there were among them who thought of anything but a quick
competence from the profits of the fur trade, and a return
to France at the earliest opportunity thereafter.

Now it was the royal idea, in so far as the busy monarch
of France had any fixed purpose in the matter, that the
colony should be placed upon a feudal basis--that lands
should be granted and sub-granted on feudal terms. In
other words, the king or his representative stood ready
to give large tracts or fiefs in New France to all
immigrants whose station in life warranted the belief
that they would maintain the dignity of seigneurs. These,
in turn, were to sub-grant the land to ordinary settlers,
who came without financial resources, sent across usually
at the expense of His Majesty. In this way the French
authorities hoped to create a powerful military colony
with a feudal hierarchy as its outstanding feature.

Feudalism is a much-abused term. To the minds of most
laymen it has a rather hazy association with things
despotic, oppressive, and mediaeval. The mere mention of
the term conjures up those days of the Dark Ages when
armour-clad knights found their chief recreation in
running lances through one another; when the overworked,
underfed labourers of the field cringed and cowered before
every lordly whim. Most readers seem to get their notions
of chivalry from Scott's Talisman, and their ideas on
feudalism from the same author's immortal Ivanhoe. While
scholars keep up a merry disputation as to the historical
origin of the feudal system, the public imagination goes