The Great Intendant | Page 6

as the West India Company. This corporation
had been granted wide privileges over all the French possessions in
America, including feudal ownership and authority to administer
justice and levy war. The company was thus invested with the right of
appointing judicial officers, magistrates, and sovereign councils, and of
naming, subject to the king's sanction governors and other functionaries;
it had full power to sell the land or make grants in feudal tenure, to
receive all seigneurial dues, to build forts, raise troops, and equip
war-ships. The company's charter had been granted in 1664, and of
course Canada, as well as the other French colonies in the New World,
was included in its jurisdiction. The situation of this colony was
therefore very peculiar. In 1663 the king had cancelled the charter of
the One Hundred Associates and had taken back the fief of Canada; but
a year later he had granted it again to a new company. At the same time
he showed clearly that he intended to keep the administration in his
own hands. Thus Canada seemed to have two masters. In accordance
with its charter, the company held the ownership and government of the
country de jure. But in point of fact the king wielded the government,
thus taking back with one hand what he had given with the other. By
right the company controlled the administration of justice; it could, and
actually did, establish courts. But, in fact, the king appointed the
intendant supreme judge in civil cases, and made the Sovereign
Council a tribunal of superior jurisdiction. By right, to the company
belonged the power of granting land and seigneuries. In fact, the
governor or the intendant, the king's officers, made the grants at their
pleasure. This strange situation, which lasted ten years--until the West
India Company's charter was revoked in 1674--is often confusing to the

student of the period.
Talon saw at a glance the anomaly of the situation; but, being a
practical man, he was less displeased with the falsity of the principle
than apprehensive of the evil that was likely to result. In a letter to
Colbert, dated October 4, 1665, he discussed the subject at length,
putting it in plain terms. If, when the grant was made, it was the king's
intention to benefit only the company--to increase its profits and
develop its trade--with no ulterior consideration for the development of
the colony, then it would be well to leave to the company the sole
ownership of the country. But if His Majesty had thought of making
Canada one of the prosperous parts of his kingdom, it was very
doubtful whether he could attain that end without keeping in his own
hands the control of lands and trade. The real aim of the West India
Company, as he had learned, was to enforce its commercial monopoly
to the utmost; and become the only trading medium between the colony
and the mother country. Such a policy could have but one result; it
would put an end to private enterprise and discourage immigration.
In spite of the company's apparent overlordship, Talon thought that, as
the king's agent, he was bound to exercise the powers appertaining to
his office for the good of the colony. By the end of the year 1665 he
had planned a new settlement in the vicinity of Quebec on lands
included in the limits of the seigneury of Notre-Dame- des-Anges at
Charlesbourg, which he had withdrawn from the grant to the Jesuits,
under the king's authority. This was the occasion of some friction
between the Jesuits and the intendant. Talon gave the necessary orders
for the erection of about forty dwellings which should be ready to
receive new settlers during the following year. These were to be
grouped in three adjacent villages named Bourg-Royal, Bourg-la-Reine,
and Bourg-Talon. We shall learn more of them in a following chapter.
Another enterprise of the intendant was numbering the people. Under
his personal supervision, during the winter of 1666-67, a general census
of the colony was taken--the first Canadian census of which we have
any record. The count showed, as we have already said, a total
population of 3215 in Canada at that time--2034 males and 1181

females. The married people numbered 1109, and there were 528
families. Elderly people were but few in number, 95 only being from
fifty-one to sixty years old, 43 from sixty-one to seventy, 10 from
seventy-one to eighty, and 4 from eighty-one to ninety. In regard to
professions and occupations, there were then in New France 3 notaries,
5 surgeons, 18 merchants, 4 bailiffs, 3 schoolmasters, 36 carpenters, 27
joiners, 30 tailors, 8 coopers, 5 bakers, 9 millers, 3 locksmiths. The
census did not include the king's troops, which formed a body of 1200
men. The clergy consisted of the bishop,