Sahba

Dear diary,

Today is finally the day my father is taking me with him to see how all the habitant are doing. This is a big day for me because the seigneur’s family has many duties as well. When my father leaves for a trip it is my mother’s responsibility to run the seigneury and see that we won’t be attacked by other seigneuries.

Ever since I was very young my father has been telling me stories about how he became the seigneur. He was only a trusted soldier when the king granted him a large section of the New France land. Then he was required to pick the most cultivable land as the administrative centre of the seigneury. My family owns the largest estate on the land. As a seigneur, it is my father’s duty to accept full responsibility and to provide the seigneury with a mill for all to use, a local court (if necessary) and he has to attend certain social gatherings, such as weddings, festivals, special celebrations, and as Roman Catholic they had certain practices and on specific days the entire seigneury would gather at church for special events.

The reason that my father is taking me out with him today is that I have proved to him that I am fully mature and responsible to help him handle the seigneury, to make things easier. A seigneur’s daughter was expected to learn how to manage a seigneury. It is close to the seigneur’s rent day so it is pretty hectic around here. This is the one day that takes long hours of preparation because if an habitant’s family does not have their rent by the rent day they would have their land taken away from them. I’m sure tomorrow with not fall short of my expectations.

Marguerite Mareau

Dear Diary,

Today is the day that has been dreaded by so many people. It is rent day. There is always a rush by the end of the year because shortly after my father receives the rents he has to report to the king the details of his land’s holdings. I have never met any of the habitant in person before other than my close neighbor Jean Piere. My father has listed in order the lands that we will be visiting today. I have heard many great things about Ambros Heidel’s family (which will be the first of many habitant’s lands my father and I will be visiting). And one of the things I am looking forward to is meeting his daughter who is around my age. She was just recently engaged and father has accepted her wedding invitation. It is a very good time of the year to be having a wedding, because, later this afternoon the seigneury will be holding a harvest festival that celebrates a successful harvesting season. This year’s crops were much better of quality in comparison to last year’s crops, and we hardly had any droughts. The energy in all of the seigneury is so positive and cheerful it seems as if even the animals where happy.

Marguerite Moreau

-Grant, Janet. Madeleine De Vercheres. Ontario. Grolier Limited. 1989 -Kirbyson, C. Ronald, In Search of Canada. Ontario. Prentice Hall. 1977 -The Seigneurs, Canadian Museum of Civilization, [] Last updated: 2009-07-28
 * __ Bibliography: __**