* “Sa Majesté semble prétendre faire la dépense entière pour former le commencement des habitations par l’abattis du bois, la culture et semence de deux arpens de terre, l’avance de quelques farines aux familles venantes,” etc., etc. Projets de Réglemens, 1667. This applied to civil and military settlers alike. The established settler was allowed four years to clear two arpents of land for a newcomer. The soldiers were maintained by the king during a year, while preparing their farms and houses. Talon asks that two years more be given them. Talon au Roy. 10 Nov., 1670 ** La Tour, Vie de Laval, chap. x. a missionary priest, paddling his canoe from village to village, or from _côte_ to _côte_. The mill was an object of the last importance. It was built of stone and pierced with loopholes, to serve as a blockhouse in case of attack. The great mill at Montreal was one of the chief defences of the place. It was at once the duty and the right of the seignior to supply his tenants, or rather vassals, with this essential requisite, and they on their part were required to grind their grain at his mill, leaving the fourteenth part in payment. But for many years there was not a seigniory in Canada, where this fraction would pay the wages of a miller and, except the ecclesiastical corporations, there were few seigniors who could pay the cost of building. The first settlers were usually forced to grind for themselves after the tedious fashion of the Indians. Talon, in his capacity of counsellor, friend, and father to all Canada, arranged the new settlements near Quebec in the manner which he judged best, and which he meant to serve as an example to the rest of the colony. It was his aim to concentrate population around this point, so that, should an enemy appear, the sound of a cannon-shot from the Chateau St. Louis might summon a numerous body of defenders to this the common point of rendezvous. * He bought a tract of land near Quebec, laid it out, and settled it as a model seigniory, hoping, as he says, to kindle a spirit of emulation among the new-made seigniors to whom he * Projets de Réglemens, 1667.