after the peace of 1763 made every possible effort to induce the French government to discharge its obligations to the French Canadian people.  The life of the habitants in peaceful times was far easier and happier than that of the peasants of old France.  They had few direct taxes to bear, except the tithes required for the support of the church and such small contributions as were necessary for local purposes.  They were, however, liable to be called out at any moment for military duties and were subject to corvees or forced labour for which they were never paid by the authorities.

The outbreak of the Seven Years’ War was a serious blow to a people who had at last surmounted the greatest difficulties of pioneer life, and attained a moderate degree of comfort.  The demands upon the people capable of bearing arms were necessarily fatal to steady farming occupations; indeed, in the towns of Quebec and Montreal there was more than once an insufficiency of food for the garrisons, and horse-flesh had to be served out, to the great disgust of the soldiers who at first refused to take it.  Had it not been for the opportune arrival of a ship laden with provisions in the spring of 1759, the government would have been unable to feed the army or the inhabitants of Quebec.  The gravity of the situation was aggravated for years by the jobbery and corruption of the men who had the fate of the country largely in their hands.  A few French merchants, and monopolists in league with corrupt officials, controlled the markets and robbed a long-suffering and too patient people.  The names of Bigot, Pean, and other officials of the last years of French administration, are justly execrated by French Canadians as robbers of the state and people in the days when the country was on the verge of war, and Montcalm, a brave, incorruptible man, was fighting against tremendous odds to save this unfortunate country to which he gave up his own life in vain.

So long as France governed Canada, education was entirely in the hands of the Roman Catholic Church.  The Jesuits, Franciscans, and other religious orders, male and female, at an early date, commenced the establishment of those colleges and seminaries which have always had so important a share in the education of Lower Canada.  The Jesuits founded a college at Quebec in 1635, or three years before the establishment of Harvard, and the Ursulines opened their convent in the same city four years later.  Sister Bourgeoys of Troyes founded at Montreal in 1659 the Congregation de Notre-Dame for the education of girls of humble rank; the commencement of an institution which has now its buildings in many parts of Canada.  In the latter part of the seventeenth century Bishop Laval carried out a project for providing education for Canadian priests drawn from the people of the country.  Consequently, in addition to the great seminary at Quebec, there was the lesser seminary where boys were taught in the hope that they would take