A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs Part 7

If Nairne fell Canada was saved and the gallant young officer did not die in vain.

News travelled slowly in those days but bad news has swifter wings than good; a week after Thomas Nairne fell the particulars of his death had reached Quebec. It was Judge Bowen's painful duty to send to Murray Bay the intelligence he had received from Nairne's Colonel. He wrote to Mr.

Le Courtois, the cure, giving the sad news and adding "I understand that the enemy have since crossed over to their own side.... Would to G.o.d their visit had fallen upon any other head than that of our poor friends." He begged Mr. Le Courtois, who, himself an exile from France because of the Revolution, had witnessed many sad days, to be the minister of consolation at this time. "You will, I am sure be the friend of the distressed and instil into their bosoms that peace which, I am afraid, nothing but your a.s.sistance and time can restore to them." Mr.

Le Courtois was to hand to Miss Nairne a touching and wise letter from Bowen. "Do not, my dear Miss Nairne," he wrote, "give way to feelings but too natural upon a trying moment like this but rather exert yourself to speak comfort and consolation to your dear Mother. Recall to her that we are all but sojourners here on earth and that he is but gone before to those blessed mansions of eternal peace and happiness where she will one day meet him never to part again." Old Malcolm Fraser sent the sad news to Tom's friends in Scotland. "I am not fit to write much,"

he said, but he found comfort in the thought that the young Captain died gallantly and that the enemy "must have suffered great loss of men, as they were entirely drove off the Field and they lost a piece of cannon.

But, alas! all this can afford little consolation to his good and afflicted mother."

Nairne's body was not allowed to remain where he had fallen. Judge Bowen thought he ought to lie at Quebec beside his soldier father and this was also in accord with Mrs. Nairne's wishes. Colonel Morrison, the officer in command on the field where Nairne fell, had already been transferred to the garrison at Quebec and every attention was paid to the task.

Bowen ordered a strong oak coffin, large enough to contain that in which Nairne was buried, and with this itself in an outer box a man was sent to bring back the body. He bore a letter from the Bishop of Quebec to the clergyman who had buried Nairne. All was carried out as arranged. A second time Nairne's body was taken from the grave where it had been laid and its bearer began his long winter journey to Quebec. The sleigh with its sad burden, a moving dark speck on a white background, made its slow way along the wintry roads and by the sh.o.r.es of the ice bound St.

Lawrence. We can picture the awed solemnity with which the French Canadian peasants heard the story of Nairne's fall as his body rested for the night in inn or farm yard. On January 20th, 1814, Bowen wrote to Mr. Le Courtois that the body would arrive by Sat.u.r.day as it was at Berthier on the previous day when the stage pa.s.sed.

The funeral took place at one o'clock on the 26th of January, 1814. Of the people of Murray Bay a single unnamed habitant was present, a man detained by Bowen in Quebec that he might witness the ceremony and carry back an account of it to his home. "I examined the body," wrote Bowen briefly of what must have been a grim task, "with the a.s.sistance of my friend Buchanan and there cannot now be the smallest doubt as to the ident.i.ty of it. He was buried poor Fellow in the Cloathes he wore when killed. His Regimental Jackit and shoes which were put into his coffin I found in it upon opening it and have taken them out and will preserve them for his poor friends if so melancholy a Remembrance of him should be desired by them." The lock of hair cut off by Colonel Plenderleath at the funeral was brought to Quebec by young Sewell, one of Nairne's companions; the remainder of his effects, sent forward in a box, seem to have been lost on the way. At the funeral the six senior Captains in Quebec were his pall bearers and the mourners were fellow officers of the 49th and Quebec friends of his family--well-known names--Caldwell, McCord, Stewart, Hale, Mountain, Dunn and Bowen himself. A great crowd was present. "Never," wrote Bowen to Miss Nairne, "was a funeral at Quebec more generally attended." The death of the young officer was too tragic not to call forth the sympathy of a wide circle. Eulogies were p.r.o.nounced upon him and they said only what was true--that a soldier, brave, lovable and promising had fallen on the field of honour.

[Footnote 22: See Appendix G., p. 287. "The Cures of Malbaie".]

