proselytes of the missions. In this
unfortunate way the _gentilhomme_ and his children compromised with
labour and managed to keep body and soul together.

Harsh edict and cruel ordinance were repeatedly launched against the
practices of these well-bred offenders, but the ready covert of the
forest made the evasion of the King's justice an easy matter.
Moreover, the Church, while it suffered much from such children, did
not venture to reprove too strongly their flagrant excesses, lest they
should thenceforth dispense altogether with her sacraments; for a
furtive life in the wild woods did not prevent the superstitious
_coureurs de bois_ from occasionally coming to confession or to Mass.

[Illustration: OLD BISHOP'S PALACE (AT THE TOP OF MOUNTAIN HILL)]

A royal edict ordered that any person going into the woods without a
license should be whipped and branded for the first offence, and sent
for life to the galleys for the second; while a third offence was
punishable by death. The whole criminal code of Quebec was, indeed, of
a piece with this; and an obvious feature was the quasi-religious
character of most of the offences. The edict against blasphemy read as
follows: "...All persons convicted of profane swearing or blaspheming
the name of God, the most Holy Virgin, His Mother, or the Saints,
shall be condemned for the first offence to a pecuniary fine according
to their possessions and the greatness and enormity of the oath and
blasphemy; and if those thus punished repeat the said oaths, then for
the second, third, and fourth time they shall be condemned to a
double, triple, and quadruple fine; and for the fifth time they shall
be set in the pillory on Sunday or other festival days, there to
remain from eight in the morning till one in the afternoon, exposed to
all sorts of opprobrium and abuse, and be condemned besides to a heavy
fine; and for the sixth time they shall be led to the pillory, and
there have the upper lip cut with a hot iron; and for the seventh time
they shall be led to the pillory and have the lower lip cut; and if,
by reason of obstinacy and inveterate bad habit, they continue after
all these punishments to utter the said oaths and blasphemies, it is
our will and command that they have the tongue completely cut out, so
that thereafter they cannot utter them again."[8]

A citizen who had the temerity to eat meat during Lent without
priestly permission was condemned to be tied three hours to the pub