The pivot of social life in New France was the settlement at Quebec.
This was the colonial capital, the seat of the governor and of the
council, the only town in the colony large enough to have all the
trappings and tinsel of a well-rounded social set. Here, too, came
some of the seigneurs to spend the winter months. The royal officials,
the officers of the garrison, the leading merchants, the judges, the
notaries and a few other professional men--these with their families
made up an élite which managed to echo, even if somewhat faintly, the
pomp and glamor of Versailles. Quebec, from all accounts, was
lively in the long winters. Its people, who were shut off from all
intercourse with Europe for many months at a time, soon learned
the art of providing for their own recreation and amusement. The
knight-errant La Hontan speaks enthusiastically of the events in the
life of this miniature society, of the dinners and dances, the salons
and receptions, the intrigues, rivalries, and flirtations, all of
which were well suited to his Bohemian tastes. But the clergy frowned
upon this levity, of which they believed there was far too much. On
one or two occasions they even laid a rigorous and restraining hand
upon activities of which they disapproved, notably when the young
officers of the Quebec garrison undertook an amateur performance of
Moliere's _Tartuffe_ in 1694. At Montreal and Three Rivers, the two
smaller towns of the colony, the social circle was more contracted and
correspondingly less brilliant. The capital, indeed, had no rival.

Only a small part of the population, however, lived in the towns. At
the beginning of the eighteenth century the census (1706) showed
a total of 16,417, of whom less than 3000 were in the three chief
settlements. The others were scattered along both banks of the St.
Lawrence, but chiefly on the northern shore, with the houses grouped