[Footnote 23: Bowen's career was remarkable. He continued on the bench until 1866, having held the office of a Judge in Canada for well nigh sixty years.]

[Footnote 24: He had recently died, and it did not diminish the Nairnes'

interest in him that he left 5,000 to their relative Ker.]

CHAPTER VII

A FRENCH CANADIAN VILLAGE

Life at Murray Bay after Captain Nairne's death.--Letters from Europe.--Death of Malcolm Fraser.--Death of Colonel Nairne's widow and children.--His grandson John Nairne, seigneur.--Village life.--The Church's influence.--The habitant's tenacity.--His cottage.--His labours.--His amus.e.m.e.nts.--The Church's missionary work in the villages.--The powers of the bishop.--His visitations.--The organization of the parish.--The powers of the _fabrique_.--Lay control of Church finance.--The cure's t.i.the.--The best intellects enter the Church.--A native Canadian clergy.--The cure's social life.--The Church and Temperance Reform.--The diligence of the cures.--The habitant's taste for the supernatural.--The belief in goblins.--Prayer in the family.--The habitant as voter.--The office of Churchwarden.--The Church's influence in elections.--The seigneur's position,--The habitant's obligations to him.--Rent day and New Year's Day.--The seigneur's social rank.--The growth of discontent in the villages.--The evils of Seigniorial Tenure.--Agitation against the system.--Its abolition in 1854.--The last of the Nairnes.--The Nairne tomb in Quebec.

With the death of Thomas Nairne almost end the dramatic events in the history of the family. It remains briefly to bring this to its conclusion, and to add to it some general account of a village of French Canada in the past and in the present. Captain Nairne's mother was now the owner of the property and it continued in her competent hands until her death in 1828. "Polly's" marriage had taken that daughter away and, though there was a reconciliation, no longer was the Manor House her home. Mrs. McNicol (with her husband and children) and Christine Nairne still lived there with the widow of Colonel Nairne, and life went on much as before, save that its interests were now narrowed to Murray Bay; no more was there an outside career, such as the young Captain's, to watch.

When Thomas Nairne was killed the struggle against Napoleon in Europe had reached a supreme crisis. Occasional letters to Murray Bay give glimpses of great events. On March 16th, 1814, an Edinburgh friend writes to Christine: "The Castle was fired to-day in honour of the successes of our allies in France who have again routed Bonaparte, who has retreated to Paris. His enemies are within twenty-five miles of that capital so we must hope that the Tyrant's fate is at the Crisis and that we shall soon enjoy the blessings of a permanent peace; much has Bony to answer for." Ker wrote a little later from Edinburgh to say that Bonaparte "is now a prisoner on board of one of our 74 gun ships," and to express the hope that by his fall Britons will soon get quit of the property tax.

On March 17th, 1815, we hear from another correspondent of the renewed firing of the Castle guns at Edinburgh, this time to announce the arrival from America of the ratification of Peace with the United States. "We only regret this had not been settled before the disastrous affair at New Orleans where we have lost so many brave men and able generals, but such are the horrors of war." Just as this peace came in America renewed war broke out in Europe. "That monster Bonaparte a fortnight since landed and raised the standard of rebellion in the south of France. The accounts from there are very contradictory." On March 22nd the news seems better. "Troops are a.s.sembling in defence of France and the traitor does not seem to have any adherents, so we would fain hope all may go well." The writer, a Miss Beck, sends, for the amus.e.m.e.nt of Murray Bay, the book "Guy Mannering," which is "in very high repute ... the author unknown, but very generally thought to be Walter Scott, the Poet."

The hope that all would go well in regard to Bonaparte was soon dissipated. Ker wrote on April 10th, 1815, a bitter letter:

We were flattering ourselves with being at Peace with the whole world when like a thunderbolt, the tremendous news of the monster Buonaparte's Escape from Elba, his landing and rapid progress through France, and the second Expulsion of the unhappy Bourbons burst upon us!... We have the immediate prospect of being involved in a b.l.o.o.d.y and interminable war, the consequences of which no man can foretell. The French army, Marshalls, and Generals have covered themselves with indelible Disgrace and shewn themselves, what I always thought them, the most perfidious and perjured traitors and miscreants that the world ever produced, and the rest of the French Nation are a set of the most unprincipled Knaves and Cowards that ever were recorded in history. I trust however that their punishment is at hand and that the Almighty will speedily hurl vengeance on their guilty heads. Among other evils, a new tax on Property, with additions, is said to be in immediate contemplation and G.o.d knows how we shall bear all the acc.u.mulating Burdens to which this Country must be subjected.

