Hence public meetings were jealously restricted. Even those held by parishioners under the eye of the curé to estimate the cost of a new church seem to have required a special license from the intendant. During a number of years a meeting of the principal inhabitants of Quebec was called in spring and autumn by the council to discuss the price and quality of bread, the supply of firewood, and other similar matters. The council commissioned two of its members to preside at these meetings, and on hearing their report took what action it thought best. Thus, after the meeting held in February, 1686, it issued a decree, in which, after a long and formal preamble, it solemnly ordained, “that besides white-bread and light brown-bread, all bakers shall hereafter make dark brown-bread whenever the same shall be required.” **** Such assemblies, so controlled, could scarcely, one would think, wound * Edits et Ordonnances, I. 585. ** Ibid., II. 400. *** “Il ne laisse pas d’être de très grande conséquence de ne pas laisser la liberté au peuple de dire son sentiment.” --Meules au Ministre, 1685. **** Edits et Ordonnances, II. 112. the tenderest susceptibilities of authority; yet there was evident distrust of them, and after a few years this modest shred of self-government is seen no more. The syndic, too, that functionary whom the people of the towns were at first allowed to choose, under the eye of the authorities, was conjured out of existence by a word from the king. Seignior, _censitaire_, and citizen were prostrate alike in flat subjection to the royal will. They were not free even to go home to France. No inhabitant of Canada, man or woman, could do so without leave; and several intendants express their belief that without this precaution there would soon be a falling off in the population. In 1671 the council issued a curious decree. One Paul Dupuy had been heard to say that there is nothing like righting one’s self, and that when the English cut off the head of Charles I. they did a good thing, with other discourse to the like effect The council declared him guilty of speaking ill of royalty in the person of the king of England, and uttering words tending to sedition. He was condemned to be dragged from prison by the public executioner, and led in his shirt, with a rope about his neck, and a torch in his hand, to the gate of the Chateau St. Louis, there to beg pardon of the king; thence to the pillory of the Lower Town to be branded with a fleur-de-lis on the cheek, and set in the stocks for half an hour; then to be led back to prison, and put in irons “till the information against him shall be completed.” * * Jugements et Délibérations du Conseil Supérieur.