*** Several Frenchmen of a certain intellectual eminence made their abode in Canada from time to time. The chief among them are the Jesuit Lafitau, author of Mœurs des Sauvages Américains; the Jesuit Charlevoix, traveller and historian; the physician Sarrazin; and the Marquis de la Galisonnière, the most enlightened of the French governors of Canada. Sarrazin, a naturalist as well as a physician, has left his name to the botanical genus Sarracenia, of which the curious American species, S. purpurea, the “pitcher-plant,” was described by him. His position in the colony was singular and characteristic. He got little or no pay from his patients; and, though at one time the only genuine physician in Canada (Callieres et Beauharnois au Ministre, 3 Nov., 1702), he was dependent on the king for support. In 1699, we find him thanking his Majesty for 300 francs a year, and asking at the same time for more, as he has nothing else to live on. ( Callères et Champigny au Ministre, 20 Oct., 1699.) Two years later the governor writes that, as he serves almost everybody without fees, he ought to have another 300 francs. (Ibid., 5 Oct., 1701.) The additional 300 francs was given him; but, finding it insufficient, he wanted to leave the colony. “He is too useful,” writes the governor again: “we cannot let him go.” His yearly pittance of 600 francs, French money, was at one time reenforced by his salary as member of the Superior Council. He died at Quebec in 1734. CHAPTER XX. 1640-1763. MORALS AND MANNERS. _Social Influence of the Troops.--A Petty Tyrant.--Brawls.--Violence and Outlawry.--State of the Population.--Views of Denonville.--Brandy.--Beggary.--The Past and the Present.--Inns.--State of Quebec.--Fires.--The Country Parishes.--Slavery.--Views of La Hontan.--Of Hocquart.--Of Bougainville.--Of Kalm.--Of Charlevoix._ |The mission period of Canada, or the period anterior to the year 1663, when the king took the colony in charge, has a character of its own. The whole population did not exceed that of a large French village. Its extreme poverty, the constant danger that surrounded it, and, above all, the contagious zeal of the missionaries, saved it from many vices, and inspired it with an extraordinary religious fervor. Without doubt an ideal picture has been drawn of this early epoch. Trade as well as propagandism was the business of the colony, and the colonists were far from being all in a state of grace; yet it is certain that zeal was higher, devotion more constant, and popular morals more pure, than at any later period of the French rule.