Just at this time came old Malcolm Fraser's end. At the age of 82 he died on June 17th, 1815, the day before the battle of Waterloo. He had entered the army in 1757 and apparently was still serving in the Canadian militia at the time of his death so that his military career covered well nigh sixty years. One instruction given in his will is characteristic; it is that his body might "be committed to the earth or water, as it may happen, and with as little ceremony and expense as may be consistent with decency." His removal was a heavy blow to the family at the Manor House. It was Christine who kept most in touch with the outside world and to her the letters of the period are nearly all addressed. They contained the gossip of Quebec,--how in December, 1814, a Mr. Lyman--"a bad name for a true story to come from,"--had brought word of peace negotiations at Ghent; news of General Procter's Court Martial and of a fee of 500 paid to Andrew Stuart, one of the lawyers in the case. The letters are few and in 1817 they cease altogether.

During the spring of the year Christine had been ailing. On a June day she drove out for an airing and, as she alighted from the carriage, expired instantly. The feeling of the Protestant family towards the Roman Catholic Church is shown in the fact that she left a small legacy to the cure, Mr. Le Courtois.

There now remained but two daughters. In May, 1821, "Polly" died in Quebec at Judge Bowen's house. Her old mother followed in 1828. Of Colonel Nairne's large family but one child remained, Mrs. McNicol. Her husband, Peter McNicol, appears to have been a quiet and retiring man and of him we hear little. He was an officer in the local militia and, in 1830, became a Captain in the second Battalion of the County of Saguenay. There were two sons, Thomas and John. Thomas, the elder, was to get the estate at Murray Bay; for John India was talked of; but his mother could not let him go--"our family has been too unlucky by going there." In 1826, when a youth of twenty, Thomas made a tour in Europe.

Then, or later, the young man fell into dissipated habits and he died in early manhood. There remained only John. When he came of age in 1829 he too travelled in Europe; in April he was at Rome and there saw the newly-elected Pope, Pius VIII. He returned to Canada quite a man of the world and for a time lived in Quebec, engaged in business. But in 1834 when his father Peter McNicol died[25] John's prospects changed. The seigniory belonged to his mother, during her lifetime, but he was the heir. It seemed desirable that the name of the first seigneur should be continued and, in 1834, by royal warrant, John McNicol adopted the name and arms of Nairne. Once more was there a John Nairne. In 1837 we find him empowered to take the oath of allegiance from the habitants--to show that they were not in sympathy with the rebel Papineau. His mother, the old Colonel's last surviving child, died in 1839. She was a kindly woman, of genial temper, with a fine faculty for friendship; so intimate was she with Malcolm Fraser's daughter that she wrote "I do believe, nay am sure, she has not a thought with which I am not made acquainted." She never lost her sympathy with young people and her delight in their "innocent gaiety."

As in 1762, so now again in 1839, a John Nairne ruled at Murray Bay. The young seigneur soon took a wife. In 1841 he married Miss Catherine Leslie, of a well known Canadian family, a bride of only seventeen, and then settled down at Murray Bay to live the life of a country gentleman.

He became Colonel in the militia, took some part in politics on the Conservative side, and studied agriculture. He was resolved to keep up the dignity of his position and set about rebuilding the manor house.

The work was begun in 1845 and completed by the autumn of 1847; the new structure with little change is the present Manor. It is of stone covered with wood, a capacious dwelling with some fine rooms, and admirably suited to its purpose. To John Nairne an heir was born in 1842 and named John Leslie Nairne and the prospect seemed excellent for the final establishment of a Nairne dynasty in the seigniory. But, alas, this was not to be. The child died in his third year and the last of the Nairnes ruled at Murray Bay knowing that with himself the family should become extinct.

