and from 1665 to 1671 there was an uninterrupted influx
of Canadian settlers. It is recorded in a document written
by Talon himself that in 1665 the West India Company
brought to Canada for the king's account 429 men and 100
young women, and 184 men and 92 women in 1667. During
these seven years there were in all 1828 state-aided
immigrants to Canada. The young women were carefully
selected, and it was the king's wish that they should
marry promptly, in order that the greatest possible number
of new families should be founded. As a matter of fact,
the event was in accordance with the king's wish. In 1665
Mother Marie de l'Incarnation wrote that the hundred
girls arrived that year were nearly all provided with
husbands. In 1667 she wrote again: 'This pear ninety-two
girls came from France and they are already married to
soldiers and labourers.' In 1670 one hundred and fifty
girls arrived, and Talon wrote on November 10: 'All the
girls who came this year are married, except fifteen whom
I have placed in well-known families to await the time
when the soldiers who sought them for their wives are
established and able to maintain them.' It was indeed a
matrimonial period, and it is not surprising that marriage
was the order of the day. Every incentive to that end
was brought to bear. The intendant gave fifty livres in
household supplies and some provisions to each young
woman who contracted marriage. According to the king's
decree, each youth who married at or before the age of
twenty was entitled to a gift of twenty livres, called
'the king's gift.' The same decree imposed a penalty upon
all fathers who had not married their sons at twenty and