of the Carignan-Salières. The seigniors had, as in France, the right
of dispensing justice, but with the exception of the Seminary of St
Sulpice of Montreal, it was only in very rare instances they exercised
their judicial powers, and then simply in cases of inferior
jurisdiction _(basse justice)_. The superior council and intendant
adjudicated in all matters of civil and criminal importance.

The whole success of the seigniorial system, as a means of settling
the country, depended on the extent to which the seigniors were able
to grant their lands _en censive_ or _en roture_. The _censitaire_ who
held his lands in this way could not himself sub-infeudate. The
grantee _en roture_ was governed by the same rules as the one _en
censive_ except with respect to the descent of lands in cases of
intestacy. All land grants to the _censitaires_--or as they preferred
to call themselves in Canada, _habitants_--were invariably shaped like
a parallelogram, with a narrow frontage on the river varying from two
to three _arpents_, and with a depth from four to eight _arpents_.
These farms, in the course of time assumed the appearance of a
continuous settlement on the river and became known in local
phraseology as _Côtes_--for example, Côte de Neiges, Côte St. Louis,
Côte St. Paul, and many other picturesque villages on the banks of the
St. Lawrence. In the first century of settlement the government
induced the officers and soldiers of the Carignan-Salières regiment to
settle lands along the Richelieu river and to build palisaded villages
for the purposes of defence against the war-like Iroquois; but, in the
rural parts of the province generally, the people appear to have
followed their own convenience with respect to the location of their
farms and dwellings, and chose the banks of the river as affording the
easiest means of intercommunication. The narrow oblong grants, made in
the original settlement of the province, became narrower still as the