We must turn now to study the type of community of which he was the chief. A singular type it is, French in speech, Roman Catholic in faith, half feudal in organization, in a land British in allegiance, if not in origin. Long the determined rival of the Briton in America the French Canadian, though worsted in the struggle, remains still unconquered in his determination to live his own separate life and pursue his own separate ideals. When the British took Canada they fondly imagined that in a few years a little pressure would bring the French Canadians into the Protestant fold.[26] Immediately after the conquest preparations for this gradual absorption were made. The Roman Catholics were to be undisturbed but, as soon as a majority in any parish was Protestant, a clergyman of that faith would be appointed and the parish church would be given over to the Protestant worship. The minority would, it was hoped, acquiesce, and, in time, adopt the creed of the majority. The most illuminating comment upon these expectations is the fact that, during the half century after the conquest, Protestantism made probably not more than half a dozen converts among the Canadians, while of Protestants coming to the country during that time hundreds went over to the Church of Rome. In other ways too the type in French Canada has proved curiously persistent. A Lowland Scot of twenty-five married an Irish woman of twenty-three and went to live in a French Canadian parish. Hitherto they had spoken only English but after twenty-five years they could not even understand it when heard. They explained that at first they spoke English to each other but when the children went to school they used only French. So the parents yielded "_C'etait les enfants, M'sieu!_"

A modern critic of France[27] has announced, as a sounding paradox, that the French, even of present-day anti-clerical France, are a profoundly religious people. Certainly this appears in France's efforts in Canada.

When the Roman Catholic faith was first planted there the ground was watered with the blood of martyrs, done to death by brutal savages. At the very time when in France Pascal's satire and scorn were making the spiritual sincerity of the Jesuits more than doubtful, in Canada these same Jesuits were dying for their faith almost with a light heart. They and others, like-minded, won New France for the Catholic Church and to that Church the conquered habitant has since clung with a tenacity really heroic. He accepts its creed, he believes in its clergy. Whatever license of conduct marked the clergy of France in the bad days before the Revolution, the clergy in Canada during the 300 years of its history have been notable for a severity in morals so austere that hardly once in that long period has there been a whisper of scandal. In consequence, they have always retained the respect of the people and to-day, in every village, the cure commands extraordinary influence.

It may be that to the Church chiefly does the habitant owe the preservation of his ident.i.ty. Inferior to the heretic conqueror in social status, the habitant yet retained in religion the sense of his own superiority. Was he not a member of an ancient body, in the presence of which Protestantism represented a mushroom growth of yesterday? The Church taught him that wealth, honour, and worldly power were not always given to the faithful; they had the truer riches of spiritual privileges and spiritual hopes. What mattered the pride of life in the face of these eternal treasures? So the habitant went his way. Led by his teachers he showed striking tenacity of character. He would not follow the customs of the English. He looked with suspicion upon their methods. Even in agriculture, where he had everything to learn, he would not imitate him. Their language he would not learn, their religion he abhorred; so he remained, and he remains still, true to his own traditions, a Gallic island in the vast Anglo-Saxon sea of North America.

The habitant has not proved a pliable person. The very name shows his sense of his own dignity. Though he held his land under feudal tenure he would not accept a designation that carried with it some sense of the servile status of the feudal va.s.sal in old France. So the Canadian peasant, a feudal tenant _en censive_ or _en roture_, yet wished not to be called _censitaire_ or _roturier_, names which he thought degrading; he preferred to be called a habitant, an inhabitant of the country, a free man, not a va.s.sal. The designation obtained official recognition in New France and has come to be the characteristic word for the French Canadian farmer among English-speaking people.

In other respects too the Canadian has been hardly less a.s.sertive.

Earlier writers, while they call him obliging, honest and courteous, speak also of his self-conceit, boastfulness, fondness for drink. At Malbaie Nairne found him defiant when his spirit was aroused. Not less tenacious than the men were the women. Malcolm Fraser tells how when he was stationed at Beaumont, near Quebec, in January, 1761, he sent one of his men to cut wood on the property of a certain habitant, the man himself consenting. But Madame, his wife, was not pleased. She abused Fraser, called him opprobrious names, and, in a war of words, remained, he admits, mistress of the field. The wrathful virago carried her appeal to Murray in Quebec, who, she said, had pa.s.sed many officers under the rod and Fraser found himself called upon to explain the matter. In a pet.i.tion he humbly begs that some "recompence" (of punishment of course) may be made to the woman for "the insolent expressions used by her as well against the general, as the officers, who have the honour to serve under His Excellency."

