, and the policy of Dorchester, a unit which called itself _la
nation Canadienne_ had been formed, _nationalite_ had become a force in
Lower {14} Canada, imperfectly appreciated even by the leaders of the
progressive movement in England and Western Canada. In the Eastern
townships, and in Quebec and Montreal, flourishing and highly organized
British societies existed. The Rebellion had found sturdy opponents in
the British militia from the townships, and the constitutional
societies of Quebec and Montreal expressed, in innumerable resolutions
and addresses, the British point of view. But Lower Canada was for
practical purposes a French unit, Roman Catholic in religion, and, in
structure, semifeudal. In the cities, the national self-consciousness
of the French was most conspicuously present; and leaders like
Papineau, La Fontaine, and Cartier proved the reality of French culture
and political skill. Below the higher classes, Durham and Metcalfe
noticed that in Lower Canada the facilities given by the church for
higher education produced a class of smaller professional men, from
whose number the ordinary politicians and agitators were drawn. To the
church they owed their entrance into the world of ideas; but apparently
they were little more loyal to the clergy than they were to Britain.
"I am led to believe," wrote Metcalfe in 1845, "that the influence of
the clergy is not predominant, {15} among the French-Canadian people,
and that the avocat, the notary, and the doctor, generally disposed to
be political demagogues, and most of them hostile to the British
government, are the parties who exercise the greatest influence.
Whatever power the clergy might have acting along with these
demagogues, it would, I fear, be slight when exercised in opposition to
them."[8]

These active, critical, political groups were not, however,
representative of French Canada. So long as their racial pride
remained unhurt, the French community was profoundly conservative. It
was noticed that the rebels of 1837 and 1838 had received no support
from the Catholic priesthood; and in a country where the reverence for
that ancient form of Christianity was, in spite of Metcalfe's opinion
to the contrary, profound, it was unlikely that any anti-religious
political movement could make much permanent headway. Devoted to their
religion, and controlled more especially in education by their
priests,[9] the _habitants_ formed the peculiar people of t