We in the United States tend to myopically view the western hemisphere through the lens of democracy, as if every republic on the continent sprang forth fully-formed from the mind of
Libertie herself. Reality, of course, tells a quite different story. While the English colonies were certainly more egalitarian, the French and Spanish possessions were often more reminiscent of the old world. New France, in particular, imported a peculiar brand of Gallican feudalism from the
ancien regime.
The seigneurial system was used throughout Quebec, Louisiana, and Acadia as a means of encouraging settlement. Much like the feudal system of the Medieval period, the King would grant fiefs, called
seigneuries to nobles, called
seigneurs, who would take possession of the land in person and parcel out land to commoners who would pay him a small rent. The people who lived upon the land were known as
habitants. Cardinal Richelieu, the administrative mastermind of Louis XIV, devised the particulars of the seigneurial system for New France, which began with the granting of the Seigneury of Beauport just outside of Quebec City to
Robert Giffard, a surgeon from Mortagne-au-Perche in Normandy.
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| Charles Le Moyne, Baron Longueuil |
The seigneurial system was one means by which the French middle class was able to ascend social strata. This, in itself, encouraged emigration from the old country. Following their countryman Giffard, dozens of people from Mortagne and other villages in the Perche
région made their way to Quebec. My own ancestor,
Michel Messier, left Rouen and settled in Montreal, where, after a strategic marriage and successes in the fur trade in Michigan, he was made Seigneur de Cap-Saint-Michel et de La Guillaudière, encompassing much of the land around Varennes, the ancestral home of my maternal grandmother's family. More interesting, perhaps, is the story of Messier de La Guillaudière's wife's family. Anne Le Moyne was the daughter of an innkeeper from Dieppe in Normandy. Her brother, Charles, came to Quebec with her and, after beginning at age fifteen as an indentured servant in the service of Jesuit missionaries followed by a distinguished military career in the service of the colony, was named Seigneur de Longueuil et de Châteauguay. He had twelve sons, many of which reached illustrious heights in the government of New France. Among them were
Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, the great soldier, tradesman, and explorer;
Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the founder of New Orleans, Mobile, and Biloxi, governor of Louisiana; and
Charles Le Moyne de Longueuil, who was governor of Montreal and was made a baron - the first native born Canadian to be so named.
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Not only are these stories interesting from a personal point of view, since they compose a part of my family's history, but, I think they illustrate several useful points. The first is they help abolish the misconception that the class divisions of the
ancien regime were completely static. The case of the Le Moynes, for instance, shows how, with a lot of work and a little luck, it was possible to go from an innkeeper to an indentured servant to a baron in three generations. In general, hard work - whether military or otherwise - was rewarded in the colony. Even the
habitants were not the hovel-dwelling, dirt-scraping peasants of popular imagination. Many of them - sometimes even women - became quite wealthy in terms of land and possessions (I think of
Adrienne Du Vivier-Hebert, widow of the first colonist of Montreal, who expanded her family's landholdings in her own name). Some even had hired servants.
Thus, in New France, there was a sense of Liberté, Egalité, et Fraternité within a hierarchical, monarchical system. People who deserved to be honored were given honors that then became associated with the entire family. Those who lived average lives were not "oppressed", but they were not elevated beyond their rank for no reason. This, I think, is one of the virtues of aristocracy.
I came across this quote earlier this week by the conservative Colombian philosopher Nicolás Gómez Dávila, which, I think, sums it up quite nicely: "In societies where everybody believes they are equal, the inevitable superiority of a few makes the rest feel like failures. Inversely, in societies where inequality is the norm, each person settles into his own distinct place, without feeling the urge, nor even conceiving the possibility, of comparing himself to others. Only a hierarchical structure is compassionate towards the mediocre and the meek."
I think of our current culture when I read this quote. I think we have the worst scourges of aristocracy without the graces of nobility. We have fabulously wealthy and influential families and people in this country, yet we refuse to honor them in the way that the ancien regime would have. We pretend that "all men created equal" erases the fact that some men are born to higher stations than others. As if the Medieval monarch thought he was a "higher being". He knew, as all Christians know, that rights come from God, and that souls are equal, though station in life may not be.
I am reminded of the burial custom of the Habsburg monarchs. When the body of the deceased is brought before the Franciscan Church in Vienna, where the family crypt is, the steward of the church knocks on the door three times. The monks inside inquire thrice as to who is begging admittance. The first two times, the steward responds with the full list of titles of the deceased. The door remains unopened. The last time, the steward simply announces the first name of the deceased, followed by "a humble, sinful man." The door is than opened.
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So, let the Le Moynes keep the Baronetcy of Longueuil. Give a duchy to the Kennedys. Make the Vanderbilts Viscounts of Asheville. Name George H.W. Bush the Earl of Kennebunkport. Give Americans the benefit of having a codified upper class to lampoon. Give them little privileges and little responsibilities. Like the seigneurs of New France, let them have a nice house, but make them build a grist mill for the community. Let the President name new nobles for meritorious service to the nation, so that people have a goal to aspire to above and beyond the jet-set lifestyle of Malibu and Miami.