Even when he knows only rude frontier life the French Canadian often retains something of the politeness and deference in manner of the nation from which he springs. But, unlike them, he has retained little sense of what is artistic. No thought of beauty of situation seems to determine his choice of the site for his dwelling. What he has in mind is protection from the prevailing wind, if this is possible, and, for the rest, convenience. So he puts his house close to the highway, in many cases even ab.u.t.ting upon it. He shows no taste in grouping his farm buildings. He plants few trees and his house stands bare and unattractive by the road side. The absence of trees near his dwelling is sometimes accounted for by the need, in earlier times, of clearing away everything that might offer a chance of ambush to his Indian enemies. If this is the true origin of the habit, an instinct survives long after the need which developed it has disappeared. The houses are persistent in type and nearly always of wood. The principle doorway opens into the living room, usually of a good size. It is kitchen, diningroom, parlour, often even workshop. In this chamber cooking, sewing, repairing of tools, all the varied family activities, take place. One large guest chamber or two small bedrooms open off it. In the corner there is a rude staircase and up under the sloping roof are two more rooms; one a bed-room probably with three or four beds, the other a general lumber room. Often there are two families in a household. As always with the French, family feeling is very strong. As soon as they are old enough the elder sons may go out into the world; it is usually a younger son whom the father selects to remain with him on the family property. This son is free to marry and to him, when the old father dies, the land goes on condition that he will always keep the door open to members of the family who may seek its refuge. It is not easy to see how so small a cottage can discharge these hospitable functions; in addition to adults there are often, in a French Canadian family, from ten to fifteen, sometimes twenty or twenty-five children. Through the long winters, doors and windows remain closed. The family gets on without fresh air and it gets on also without baths.

Since there are often many hands to do the work habitant farming is greatly diversified. But improvements come only slowly. Some of the most fertile areas in Quebec have been half ruined because the habitant would not learn the proper rotation of crops. Of the value of fertilizing he has had only a slight idea. His domestic animals are usually of an inferior breed, except perhaps the horses. Of these he is proud and, no matter how poor, usually keeps two, an extravagance for which he was rebuked by successive Intendants under the French regime. In recent times the French Canadian farmer has been making great progress. He is pre-eminently a handy man. Though his versatility is lessening, to this day, in some of the remoter villages, he buys almost nothing; he is carpenter, farmer, blacksmith, shoemaker; and, if not he, his wife is weaver and tailor. The waggon he drives is his handiwork; so is the harness; the home-spun cloth of his suit is made by his wife from the wool of his own sheep: it is an excellent fabric but, alas, the young people now prefer the machine-made cottons and cloths of commerce and will no longer wear homespun. Sometimes the habitant makes his own boots, the excellent _bottes sauvages_ of the country. The women make not only home-spun cloth, but linen, straw hats, gloves, candles, soap.

When there are maple trees, the habitant provides his own sugar; he makes even the buckets in which the sap of the maple tree is caught.

Tobacco grows in his garden, for the habitant is an inveterate smoker: sometimes the boys begin when only five years old or less. The women and the girls, indeed, do not smoke and an American visitor, who declares that he saw pretty French Canadian brunettes of sixteen puffing clouds of smoke as they worked in the harvest field, is solemnly rebuked by a French Canadian writer; the brunettes must have been Indian women.[28]

Though nearly all the children now go to school, yet reading can hardly be considered one of the amus.e.m.e.nts of the habitant. In the neighbourhood of Malbaie, at least, rarely does one see other than books of devotion in a habitant household; the book-shelf is conspicuous by its absence. Of course newspapers are read but many of the habitants are still illiterate, or nearly so, and read nothing. Not less gay are they for this deprivation. They are endless talkers, good story tellers, and fond of song and dance. They have preserved some of the popular songs of France,--_Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre_, _En roulant ma Boule roulant_, _A la Claire Fontaine_, and others--and these airs simple, pleasing, a little sad, have become characteristic of French Canada.

