he sleighing had become good. In many of
the sleighs, hastening with the merry sound of bells over the wintry
roads to the manor house, there would be one or two captive capons or a
bag or two of grain. M. de Gaspe has described how on such an occasion
the seigneur, or some member of his family for him, would be found by
the tenant "seated majestically in a large arm chair, near a table
covered with green baize cloth." Here he received the payments, or in
many cases only excuses for non-payment. The scene outside was often
animated, for the fowls brought in payment of the rent, with legs tied
but throats free, would not bear their captivity in silence. Rent day
was a festal occasion, but the great day in the year at the manor house
was New Year's Day. Then the people came to offer their respects to the
seigneur and Nairne speaks of the prodigious consumption of whiskey and
cakes at such a time. The seigneur was usually god-father to the
first-born of the children of his tenants. It is a pretty custom among
French Canadians for the children to go on New Year's Day, which is a
great festival, to the chamber of their parents in the early morning and
kneel before the bed for their benediction. To the seigneur as to a
parent came on this day his god-children and we have it from M. de
Gaspe, an eye witness, that on one occasion he saw no less than one
hundred of these come to call upon the seigneur at the manor house! In
the old days the people came also on the first day of May to plant the
May-pole before his door and to dance round it.

Some of the seigneurs were as poor as their own _censitaires_ and, like
them, toiled with their hands. But usually there was a social gulf
between the cottage and the manor house. Even the Church marked this.
The seigneur had the right to a special pew; he was censed first; he
received the wafer first at the communion; he took precedence in
processions, and was specially recommended from the pulpit to the
prayers of the congregation. Caldwell, who was seigneur of Lauzon
opposite Quebec, used to drive through his great seigniory in state,
half reclining on the cushions of his carriage and with a numerous
following. If on a long drive he stopped at a farm house, even for the
light refreshment of a drink of milk, he never paid the habitant with
anything less than a gold coin. I once asked a habitant, who remembered
the old days, whether the seigneur really was such a very great man in
the villa