Without the intendancy the
seigneurial system would soon have become an agent of
oppression, for some Canadian seigneurs were quite as
avaricious as their friends at home.
The heyday of Canadian feudalism was the period from 1663
to about 1750. During this interval nearly three hundred
fiefs were granted. Most of them went to officials of
the civil administration, many to retired military
officers, many others to the Church and its affiliated
institutions, and some to merchants and other lay
inhabitants of the colony. Certain seigneurs set to work
with real zeal, bringing out settlers from France and
steadily getting larger portions of their fiefs under
cultivation. Others showed far less enterprise, and some
no enterprise at all. From time to time the king and his
ministers would make inquiry as to the progress being
made. The intendant would reply with a memoire often of
pitiless length, setting forth the facts and figures.
Then His Majesty would respond with an edict ordering
that all seigneurs who did not forthwith help the colony
by putting settlers on their lands should have their
grants revoked. But the seigneurs who were most at fault
in this regard were usually the ones who had most influence
in the little administrative circle at Quebec. Hence the
king's orders were never enforced to the letter, and
sometimes not enforced at all. Unlike the Parliament of
Paris, the Sovereign Council at Quebec never refused to
register a royal edict.
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