people. However his lands might grow in value, the
seigneur, according to the letter of the law, could exact
no more from new tenants than from those who had first
settled upon his estate. This was a revolutionary change;
it put the seigneurial system in Canada on a basis wholly
different from that in France; it proved that the king
regarded the system as useful only in so far as it actively
contributed to the progress of the colony. Where it stood
in the way of progress he was prepared to apply the knife
even at its very vitals.

Unfortunately for those most concerned, however, the
royal orders were not allowed to become common knowledge
in the colony. The decree was registered and duly
promulgated; then quickly forgotten. Few of the habitants
seem to have ever heard of it; newcomers, of course, knew
nothing of their rights under its provisions. Seigneurs
continued to get special terms for advantageous locations,
the applicants for lands being usually quite willing to
pay a bonus whenever they could afford to do so. Now and
then some one, having heard of the royal arret, would
appeal to the intendant, whereupon the seigneur made
haste to straighten out things satisfactorily. Then, as
now, the presumption was that the people knew the law,
and were in a position to take advantage of its protecting
features; but the agencies of information were so few
that the provisions of a new decree rarely became common
property.

The second of the two arrets of Marly was designed to