The first grant of a seigneury in the territory of New France was made in 1623 to Louis Hebert, a Paris apothecary who had come to Quebec with Champlain some years before this date.  His land consisted of a tract upon the height above the settlement, and here he had cleared the fields and built a home for himself.  By this indenture feudalism cast its first anchor in New France, and Hebert became the colony’s first patron of husbandry.  Other grants soon followed, particularly during the years when the Company of One Hundred Associates was in control of the land, for, by the terms of its charter, this organization was empowered to grant large tracts as seigneuries and also to issue patents of nobility.  It was doubtless assumed by the King that such grants would be made only to persons who would actually emigrate to New France and who would thus help in the upbuilding of the colony, but the Company did not live up to this policy.  Instead, it made lavish donations, some of them containing a hundred square miles or more, to directors and friends of the Company in France who neither came to the colony themselves nor sent representatives to undertake the clearing of these large estates.  One director took the entire Island of Orleans; others secured generous slices of the best lands on both shores of the St. Lawrence; but not one of them lifted a finger in the way of redeeming these huge concessions from a state of wilderness primeval.  The tracts were merely held in the hope that some day they would become valuable.  Out of sixty seigneuries which were granted by the Company during the years from 1632 to 1663 not more than a half-dozen grants were made to bona fide colonists.  At the latter date the total area of cleared land was scarcely four thousand arpents.[1]

[Footnote 1:  An arpent was about five-sixths of an acre.]

With the royal action of 1663 which took the colony from the Company and reconstructed its government, the seigneurial system was galvanized at once with new energy.  The uncleared tracts which the officials of the Company had carved out among themselves were declared to be forfeited to the Crown and actual occupancy was held to be, for the future, the essential of every seigneurial grant.  A vigorous effort was made to obtain settlers, and with considerable success, for in the years 1665-1667 the population of the colony more than doubled.  Nothing was left undone by the royal authorities in securing and transporting emigrants.  Officials from Paris scoured the provinces, offering free passage to Quebec and free grants of land upon arrival.  The campaign was successful, and many shiploads of excellent colonists, most of them hardy peasants from Normandy, Brittany, Perche, and Picardy, were sent during these banner years.