future. "Since God
takes the first fruits," said they, "He will save us the rest." The wise
and far-seeing mind of Cardinal Richelieu had understood that
agricultural development was the first condition of success for a young
colony, and his efforts in this direction had been admirably seconded
both by Commissioner Talon and Mgr. de Laval at Quebec, and by the
Company of Montreal, which had not hesitated at any sacrifice in order
to establish at Ville-Marie a healthy and industrious population. If the
reader doubts this, let him read the letters of Talon, of Mother Mary of
the Incarnation, of Fathers Le Clercq and Charlevoix, of M. Aubert and
many others. "Great care had been exercised," says Charlevoix, "in the
selection of candidates who had presented themselves for the
colonization of New France.... As to the girls who were sent out to be
married to the new inhabitants, care was always taken to enquire of
their conduct before they embarked, and their subsequent behaviour was a
proof of the success of this system. During the following years the same
care was exercised, and we soon saw in this part of America a generation
of true Christians growing up, among whom prevailed the simplicity of
the first centuries of the Church, and whose posterity has not yet lost
sight of the great examples set by their ancestors.... In justice to the
colony of New France we must admit that the source of almost all the
families which still survive there to-day is pure and free from those
stains which opulence can hardly efface; this is because the first
settlers were either artisans always occupied in useful labour, or
persons of good family who came there with the sole intention of living
there more tranquilly and preserving their religion in greater security.
I fear the less contradiction upon this head since I have lived with
some of these first colonists, all people still more respectable by
reason of their honesty, their frankness and the firm piety which they
profess than by their white hair and the memory of the services which
they rendered to the colony."

M. Aubert says, on his part: "The French of Canada are well built,
nimble and vigorous, enjoying perfect health, capable of enduring all
sorts of fatigue, and warlike; which is the reason why, during the last
war, French-Canadians received a fourth more pay than the French of
Europe. All these advantageous physical qualities of the
French-Canadians arise from the fact that they