occupy their rude mission-house of Notre-Dame des Anges, on the
St. Charles, where we first found them.

The country around Quebec was still an unbroken wilderness, with the
exception of a small clearing made by the Sieur Giffard on his seigniory
of Beauport, another made by M. de Puiseaux between Quebec and Sillery,
and possibly one or two feeble attempts in other quarters. [ 1 ] The
total population did not much exceed two hundred, including women and
children. Of this number, by far the greater part were agents of the fur
company known as the Hundred Associates, and men in their employ.
Some of these had brought over their families. The remaining inhabitants
were priests, nuns, and a very few colonists.

[ 1 For Giffard, Puiseaux, and other colonists, compare Langevin,
Notes sur les Archives de Notre-Dame de Beauport, 5, 6, 7; Ferland,
Notes sur les Archives de N. D. de Quebec, 22, 24 (1863); Ibid., Cours
d'Histoire du Canada, I. 266; Le Jeune, Relation, 1636, 45; Faillon,
Histoire de la Colonie Francaise, I. c. iv., v. ]

The Company of the Hundred Associates was bound by its charter to send to
Canada four thousand colonists before the year 1643. [ See "Pioneers of
France," 399. ] It had neither the means nor the will to fulfil this
engagement. Some of its members were willing to make personal sacrifices
for promoting the missions, and building up a colony purely Catholic.
Others thought only of the profits of trade; and the practical affairs of
the company had passed entirely into the hands of this portion of its
members. They sought to evade obligations the fulfilment of which would
have ruined them. Instead of sending out colonists, they granted lands
with the condition that the grantees should furnish a certain number of
settlers to clear and till them, and these were to be credited to the