Nearly every house has its violin, often home-made, and though this music is rude it suffices for dancing. But some of the bishops are as severe in regard to dancing as is the Methodist "Book of Discipline" and in their dioceses the practise is allowed only under narrow restrictions. The short Canadian summer makes that season for the habitant one of severe labour. Winter, though it has its own labours, such as cutting wood, is the great season of social intercourse. For a long time the habitant would not consider a mechanic his social equal; perhaps, still, the daughters of a farmer would spurn the advances of the village carpenter. But whatever the social distinctions, baptisms, marriages, anniversaries, are made the occasions for festivity. There are _corvees recreatives_, such as parties gathered for taking the husks off Indian corn, when there is apt to be a good deal of kissing as part of the game. At New Year, the _jour de l'an_, the feasting lasts for three days. Hospitality is universal and it is almost a slight not to call at this time upon any acquaintance living within a distance of twenty miles. Every habitant has his horse and sleigh and thinks little of a long drive.

Often in the foreground of the habitant's life, always in the background at least, stand the Church and the priest. Malbaie, like a hundred other populous, present-day Roman Catholic parishes, was nursed in the first instance by the travelling missionary. In winter he could go on snow shoes but his usual means of travel in a country, covered by forests, but with a net-work of lakes and rivers, was by canoe. Malbaie could be reached either from Tadousac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, one of the earliest mission stations in Canada, or from Baie St. Paul in the other direction. The St. Lawrence was oftentimes a perilous route. Its waves rise at times huge as those of Ocean itself; a frail canoe could only hug the sh.o.r.e and at times would be storm bound for days. The missionary travelled usually with an attendant. They carried a portable chapel with the vessels necessary for the celebration of the ma.s.s. We have a description of the arrival of one of these missionaries, the Abbe Morel, as long ago as in 1683, at Riviere Ouelle where one now takes the ferry to cross to Murray Bay. A group of people stand on the sh.o.r.e watching a small black object round a distant point. As it comes nearer they see it is a birch bark canoe, paddled by two men. In a short time the bow of the canoe has touched the sandy beach where stands the waiting group. As the figure in the bow rises a long black ca.s.sock falls down to his feet; he is the long expected missionary come to celebrate ma.s.s. With the sun sinking behind the mountains of the north sh.o.r.e, a kind of triumphal procession escorts the missionary to one of the neighbouring houses. The evening is spent in preparation for the service of the morrow. The priest hears confessions and imposes penances. At daybreak on the following morning the people begin to gather, some coming by land from the neighbouring clearings, others, in birch bark canoes, from points more distant. Perhaps fifty persons gather before the house.

Meanwhile in its best room the portable altar has been arranged. Silence falls upon the people as they enter the door. The ma.s.s begins; after the gospel the priest preaches a practical sermon with impressive solemnity.

The ma.s.s over, a second service, vespers, soon follows. Then the people separate. Before the priest leaves he says the office of the dead over a grave made, it may be, many weeks ago, he baptizes children born since his last visit, and perhaps marries one or more bashful couples. "How beautiful upon the mountains," says a Canadian historian of the work of these devoted men, "are the feet of those who bring the gospel of peace."[29] Such a scene we may be sure was enacted many a time for the benefit of the scattered sheep at Malbaie before and after the arrival of Colonel Nairne.

It was not until 1797 that these occasional services ceased and Murray Bay secured a resident priest. Then was fully established in the parish the imposing church system that to-day probably retains its original vigour more completely in the Province of Quebec than in any other country in the world. At its head is the diocesan bishop. Subject only to the distant authority of the Pope he reigns supreme. With one or two exceptions, such as that of the cure of Quebec, he appoints and he can remove any and every priest in his diocese, a right, it is said, almost never exercised arbitrarily. He fixes the tariff to be paid for ma.s.ses.

It is he who determines whether such a practise as, for instance, dancing shall be permitted in the diocese. He watches over the Church's rights and gives the alarm when a political leader proposes anything that seems to menace them. If a newspaper adopts a course dangerous to the Church it has often happened that the bishop gives it one or two warnings; in case of continued obstinacy his last act is to forbid the faithful to read the paper; and since most of them will obey, this involves ruin for the recalcitrant journal.

