The _marguilliers_, or churchwardens, for their election needed an official document drawn up by the public notary, since they were an important body, being empowered to make contracts in the name of the _Fabrique_, and to make acquisitions and alienations. Zacharie Dupuis, major of the island, in 1666 is mentioned in such an act as honorary churchwarden. Up to 1676 these officers were elected by a general gathering, but at this date Laval ordered that the system, obtaining at Quebec since 1660, of election by secret votes, certified by past and present churchwardens, should be adopted in other parishes. In some localities, besides the _marguilliers_ there was appointed a treasurer, or receiver of gifts or of fines made applicable to the _Fabrique_ by the judge and other magistrates. According to custom, the parish church of each place was maintained by the inhabitants, as well as the establishment of the cemetery, and the preservation of its enclosure from damage. On one occasion we find at Montreal that cattle had broken into the enclosure, and the palisading had to be repaired. No general taxation was made but it was ordered, in a general assembly, that M. Frémont, one of the priests of the cemetery, should go accompanied by one of the parishioners to canvass all the sections of the parish for a subscription for the purpose. Nevertheless we find that if the parishioners neglected their Easter duty of providing "blessed bread" for the church or chapel, an ordinance of Quebec of January 13, 1670, condemned them to an arbitrary fine. As to the soldiers remaining after Tracy's departure, they had other duties beside the peopling of the colony. According to the feudal system incorporated by Talon, they were to take up land and incidentally be thus, by their presence, a safeguard for others against Iroquois attack. Montreal district, being the head and front of Iroquois invasion, consequently welcomed these colonists, and from Lake St. Peter to Lachine, on both sides of the St. Lawrence, fiefs were granted large and small to officers and men. Chambly, Sorel, Saint Ours, Contrecoeur, de Berthier, de la Valterie, Varenne, Verchères, soldiers' names, mark military seigneuries established about this time. Thus strong sentinel posts were, by Talon's masterly statesmanship, gradually linked together by this band of soldiers now turned husbandmen after the fashion prevailing since the Roman invasions of Gaul and Britain. The holdings were near one another and were called "côtes." We have named several of them as already existing in the vicinity of Montreal.