t threaten and the priest might
plead. It recked not to the coureur de bois when once his knees felt
the bottom of the canoe.

{14}

But of the seven thousand French who peopled Canada in 1672 it is
probable that not more than four hundred were scattered through the
forest. The greater part of the inhabitants occupied the seigneuries
along the St Lawrence and the Richelieu. Tadoussac was hardly more
than a trading-post. Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal were but
villages. In the main the life of the people was the life of the
seigneuries--an existence well calculated to bring out in relief the
ancestral heroism of the French race. The grant of seigneurial rights
did not imply that the recipient had been a noble in France. The
earliest seigneur, Louis Hebert, was a Parisian apothecary, and many of
the Canadian gentry were sprung from the middle class. There was
nothing to induce the dukes, the counts, or even the barons of France
to settle on the soil of Canada. The governor was a noble, but he
lived at the Chateau St Louis. The seigneur who desired to achieve
success must reside on the land he had received and see that his
tenants cleared it of the virgin forest. He could afford little
luxury, for in almost all cases his private means were small. But a
seigneur who fulfilled the conditions of his grant could look forward
to occupying a {15} relatively greater position in Canada than he could
have occupied in France, and to making better provision for his
children.

Both the seigneur and his tenant, the habitant, had a stake in Canada
and helped to maintain the colony in the face of grievous hardships.
The courage and tenacity of the French Canadian are attested by what he
endured throughout the years when he was fighting for his foothold.
And if he suffered, his wife suffered still more. The mother who
brought up a large family in the midst of stumps, bears, and Iroquois
knew what it was to be resourceful.

Obviously the Canada of 1672 lacked many things--among them the stern
resolve which animated the Puritans of New England that their sons
should have the rudiments of an education.[5] At this point the
contrast between New France and New England discloses conflicting
ideals of faith and duty. In later years the problem of knowledge
assumed larger proportions, but during the period of Frontenac the
chief need of Canada was heroism. Possessing this virtue abundantly,
Canadians lost no time in lame