New World. Some historians have attributed to the influence
of Richelieu this policy of creating a seigneurial class
in the transmarine dominions of France. The cardinal-
minister, it is said, had an idea that the landless
aristocrats of France might be persuaded to emigrate to
the colonies by promises of lavish seigneurial estates
wrested from the wilderness. It will be noted, however,
that Hebert received his title-deed before Richelieu
assumed the reins of power, so that, whatever influence
the latter may have had on the extension of the seigneurial
system in the colonies, he could not have prompted its
first appearance there.

Hebert died in 1627. Little as we know about his life,
the clerical chroniclers tell us a good deal about his
death, which proves that he must have had all the externals
of piety. He was extolled as the Abraham of a new Israel.
His immediate descendants were numerous, and it was
predicted that his seed would replenish the earth.
Assuredly, this portion of the earth needed replenishing,
for at the time of Hebert's death Quebec was still a
struggling hamlet of sixty-five souls, two-thirds of whom
were women and children unable to till the fields. Hebert
certainly did his share. His daughters married in the
colony and had large families. By these marriages a close
alliance was formed with the Couillards and other prominent
families of the colony's earliest days. From these and
later alliances some of the best-known families in the
history of French Canada have come down,--the Jolliets,
De Lerys, De Ramesays, Fourniers and Taschereaus,--and