Conditions in French Quebec

The principal reason of the poverty of this country is the idleness and bad conduct of most of the people.

Our special project presenting the definitive account of France in Canada by Francis Parkman, one of America’s greatest historians.

Previously in The Old Regime In Canada. Continuing chapter 20

Drunkenness was at this time the most destructive vice in the colony. One writer declares that most of the Canadians drink so much brandy in the morning, that they are unfit for work all day. [1] Another says that a canoe-man when he is tired will lift a keg of brandy to his lips and drink the raw liquor from the bung-hole, after which, having spoiled his appetite, he goes to bed supperless; and that, what with drink and hardship, he is an old man at forty. Nevertheless, the race did not deteriorate. The prevalence of early marriages, and the birth of numerous offspring before the vigor of the father had been wasted, ensured the strength and hardihood which characterized the Canadians. As Denonville describes them so they long remained. “The Canadians are tall, well-made, and well set on their legs (bienplantés sur leurs jambes), 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.”

[1: N Y. Colonial Documents. IX. 398.]

As the population increased, as the rage for bush-ranging began to abate, and, above all, as the curés multiplied, a change took place for the better. More churches were built, the charge of each priest was reduced within reasonable bounds, and a greater proportion of the inhabitants remained on their farms. They were better watched, controlled, and taught, by the church. The ecclesiastical power, wherever it had a hold, was exercised, as we have seen, with an undue rigor, yet it was the chief guardian of good morals; and the colony grew more orderly and more temperate as the church gathered more and more of its wild and wandering flock fairly within its fold. In this, however, its success was but relative. It is true that in 1715 a well-informed writer says that the people were “perfectly instructed in religion;” [2] but at that time the statement was only partially true.

[2: Mémoire addressé au Regent.]

During the seventeenth century, and sometime after its close, Canada swarmed with beggars, a singular feature in a new country where a good farm could be had for the asking. In countries intensely Roman Catholic begging is not regarded as an unmixed evil, being supposed to promote two cardinal virtues, — charity in the giver and humility in the receiver. The Canadian officials nevertheless tried to restrain it. Vagabonds of both sexes were ordered to leave Quebec, and nobody was allowed to beg without a certificate of poverty from the curé or the local judge.

[Réglement de Police, 1676.]

These orders were not always observed. Bishop Saint-Vallier writes that he is overwhelmed by beggars, [3] and the intendant echoes his complaint. Almshouses were established at Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec; [4] and when Saint-Vallier founded the General Hospital, its chief purpose was to serve, not as a hospital in the ordinary sense of the word, but as a house of refuge, after the plan of the General Hospital of Paris. [5] Appeal, as usual, was made to the king. Denonville asks his aid for two destitute families, and says that many others need it. Louis XIV. did not fail to respond, and from time to time he sent considerable sums for the relief of the Canadian poor. [6]

[3: N. Y. Colonial Documents, IX. 279.]

[4: Edits et Ordonnances, II. 119.]

[5: On the General Hospital of Quebec, see Juchereau, 355. In 1692, the minister writes to Frontenac and Champigny that they should consider well whether this house of refuge will not “augmenter la fainéantise parmi les habitans,” by giving them a sure support in poverty.]

[6: As late as 1701, six thousand livres were granted Callieres au Ministre, 4 Nov., 1701.]

Denonville says, “The principal reason of the poverty of this country is the idleness and bad conduct of most of the people. The greater part of the women, including all the demoiselles, are very lazy.” [7] Meules proposes as a remedy that the king should establish a general workshop in the colony, and pay the workmen himself during the first five or six years. [8] “The persons here,” he says, “who have wished to make a figure are nearly all so overwhelmed with debt that they may be considered as in the last necessity.” [9] He adds that many of the people go half-naked even in winter. “The merchants of this country,” says the intendant Duchesneau, “are all plunged in poverty, except five or six at the most; it is the same with the artisans, except a small number, because the vanity of the women and the debauchery of the men consume all their gains. As for such of the laboring class as apply themselves steadily to cultivating the soil, they not only live very well, but are incomparably better off than the better sort of peasants in France.” [10]

[7: Denonville et Champigny au Ministre, 6 Nov,, 1687.]

[8: Meules au Ministre, 12 Nov., 1682.]

[9: Meules, Mémoire touchant le Canada et l’Acadie, 1684.]

[10: Duchesneau au Ministre, 10 Nov., 1679.]

All the writers lament the extravagant habits of the people; and even La Hontan joins hands with the priests in wishing that the supply of ribbons, laces, brocades, jewelry, and the like, might be cut off: by act of law. Mother Juchereau tells us that, when the English invasion was impending, the belles of Canada were scared for a while into modesty in order to gain the favor of heaven; but, as may be imagined, the effect was short, and Father La Tour declares that in his time all the fashions except rouge came over regularly in the annual ships.

The manners of the mission period, on the other hand, were extremely simple. The old governor, Lauzon, lived on peas and bacon like a laborer, and kept no man-servant. He was regarded, it is true, as a miser, and held in slight account. [11] Magdeleine Boucher, sister of the governor of Three Rivers, brought her husband two hundred francs in money, four sheets, two table-cloths, six napkins of linen and hemp, a mattress, a blanket, two dishes, six spoons and six tin plates, a pot and a kettle, a table and two benches, a kneading-trough, a chest with lock and key, a cow, and a pair of hogs. [12] But the Bouchers were a family of distinction, and the bride’s dowry answered to her station. By another marriage contract, at about the same time, the parents of the bride, being of humble degree, bind themselves to present the bridegroom with a barrel of bacon, deliverable on the arrival of the ships from France. [13]

[11: Mémoire d’Aubert de la Chesnaye, 1676]

[12: Contrat de marriage, cited by Ferland, Notes, 73]

[13: Contrat de marriage, cited by Benjamin Suite in Revue Canadienne, IX. 111.]

