Here was an interesting experiment in Roman imperial colonization repeated in the New World.  When the empire of the Caesars was beginning to give way before the oncoming barbarians of Northern Europe, the practice of disbanding legions on the frontier and having them settle on the lands was adopted as a means of securing defence, without the necessity of spending large sums on permanent outpost garrisons.  The retired soldier was a soldier still, but practically self-supporting in times of peace.  These praedia militaria of the Romans gave Talon his idea of a military cantonment along the Richelieu, and in broaching his plans to the king he suggested that the ’practice of the politic and warlike Romans might be advantageously used in a land which, being so far away from its monarch, must trust for existence to the strength of its own arms.’

All who took lands in this region, whether seigneurs or habitants, were bound to serve in arms at the call of the king, although this obligation was not expressly provided in the deeds of land.  Never was a call to arms without response.  These military settlers and their sons after them were only too ready to gird on the sword at every opportunity.  It was from this region that expeditions quietly set forth from time to time towards the borders of New England, and leaped like a lynx from the forest upon some isolated hamlet of Massachusetts or New York.  The annals of Deerfield, Haverhill, and Schenectady bear to this day their tales of the Frenchman’s ferocity, and all New England hated him with an unyielding hate.  In guarding the southern portal he did his work with too much zeal, and his stinging blows finally goaded the English colonies to a policy of retaliation which cost the French very dearly.

But to return to the seigneuries along the river.  The district of Three Rivers, extending on the north shore of the St Lawrence from Berthier-en-Haut to Grondines, and on the south from St Jean-Deschaillons east to Yamaska, was but sparsely populated when Catalogne prepared to report in 1712.  Prominent seigneuries in this region were Pointe du Lac or Tonnancour, the estate of the Godefroys de Tonnancour; Cap de la Magdelaine and Batiscan, the patrimony of the Jesuits; the fief of Champlain, owned by Desjordy de Cabanac; Ste Anne de la Perade, Nicolet, and Becancour.  Nicolet had passed into the hands of the Courvals, a trading family of Three Rivers, and Becancour was held by Pierre Robineau, the son of his famous father, Rene Robineau de Becancour.  On all of these seigneuries some progress had been made, but often it amounted to very little.  Better results had been obtained both eastward and westward of the region.