The preamble of this document recounts the services of the new seigneur. 'Having left his relatives and friends to help establish a colony of Christian people in lands which are deprived of the knowledge of God, not being enlightened by His holy light,' the document proceeds, 'he has by his painful labours and industry cleared lands, fenced them, and erected buildings for himself, his family and his cattle.' In order, accordingly, 'to encourage those who may hereafter desire to inhabit and develop the said country of Canada,' the land held by Hebert, together with an additional square league on the shore of the St Charles, is given to him 'to have and to hold in fief noble for ever,' subject to such charges and conditions as might be later imposed by official decree. By this indenture feudalism cast its first anchor in the New World. Some historians have attributed to the influence of Richelieu this policy of creating a seigneurial class in the transmarine dominions of France. The cardinal- minister, it is said, had an idea that the landless aristocrats of France might be persuaded to emigrate to the colonies by promises of lavish seigneurial estates wrested from the wilderness. It will be noted, however, that Hebert received his title-deed before Richelieu assumed the reins of power, so that, whatever influence the latter may have had on the extension of the seigneurial system in the colonies, he could not have prompted its first appearance there. Hebert died in 1627. Little as we know about his life, the clerical chroniclers tell us a good deal about his death, which proves that he must have had all the externals of piety. He was extolled as the Abraham of a new Israel. His immediate descendants were numerous, and it was predicted that his seed would replenish the earth. Assuredly, this portion of the earth needed replenishing, for at the time of Hebert's death Quebec was still a struggling hamlet of sixty-five souls, two-thirds of whom were women and children unable to till the fields. Hebert certainly did his share. His daughters married in the colony and had large families. By these marriages a close alliance was formed with the Couillards and other prominent families of the colony's earliest days. From these and later alliances some of the best-known families in the history of French Canada have come down,--the Jolliets, De Lerys, De Ramesays, Fourniers and Taschereaus,--and the entire category of Hebert's descendants must run well into the thousands. All but unknown by a busy world outside, the memory of this Paris apothecary has none the less been cherished for nearly three hundred years in many a Canadian home. Had all the seigneurs of the old regime served their king with half his zeal the colony would not have been left in later days so naked to its enemies.