It was to the seigneurs that the king looked for active
aid in promoting the agricultural interests of New France.
Many of them disappointed him, but not all. There were
seigneurs who, in their own way, gave the king's interests
a great deal of loyal service, and showed what the colony
was capable of doing if all its people worked with
sufficient diligence and zeal. Three of these pioneers
of the seigneuries have been singled out for special
attention in this chapter, because each prefigures a type
of seigneur who did what was expected of him, although
not always in the prescribed way. Their work was far from
being showy, and offers a writer no opportunity to make
his pages glow. The priest and the trader afford better
themes. But even the short and simple annals of the poor,
if fruitful in achievement, are worth the recounting.

The honour of being the colony's first seigneur belongs
to Louis Hebert, and it was a curious chain of events
that brought him to the role of a yeoman in the St Lawrence
valley. Like most of these pilgrim fathers of Canada,
Hebert has left to posterity little or no information
concerning his early life and his experience as tiller
of virgin soil. That is a pity; for he had an interesting
and varied career from first to last. What he did and
what he saw others do during these troublous years would
make a readable chronicle of adventure, perseverance,
and ultimate achievement. As it is, we must merely glean
what we can from stray allusions to him in the general
narratives of early colonial life. These tell us not a