issued. Occasionally there were seigneurs whose estates were so
favorably situated that they could exact a bonus from intending
settlers, but the King very soon put a stop to this practice. By the
Arrêts of Marly in 1711 he decreed that no bonus or _prix d'entrée_
should be exacted by any seigneur, but that every settler was to have
land for the asking and at the rate of the annual dues customary in
the neighborhood.

At this date there were some ninety seigneuries in the colony, about
which we have considerable information owing to a careful survey which
was made in 1712 at the King's request. This work was entrusted to an
engineer, Gedéon de Catalogne, who had come to Quebec a quarter of a
century earlier to help with the fortifications. Catalogne spent two
years in his survey, during which time he visited practically all the
colonial estates. As a result he prepared and sent to France a full
report giving in each case the location and extent of the seigneury,
the name of its owner, the nature of the soil, and its suitability
for various uses, the products, the population, the condition of the
people, the provisions made for religious instruction, and various
other matters.[1] With the report he sent three maps, one of which has
disappeared. The others show the location of all seigneuries in the
regions of Quebec and Three Rivers.

[Footnote 1: This report was printed for the first time in the
author's _Documents relating to the Seigniorial Tenure in Canada_
(Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1908).]

From Catalogne's survey we know that before 1712 nearly all the
territory on both shores of the St. Lawrence from below Quebec to
above Montreal had been parceled into seigneuries. Likewise the