The Crown required very little of the seigneur and so, in truth, did the seigneur of his tenants. Their annual payment of _cens et rentes_ rarely amounted to more than a very few dollars. When it fell due in the autumn they were given abundant notice. Still in the Canadian parishes, when the Sunday morning mass is over, the crier stands on a raised platform near the church door, the people gather round, and the announcement is made of tithes and taxes due, of articles lost or found, of anything indeed of general interest to the community. It was in this way that as St. Martin's day, November 11th, approached the people were reminded of the falling due of the _cens et rentes_. The meaning of the two terms is somewhat obscure. The _cens_ was a trifling payment by the _censitaire_ in recognition of the seigneur's position and rights as landowner; while the _rentes_ represented a real rental based in some degree on the supposed value of the land. But the rate was usually conventional and very small. In early Canada the river was the highway and upon it therefore every settler desired to have a frontage. There was, also, greater safety from Indian attacks in having the houses close together at the front of the farms. So these became long narrow strips, with the houses built so close together that the country side often seems like a continuous village. The habitant paid usually in _cens et rentes_ twenty sols (about twenty cents) for each arpent (192 feet) of frontage; instead of cash usually he might pay in kind--a live capon or a small measure (demi-minot) of grain for each arpent. He paid also about one cent of rent for each superficial acre. Thus for a farm of 100 acres, with two arpents of frontage, a habitant might pay $1.00 in cash and two capons. If each of 400 such tenants paid for their frontage in capons, 800 of these fowls would he brought to the seigneur's barn-yard each autumn!