They urge that, in view of the distance from France, special care ought to be taken to prevent changes and revolutions, aristocratic or otherwise, in the colony, whereby in time sovereign jurisdictions might grow up, as formerly occurred in various parts of France. * And, in respect to grants already made, an inquiry was ordered, to ascertain “if seigniors in distributing lands to their vassals have exacted any conditions injurious to the rights of the Crown and the subjection due solely to the king.” In the same view the seignior was denied any voice whatever in the direction of government; and it is scarcely necessary to say that the essential feature of feudalism in the day of its vitality, the requirement of military service by the lord from the vassal, was utterly unknown in Canada. The royal governor called out the militia whenever he saw fit, and set over it what officers he pleased. The seignior was usually the immediate vassal of the Crown, from which he had received his land gratuitously. In a few cases, he made grants to other seigniors inferior in the feudal scale, and they, his vassals, granted in turn to their vassals, the _habitants_ or cultivators of the soil. ** Sometimes * Projet de Réglement fait par MM. de Tracy et Talon pour la justice et la distribution des terres du Canada, Jan. 24, 1667. ** Most of the seigniories of Canada were simple fiefs; but there were some exceptions. In 1671, the king, as a mark of honor to Talon, erected his seigniory Des Islets into a barony; and it was soon afterwards made an earldom, comté. In 1676, the seigniory of St. Laurent, on the island of Orleans, once the property of Laval, and then belonging to François Berthelot, councillor of the king, was erected into an earldom. In 1681, the seigniory of Portneuf, belonging to Réné Robineau, chevalier, was made a barony. In 1700, three seigniories on the south side of the St. Lawrence were united into the barony of Lcngueuil. See Papers on the Feudal Tenure in Canada, Abstract of Titles.