character. "Every one here," wrote Meulles, "begins by calling himself
an esquire and ends by thinking himself a nobleman."

Yet despite this attempt to keep up appearances, the people were
poor. Clearing the land was a slow process, and the cultivable area
available for the support of each household was small. Early marriages
were the rule, and families of a dozen or more children had to be
supported from the produce of a few _arpents_. To maintain such a
family as this every one had to work hard in the growing season, and
even the women went to the fields in the harvest-time. One serious
shortcoming of the habitant was his lack of steadfastness in labor.
There was a roving strain in his Norman blood. He could not stay long
at any one job; there was a restlessness in his temperament which
would not down. He would leave his fields unploughed in order to go
hunting or to turn a few _sous_ in some small trading adventure.
Unstable as water, he did not excel in tasks that required patience.
But he could do a great many things after a fashion, and some that
could be done quickly he did surprisingly well.

One racial characteristic which drew comment from observers of the day
was the litigious disposition of the people. The habitant would have
made lawsuits his chief diversion had he been permitted to do so. "If
this propensity be not curbed," wrote the intendant Raudot, "there
will soon be more lawsuits in this country than there are persons."
The people were not quarrelsome in the ordinary sense, but they were
very jealous each one of his private rights, and the opportunities for
litigation over such matters seemed to provide themselves without end.
Lands were given to settlers without accurate description of their
boundaries; farms were unfenced and cattle wandered into neighboring
fields; the notaries themselves were almost illiterate, and as a