life.
Such is the most characteristic type of womanhood of the Canada of
to-day. It is a good type and a comely; but it is not fitted to endure
before the changes which our present culture brings about where it
enters. The _habitants_ form the nearest approach to a peasantry, as
found in European lands, that this country can show; and peasantry is
doomed to extinction, be it sooner or later. In the case of the simple
people of French Canada, it would seem that it will be sooner.
In the history of her women, Canada need veil her face before the claims
of no other country of the globe. No land has been graced by nobler
types, either by birth or adoption, than the Dominion; yet she has
failed to produce a racial type, and it may be that her lot is the
happier that it is so. It is enough for her that she can point to such
daughters, whether of their own wills or by birthright, as Madame de la
Peltrie, Mother Marie Guyard, Jeanne Mance, Marguerite de Bourgeoys, and
others who labored in the cause of degraded humanity. With such names
inscribed upon her banner, we may well forgive her such as the infamous
Angelique de Pean and forget the madness that came upon her when Bigot
lorded it in Quebec and virtue and honor were looked upon by most of the
women of that city as encumbrances to pleasure or ambition. To-day her
women worthily sustain the standard which has been left them as a legacy
by their noble sisters of the past; so Canada may well be content in
this wise, even though she has furnished no leaders in the march of
present-day womanhood toward its desired goal.
CHAPTER IX
THE YOUNG REPUBLIC
The final establishment of republican rule in America found the country
exhausted of present resources, but full of latent energy and with
untold treasures of internal wealth lying ready to its hand when that
hand should become sufficiently strong to grasp them. In a social
aspect, there was of course little outward change to be noted between
the years immediately preceding the actual warfare and those immediately
subsequent thereto; but by the cessation of that war and the consequent
growth of new national ideas and ideals there were imported new
conditions of society that were to find rapid growth--and as rapid
decay.
The primary ideal of American republicanism was simplicity. There was
talk of this on all sides, and it affected all the prevailing customs of
social life. It is true that there were many dissen
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