The bishop visits each parish at least every third year and sometimes even annually. A mounted cavalcade will probably meet him as he crosses its boundary. A procession is formed. The roads have been cleared and decorated with boughs of ever-green trees stuck in the ground. The people watch the cavalcade from their doors and all kneel as the procession pa.s.ses. The bishop goes at once to the church where he gives his benediction and holds confirmation. He remains for some days. There is daily communion and spiritual instruction. He inspects everything--the church and its furnishings, the registers, the accounts, the inventory of effects, the cemetery. He has already given notice that he is ready to hear any complaints or grievances even against the cure.

We may be sure that when he comes there is a general clearing up of parochial difficulties. A wise bishop is a great peacemaker; an arbitrary one commands an authority not lightly to be disregarded.

The church that towers over the humble cottages of a French Canadian village invariably seems huge. But we need to remember how large are the parishes and how few in number relatively are the churches; it is probable that in English-speaking Canada there are half a dozen churches, or more, to every one in the Province of Quebec. In all Canada, rural and urban, there is probably not a Protestant parish to which are attached as many, or perhaps half as many, people as the five thousand who dwell in the parish of St. Etienne de la Malbaie, one of secondary importance in the Province of Quebec. In a whole diocese there are often not more than forty or fifty parishes. In the country the churches are usually built at intervals of not more than three leagues (nine miles) so that no one may have to travel more than a league and a half to ma.s.s. The life of the people centres in the Church. In its registers, kept with great accuracy, is to be found the chief record of the village drama, the story of its births, marriages and deaths. True to the tastes of old France the French Canadian has an amazing interest in family history, and genealogies, based upon these ample records, are closely studied. In the olden days the habitant brought his savings to be kept in the Church's strong chest. The church edifice, its pictures and its other furnishings, are things in which to take pride. Each village aspires to have its own chime of bells. To chronicle baptisms, marriages, burials, anniversaries, the chimes are rung for a longer or shorter time according to the fee paid. Every day one hears them often and a considerable revenue must come from this source. Whatever the habitant knows of art, painting, sculpture, music, he learns from the Church and it is all a.s.sociated with religious hopes and fears.

"Dwellers in cities," says a French Canadian writer, "have concerts, theatres, museums; in the rural communities it is the Church that provides all this. During her services the most fervent among the faithful taste by antic.i.p.ation the joys of heaven and murmur, enchanted: 'Since here all is so beautiful in the house of the Lord how much more so will it be in his paradise!'"[30]

Thus it happens that here the parish and its church have a significance not felt where, as now in practically all English speaking countries, each community represents a variety of religious beliefs. At Malbaie, as in dozens of other parishes, there is not, except in summer, a single Protestant. So strong is the pressure of religious and social opinion, that even persons with no belief in Christianity are constrained to join outwardly at least in the church services. In the villages, at least, nearly every one confesses and partakes of the communion many times in the year; at Easter there are practically no abstentions from the sacrament. With this unanimity it has been possible to establish by legislation a most elaborate system providing for the support of the priests, for keeping up cemeteries and other parish needs. Elsewhere left largely to voluntary action, in Quebec such duties become a tax on the community as a whole. Whether a parishioner likes it or not, he must, if the taxpayers so determine, pay his share for building a church or for other similar expenditure decided upon.

We will suppose that a new residence for the priest is desired. A majority of ratepayers must address to the bishop of the diocese a pet.i.tion with a plan of what is proposed. The commission of five members which exists in every diocese then gives ten days' public notice in order that objectors may have every opportunity to express their views. When, in the end, a decision to build is reached, the commissioners announce this by public proclamation. The next step is for the ratepayers of the parish to meet and vote the necessary money.

Trustees are then appointed to carry out the work with power to collect the required funds from the Catholic ratepayers. This a.s.sessment is a first charge on the land; it must be divided into at least twelve equal instalments and the payments are spread over not less than three, or more than eight, years. To be quite safe the trustees levy fifteen per cent. more than the estimated cost. If ready money is not on hand for the work the church property may be mortgaged. When the building is completed the trustees render their accounts with vouchers and take oath that they are correct. All is precise, clearly defined, business-like.

