ough the British authorities after the peace of
1763 made every possible effort to induce the French government to
discharge its obligations to the French Canadian people. The life of the
_habitants_ in peaceful times was far easier and happier than that of
the peasants of old France. They had few direct taxes to bear, except
the tithes required for the support of the church and such small
contributions as were necessary for local purposes. They were, however,
liable to be called out at any moment for military duties and were
subject to _corvees_ or forced labour for which they were never paid by
the authorities.

The outbreak of the Seven Years' War was a serious blow to a people who
had at last surmounted the greatest difficulties of pioneer life, and
attained a moderate degree of comfort. The demands upon the people
capable of bearing arms were necessarily fatal to steady farming
occupations; indeed, in the towns of Quebec and Montreal there was more
than once an insufficiency of food for the garrisons, and horse-flesh
had to be served out, to the great disgust of the soldiers who at first
refused to take it. Had it not been for the opportune arrival of a ship
laden with provisions in the spring of 1759, the government would have
been unable to feed the army or the inhabitants of Quebec. The gravity
of the situation was aggravated for years by the jobbery and corruption
of the men who had the fate of the country largely in their hands. A few
French merchants, and monopolists in league with corrupt officials,
controlled the markets and robbed a long-suffering and too patient
people. The names of Bigot, Pean, and other officials of the last years
of French administration, are justly execrated by French Canadians as
robbers of the state and people in the days when the country was on the
verge of war, and Montcalm, a brave, incorruptible man, was fighting
against tremendous odds to save this unfortunate country to which he
gave up his own life in vain.

So long as France governed Canada, education was entirely in the hands
of the Roman Catholic Church. The Jesuits, Franciscans, and other
religious orders, male and female, at an early date, commenced the
establishment of those colleges and seminaries which have always had so
important a share in the education of Lower Canada. The Jesuits founded
a college at Quebec in 1635, or three years before the establishment of
Harvard, and the Ursulines opened their convent in the