It was Richelieu who introduced this modified form of the feudal
system into Canada, when he constituted, in 1627, the whole of the
colony as a fief of the great fur-trading company of the Hundred
Associates on the sole condition of its paying fealty and homage to
the Crown. It had the right of establishing seigniories as a part of
its undertaking to bring four thousand colonists to the province and
furnish them with subsistence for three years. Both this company and
its successor, the Company of the West Indies, created a number of
seigniories, but for the most part they were never occupied, and the
king revoked the grants on the ground of non-settlement, when he
resumed possession of the country and made it a royal province. From
that time the system was regulated by the _Coutume de Paris_, by royal
edicts, or by ordinances of the intendant.

The greater part of the soil of Canada was accordingly held _en fief_
or _en seigneurie_. Each grant varied from sixteen _arpents_--an
_arpent_ being about five-sixths of an English acre--by fifty, to ten
leagues by twelve. We meet with other forms of tenure in the partition
of land in the days of the French régime--for instance, _franc aleu
noble_ and _franc aumone_ or _mortmain_, but these were exceptional
grants to charitable, educational, or religious institutions, and were
subject to none of the ordinary obligations of the feudal tenure, but
required, as in the latter case, only the performance of certain
devotional or other duties which fell within their special sphere.
Some grants were also given in _franc aleu roturier_, equivalent to
the English tenure of free and common socage, and were generally made
for special objects.[22]

The _seigneur_, on his accession to the estate, was required to pay
homage to the king, or to his feudal superior from whom he derived his