paying to the seigneur a sum of money representing their annual rent capitalized on a six per cent, basis.  The term seigneur is still used but is now a mere honorary title.  No longer does his position give him the authority of a magistrate; no longer must the habitants grind their corn at his mill; no longer can he claim lods et ventes when land is sold.  For the loss of these rights he was paid compensation out of the public treasury.[34]

With the abolition of the seigniorial system ends too the story of the Nairne family.  In 1861, exactly one hundred years after Colonel Nairne first visited Malbaie, died his grandson and the last of his descendants, John McNicol Nairne, son of Colonel Nairne’s eldest daughter Magdalen.  This last Nairne left the property absolutely to his widow, tied only by the condition that it was to go to her male issue if she had such, even by a second marriage.  In 1884, she too died childless, and bequeathed the property to an old friend, both of herself and of her husband, Mr. W.E.  Duggan.  Had Mr. Duggan not survived Mrs. Nairne the property was to go to St. Matthew’s Church, Quebec.  Mr. Duggan occupied it, until his death in 1898, when it passed by will to his half-brother, Mr. E.J.  Duggan, the present seigneur.[35]

It is a sad story this of the extinction of a family.  Both Thomas Nairne and his father were buried at first in the Protestant cemetery at Quebec.  But not there permanently were they to lie, and many years ago they found a resting-place in a new tomb in Mount Hermon Cemetery.  On a lovely autumn day in 1907 I made my way in Quebec to the spot where the Nairnes are interred.  In the fresh cool air it was a pleasure to walk briskly the three miles of the St. Louis road to the cemetery.  One crossed the battle field of the Plains of Abraham where, within a few months, a century and a half ago, Britain and France grappled in deadly strife.  The elder Nairne saw that field with its harvest of dead on September 13th, 1759, and, in the following April, he saw its snow stained with the blood of brave men who fell in Murray’s battle with Levis.  In May, 1776, he marched across it in victorious pursuit of the fleeing American army.  At Mount Hermon I readily found the Nairne tomb.  It lies on the slope of the hill towards the river.  Through the noble trees gleamed the mighty tide of the St. Lawrence.  A great pine tree stands near the block of granite that marks the Nairne graves and a gentle breeze through its countless needles caused that mysterious sighing which is perhaps nature’s softest and saddest note.  One’s thoughts went back to the brave old Colonel who wrought so well and had such high hopes for his posterity to the soldier son, remembered here, who died in far distant India; and to the other soldier son who fell in Canada upon the field of battle.  He was the last male heir of his line.  The name and the family are now well-nigh forgotten.  The inscriptions on the tomb, reared by a friend, connected with the Nairnes by ties of friendship only, not of blood, are themselves the memorial of the rise and extinction of a Canadian family.[36]