Thus qualified canonically and physically, the annual consignment of young women was shipped to Quebec, in charge of a matron employed and paid by the king. Her task was not an easy one, for the troop under her care was apt to consist of what Mother Mary in a moment of unwonted levity calls “mixed goods.” ** On one occasion the office was undertaken by the pious widow of Jean Bourdon. Her flock of a hundred and fifty girls, says Mother Mary, “gave her no little trouble on the voyage; for they are of all sorts, and some of them are very rude and hard to manage.” Madame Bourdon was not daunted. She not only saw her charge distributed and married, but she continued to receive and care for the subsequent ship-loads as they arrived summer after summer. She was * Talon a Colbert, 10 Nov., 1670. ** “Une marchandise mêlée.” Lettre du--1668. In that year, 1668, the king spent 40,000 livres in the shipment of men and girls. In 1669, a hundred and fifty girls were sent; in 1670, a hundred and sixty-five; and Talon asks for a hundred and fifty or two hundred more to supply the soldiers who had got ready their houses and clearings, and were now prepared to marry. The total number of girls sent from 1665 to 1673, inclusive, was about a thousand. indeed chief among the pious duennas of whom La Hontan irreverently speaks. Marguerite Bourgeoys did the same good offices for the young women sent to Montreal. Here the “king’s girls," as they were called, were all lodged together in a house to which the suitors repaired to make their selection. “I was obliged to live there myself,” writes the excellent nun, “because families were to be formed;” * that is to say, because it was she who superintended these extemporized unions. Meanwhile she taught the girls their catechism, and, more fortunate than Madame Bourdon, inspired them with a confidence and affection which they retained long after. At Quebec, where the matrimonial market was on a larger scale, a more ample bazaar was needed. That the girls were assorted into three classes, each penned up for selection in a separate hall, is a statement probable enough in itself, but resting on no better authority than that of La Hontan. Be this as it may, they were submitted together to the inspection of the suitor; and the awkward young peasant or the rugged soldier of Carignan was required to choose a bride without delay from among the anxious candidates. They, on their part, were permitted to reject any applicant who displeased them, and the first question, we are told, which most of them asked was whether the suitor had a house and a farm. Great as was the call for wives, it was thought prudent to stimulate it. The new settler was at once * Extract in Faillon, Colonie Française, III. 214.