nted to one-fourteenth of the grain, did not
suffice to pay expenses. Some of the seigneurs did not build mills at
all, but the authorities eventually moved them to action by ordering
that those who did not provide mills at once would not be allowed
to enforce the obligation of toll at any future date. Most of the
seigneurial mills were crude, wind-driven affairs which made poor
flour and often kept the habitants waiting for days to get it. Usually
built in tower-like fashion, they were loopholed in order to afford
places of refuge and defense against Indian attack.

Another seigneurial obligation was that of giving to the seigneur
certain days of _corvee_, or forced labor, in each year. In France
this was a grievous burden; peasants were taken from their own lands
at inconvenient seasons and forced to work for weeks on the seigneur's
domain. But there was nothing of this sort in Canada. The amount of
_corvee_ was limited to six days at the most in any year, of which
only two days could be asked for at seed-time and two days at harvest.
The seigneur, for his part, did not usually exact even this amount,
because the neighborhood custom required that he should furnish both
food and tools to those whom he called upon to work for him.

Besides, there were various details of a minor sort incidental to the
seigneurial system. If the habitant caught fish in the river, one fish
in every eleven belonged to the seigneur. But seldom was any attention
paid to this stipulation. The seigneur was entitled to take firewood
and building materials from the lands of his habitants if he desired,
but he rarely availed himself of this right. On the morning of every
May Day the habitants were under strict injunction to plant a Maypole
before the seigneur's house, and this they never failed to do, because
the seigneur in return was expected to dispense hospitality to all who
came. Bright and early in the morning the whole community appeared and
greeted the seigneur with a salvo of blank musketry. With them they
carried a tall fir-tree, pulled bare to within a few feet of the top
where a tuft of green remained. Having planted this Maypole in the
ground, they joined in dancing and a _feu de joie_ in the seigneur's
honor, and then adjourned for cakes and wine at his table. There is no
doubt that such good things disappeared with celerity before appetites
whetted by an hour's exercise in the clear spring air. After drinking
to the seigneur's heal