No expenditure of money can be made for building without the consent of the people. Always in French Canada a trace of old Gallican liberties has remained, in the power over Church finances left in the hands of churchwardens (_marguillers_) elected by the people. But in the old days when the habitant was more ignorant and less alert than now he is, no doubt the voice in this respect might be the voice of the churchwarden, but the hand was the hand of the cure. No doubt, also, it is still true that any project upon which the cure sets his heart he will in the end probably get a majority of the parishioners to adopt. But he must persuade the people. Sometimes they oppose his plan strenuously and feeling runs high. Then when a churchwarden is elected, as one is annually, the cure may have his candidate, the opposing party theirs. At Malbaie recently there was a sharp difference of opinion between the cure and the people on a question relating to the cemetery. The parties divided on the choice of a churchwarden and the cure's candidate was defeated.

Yet the cure's position is one of great strength and authority. He has his own income uncontrolled by the _fabrique_, which is master of the rest of the church finances. The cure's t.i.the consists of one twenty-sixth of the cereals produced by the parishioners. A further t.i.the he has: the twenty-sixth child born to any pair of his parishioners is by custom brought to the priest and he rears it; sometimes, strange to say, this t.i.the is offered! From his t.i.the on cereals the income is not large; at Malbaie it is probably never more than from $1000 to $1200 a year; sometimes much less. The average income of a cure is not more than $600. It is the custom for the parishioner to deliver duly at the priest's house one twenty-sixth of his grain and in the autumn a great array of vehicles may be seen making their way thither. Usually there is considerable variety in the grain thus brought but sometimes the cure is almost overwhelmed by a single product such as peas; one of their number, thus paid, the neighbouring clergy christened the "_cure des pois_." The French Canadian farmer is often narrowly penurious and if he will not pay, as sometimes happens, the cure rarely presses him or takes steps to recover what the law would allow. In any case a bad harvest is likely to leave the cure poor. Changes in the type of farming may also curtail his income. Of the products of dairy farming he gets no share, yet it is a creditable fact that many priests have urged their people to adopt this kind of farming. Fees for weddings which, in Protestant Churches, go usually to the minister, are in the Province of Quebec handed over to the general church fund. Of course the priest has sources of income other than the t.i.the. He receives fees for ma.s.ses but the sums chargeable for these ceremonies are determined by the bishop; the priest himself has no power of undue exaction. There is indeed no evidence of a desire for such exaction. Whatever personal differences may arise, the French Canadian cure is usually one in thought and aim with his people. Wherever he goes he is always respectfully saluted. To him the needy turn and there are heavy calls upon his charity. Few cures have any surplus income. They keep up a large house and have constant need of one or more horses. Most cures, it is said, die poor.

It is the complaint in Great Britain and the United States that, rather than enter the Christian ministry, the best intellects are seeking secular pursuits. This is not the case in the Province of Quebec. The cures watch the promising boys in the schools. The Church has many boarding schools where boys are led on step by step to the final one of entering the priesthood. A promising boy, if he needs it, is given a scholarship. When the time comes he is sent to complete his education at Rome or elsewhere. The Church has selected him, trained him in her service, and, for the rest of his life, his best powers are at her call.

Every family is ambitious to have a representative in the priesthood and this becomes the most notable thing not merely in the family but also in the parish. The Province of Quebec has many parish histories. These volumes are rather dreary reading, it must be admitted, consisting chiefly of the record of the building or improvement of the church and of the coming and the going of the cures. But one chief record is always found--that of the sons of the parish who have entered the priesthood.

They are its glory. Not merely pride in the success of their offspring leads parents to wish for a son in the priesthood. He may bring to them more substantial benefits. He is the interpreter of sacred mysteries, the intercessor in some respects between G.o.d and man, and he will plead for them in the court of Heaven.

This ambition to get sons into the priesthood has made it possible now for the Church to rely wholly upon priests Canadian in origin. Not always was this the case. After the British conquest it was not easy to get priests. The British government frowned upon the introduction of priests from France, still Britain's arch-enemy. Irish priests were thought of, but they could not speak French and, besides, the Bishop of Quebec did not find in them the submissive obedience of the Canadian priest. For a time it was seriously proposed to supply Canada with priests from Savoy, since of them Britain could have no political fears.