Some curious traits of this early day appear in the license of Jean Boisdon as innkeeper. He is required to establish himself on the great square of Quebec, close to the church, so that the parishioners may conveniently warm and refresh themselves between the services; but he is forbidden to entertain anybody during high mass, sermon, catechism, or vespers. [14] Matters soon changed; Jean Boisdon lost his monopoly, and inns sprang up on all hands. They did not want for patrons, and we find some of their proprietors mentioned as among the few thriving men in Canada. Talon tried to regulate them, and, among other rules, ordained that no innkeeper should furnish food or drink to any hired laborer whatever, or to any person residing in the place where his inn was situated. An innkeeper of Montreal was fined for allowing the syndic of the town to dine under his roof. [15]

[14: Acte officielle, 1648, cited by Ferland. Cours d’Histoire du Canada, I. 865.]

[15: Faillon, Colonie Française, III. 405.]

One gets glimpses of the pristine state of Quebec through the early police regulations. Each inhabitant was required to make a gutter along the middle of the street before his house, and also to remove refuse and throw it into the river. All dogs, without exception, were ordered home at nine o’clock. On Tuesdays and Fridays there was a market in the public square, whither the neighboring habitants, male and female, brought their produce for sale, as they still continue to do. Smoking in the street was forbidden, as a precaution against fire; householders were required to provide themselves with ladders, and when the fire alarm was rung all able-bodied persons were obliged to run to the scene of danger with buckets or kettles full of water. [16] This did not prevent the Lower Town from burning to the ground in 1682. It was soon rebuilt, but a repetition of the catastrophe seemed very likely. “This place,” says Denonville, “is in a fearful state as regards fire; for the houses are crowded together out of all reason, and so surrounded with piles of cord-wood that it is pitiful to see.” [17] Add to this the stores of hay for the cows kept by many of the inhabitants for the benefit of their swarming progeny.

[16: Réglement de Police, 1672. Ibid., 1676.]

[17: Denonville au Ministre, 20 Août, 1686]

The houses were at this time low, compact buildings, with gables of masonry, as required by law; but many had wooden fronts, and all had roofs covered with cedar shingles. The anxious governor begs that, as the town has not a sou of revenue, his Majesty will be pleased to make it the gift of two hundred crowns’ worth of leather fire-buckets. [18] Six or seven years after, certain citizens were authorized by the council to import from France, at their own cost, “a pump after the Dutch fashion, for throwing water on houses in case of fire.” [19] How a fire was managed at Quebec appears from a letter of the engineer, Yasseur, describing the burning of Laval’s seminary in 1701. Vasseur was then at Quebec, directing the new fortifications. On a Monday in November, all the pupils of the seminary and most of the priests went, according to their weekly custom, to recreate themselves at a house and garden at St. Michel, a short distance from town. The few priests who remained went after dinner to say vespers at the church. Only one, Father Petit, was left in the seminary, and he presently repaired to the great hall to rekindle the fire in the stove and warm the place against the return of his brethren. His success surpassed his wishes. A firebrand snapped out in his absence and set the pine floor in a blaze. Father Boucher, curé of Point Levi, chanced to come in, and was half choked by the smoke. He cried fire! the servants ran for water; but the flames soon mastered them; they screamed the alarm, and the bells began to ring. Vasseur was dining with the intendant at his palace by the St. Charles, when he heard a frightened voice crying out, “Monsieur, you are wanted; you are wanted.” He sprang from table, saw the smoke rolling in volumes from the top of the rock, ran up the steep ascent, reached the seminary, and found an excited crowd making a prodigious outcry. He shouted for carpenters. Four men came to him, and he set them at work with such tools as they had to tear away planks and beams, and prevent the fire from spreading to the adjacent parts of the building; but, when he went to find others to help them, they ran off. He set new men in their place, and these too ran off the moment his back was turned. A cry was raised that the building was to be blown up, on which the crowd scattered for their lives. Vasseur now gave up the seminary for lost, and thought only of cutting off the fire from the rear of the church, which was not far distant. In this he succeeded, by tearing down an intervening wing or gallery. The walls of the burning building were of massive stone, and by seven o’clock the fire had spent itself. We hear nothing of the Dutch pump, nor does it appear that the soldiers of the garrison made any effort to keep order. Under cover of the confusion, property was stolen from the seminary to the amount of about two thousand livres, which is remarkable, considering the religious character of the building, and the supposed piety of the people. “There were more than three hundred persons at the fire,” says Yasseur; “but thirty picked men would have been worth more than the whole of them.” [20]

[18: Denonville au Ministre, 20 Août, 1685.]

[19: Réglement de 1691, extract in Ferland.]

[20: Vasseur au Ministre, 2-4 Nov., 1701. Like Denonville before him, he urges the need of fire-buckets.]

– The Old Regime In Canada, Chapter 20 by Francis Parkman

The below is from Francis Parkman’s Introduction.

If, at times, it may seem that range has been allowed to fancy, it is so in appearance only; since the minutest details of narrative or description rest on authentic documents or on personal observation.

Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them, he must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes.

With respect to that special research which, if inadequate, is still in the most emphatic sense indispensable, it has been the writer’s aim to exhaust the existing material of every subject treated. While it would be folly to claim success in such an attempt, he has reason to hope that, so far at least as relates to the present volume, nothing of much importance has escaped him. With respect to the general preparation just alluded to, he has long been too fond of his theme to neglect any means within his reach of making his conception of it distinct and true.

MORE INFORMATION