river better than the monotonous work of the farm. He preferred too
often making love to the impressionable dusky maiden of the wigwam
rather than to the stolid, devout damsel imported for his kind by
priest or nun. A raid on some English post or village had far more
attraction than following the plough or threshing the grain. This
adventurous spirit led the young Frenchman to the western prairies
where the Red and Assiniboine waters mingle, to the foot-hills of the
Rocky Mountains, to the Ohio and Mississippi, and to the Gulf of
Mexico. But while Frenchmen in this way won eternal fame, the
seigniories were too often left in a state of savagery, and even those
_seigneurs_ and _habitants_ who devoted themselves successfully to
pastoral pursuits found themselves in the end harassed by the constant
calls made upon their military services during the years the French
fought to retain the imperial domain they had been the first to
discover and occupy in the great valleys of North America. Still,
despite the difficulties which impeded the practical working of the
seigniorial system, it had on the whole an excellent effect on the
social conditions of the country. It created a friendly and even
parental relation between _seigneur, curé,_ and _habitant_, who on
each estate constituted as it were a seigniorial family, united to
each other by common ties of self-interest and personal affection. If
the system did not create an energetic self-reliant people in the
rural communities, it arose from the fact that it was not associated
with a system of local self-government like that which existed in the
colonies of England. The French king had no desire to see such a
system develop in the colonial dependencies of France. His
governmental system in Canada was a mild despotism intended to create
a people ever ready to obey the decrees and ordinances of royal
officials, over whom the commonality could exercise no control
whatever in such popular elective assemblies as were enjoyed by every