The Protestants seem to have accepted this situation, for De Monts, al

1 Reyss, Étude sur quelques points de l'histoire de la tolérance au Canada et aux Antilles, p. 8.