Freest of all were the coureurs de bois, those dare-devils of the wilderness who fill such a large place in the history of the fur trade and of exploration.  The Frenchman in all ages has proved abundantly his love of danger and adventure.  Along the St Lawrence from Tadoussac to the Sault St Louis seigneuries fringed the great river, as they fringed the banks of its tributary, the Richelieu.  This was the zone of cultivation, in which log-houses yielded, after a time, to white-washed cottages.  But above the Sault St Louis all was wilderness, whether one ascended the St Lawrence or turned at Ile Perrot into the Lake of Two Mountains and the Ottawa.  For young and daring souls the forest meant the excitement of discovery, the licence of life among the Indians, and the hope of making more than could be gained by the habitant from his farm.  Large profits meant large risks, and the coureur de bois took his life in his hand.  Even if he escaped the rapid and the tomahawk, there was an even chance that he would become a reprobate.

But if his character were of tough fibre, there was also a chance that he might render service to his king.  At times of danger the government was glad to call on him for aid.  When Tracy or Denonville or Frontenac led an expedition against the Iroquois, it was fortunate that Canada could muster a cohort of men who knew woodcraft as well as the Indians.  In days of peace the coureur de bois was looked on with less favour.  The king liked to know where his subjects were at every hour of the day and night.  A Frenchman at Michilimackinac, [Footnote:  The most important of the French posts in the western portion of the Great Lakes, situated on the strait which unites Lake Huron to Lake Michigan.  It was here that Saint-Lusson and Perrot took possession of the West in the name of France (June 1671).  See The Great Intendant, pp. 115-16.] unless he were a missionary or a government agent, incurred severe displeasure, and many were the edicts which sought to prevent the colonists from taking to the woods.  But, whatever the laws might say, the coureur de bois could not be put down.  From time to time he was placed under restraint, but only for a moment.  The intendant might threaten and the priest might plead.  It recked not to the coureur de bois when once his knees felt the bottom of the canoe.

But of the seven thousand French who peopled Canada in 1672 it is probable that not more than four hundred were scattered through the forest.  The greater part of the inhabitants occupied the seigneuries along the St Lawrence and the Richelieu.  Tadoussac was hardly more than a trading-post.  Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal were but villages.  In the main the life of the people was the life of the seigneuries—­an existence well calculated to bring out in relief the ancestral heroism of the French race.  The grant of seigneurial rights did not imply that the recipient had been a noble in France.  The earliest seigneur, Louis Hebert,